The April Paletteful Packs box is here. I was really hoping since we got very common pens the last two months, that we would get something unique, or in tubes or palettes, you know, something different.
And then we got this:
I'm not even going to go through everything or write it out here in much detail. I made a video of my thoughts and a time-lapse of my artwork here:
But in case you want the cliffs notes version, here it is:
The pens are a great office supply, but not art markers.
The copic was upcharged because it's an exclusive "special black," which feels like a big old swindle to me. It's a BLACK COPIC. If you own copics, you HAVE a black one. Honestly.
The Signo Gold pen was great - honestly the best thing we got.
The brush was nice but unnecessary because the pens are NOT really meant to be used in that way. But it's a solid brush and I will use it.
The bristol paper was excellent when I used it with my alcohol markers, but was awful when using it with the markers they gave us. The markers tore it to shreds. But I will use the bristol board for my alcohol markers.
The sticker was cute.
The bottom line, I'm probably cancelling Paletteful Packs. I might give them one more month, but for the value I feel like Scrawlrbox was 100 times better. I only canceled Scrawlrbox because the pandemic made getting the boxes difficult for awhile and they were really, REALLY late each month. But honestly I'm at a point where I'd rather wait and get different things than keep overpaying for boring boxes.
I'm sorry if that seems harsh, but I feel like even the worst Sketchbox is 4 times better than the best PP box I have gotten to this point. It seems to be time to move on for now from them.
At any rate, I made donuts for PP Prompt #3. It turned out ok, but the piece had a lot of limitations because of the markers.
Did you get this box? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below!
It's the beginning of April, which means it's time for a NEW Sketchbox!
This was a mostly fun box - and right up my alley because of the water soluable mediums!!! Here are the swatches and the thoughts on each item:
Sketchbox Supplies:
- Ecoline Brush Pen - Chartreuse
I've never had an Ecoline Brush Pen before but I have heard amazing things about them - and they were ALL true! This brush pen is amazing! The tip is high quality and the pigment output is amazing. The brush pen moved really well when having water added to it too - which is ideal for a water brush marker. This was a great addition to my waterbrush marker collection!
- Marabu Graphix Aqua Watercolor Ink in Pyrrole Red, Sunshine Yellow, and Quinacridone Gold
These are very nice watercolor inks! I always forget when working with watercolor inks that they stain WAY more than traditional watercolors, and so I definitely had to adjust to that during my artwork. But I really liked these inks! I would have liked having another color (a blue or green) instead of the sunshine yellow. The sunshine yellow was VERY close to the brush pen, and so I felt like I had 3 very close yellows and that wasn't as useful as another color would have been.
- Daniel Smith Watercolor Stick - Genuine Sodalite
This is my favorite thing in the box! I LOVE this gray color and this is basically a stick of Daniel Smith watercolor! I will cut this up and use it in a palette - using it dry doesn't work as well but I know these sticks are basically the same as the pan paints! This is going to be a great addition to my watercolor collection!
- Staedtler 0.6 Dark Brown Pigment Fineliner
I liked this fineliner! I always enjoy having some brown and colored fineliners to go with my arsenal of black ones! I enjoyed the challenge of a non-black marker this time! I even used some of the liner ink in the dark parts of my artwork!
- Stoneground Watercolor Half Pan - Hudson Bay Blue
This is a BEAUTIFUL shimmery watercolor! I really love this paint and will use it in tons of pieces going forward. It would have been nice to have a non-metallic cool blue in this box for mixing with the inks, but it did mix nicely to create some beautiful greens and neutrals!
- Silver Brush Crystal Series 02 Filbert
This was a quality brush and I don't have a filbert in this size! The brush had nice control and worked really well for me to even make trees! I used a larger brush to lay down my background just for convenience, but this is a wonderful brush!
- Magnani 300 GSM Accordion Watercolor Sketchbook
The biggest disappointment in the box. I cannot figure out this company and their paper. I loved the idea of this sketchbook, but the ink bled through the paper when I made a washed background. 300gsm cotton paper shouldn't do that. I thought the first time I got this paper from sketchbox that it might be a problem with my personal book of paper, but it seems that this just isn't the paper for me. Arches, Bee Creative, and Arteza (Expert) all have more quality 300gsm paper that I prefer to work on. I also use EtchrLab's 230gsm cold press 100% cotton paper is DOUBLE SIDED and I never have bleedthrough. So this book was a huge disappointment. I also found it hard to get the book to lay flat.
Here is a video of my full process with my artwork. You can see in the video where I discover that I need to put something under my paper to stop bleeding, and how staining the inks are right away. You can also watch me make trees and mountains! Enjoy the video here:
And here's the picture of the final artwork:
Overall, this box has a lot of great stuff that I will use over and over again because I use watercolors as my primary medium. My main complaints here were the 3 yellows in the box, and the pretty disappointing sketchbook/paper. I still think this box was worth it to me, but I'm hoping the next sketchbox will have a more consistent color palette and better paper.
Did you get this sketchbox? What did you think of it? Did you have better success with the paper? Let me know in the comments below!!!
Happy April everyone! Can you believe it's April already? This month, I'm ready for sun and some warmer weather, so a warm color palette was definitely on my mind. I ended up doing a honeycomb/honeybee kind of theme that I really love. The cover page turned out SO cute! I drew some daisies on there too, as daisies are the flower of the month of April. I kept up with the theme for my goals page, adding more honeycombs and colorful dots:
The calendar page went back to having a watercolor strip along the side and then I added the honeycombs overtop to tie it to the theme:
Then, my mood tracker is made with honeycombs. This isn't a terribly unique one this month, but I really love how it turned out all the same! And my bill tracker page is always the same format with colors that match the theme of the month.
Lastly, here are my weekly spreads. I have to admit, I wasn't too creative with these this time. I have a LOT of other creative things brewing right now, and so I just put down a base design on each page that I can doodle along with or over on each page as each week comes along!
And there you have it! I really love this journal and I'm so glad to have this fun and creative outlet each month! What did you do for your April spread? What colors do you gravitate towards this time of year? Let me know in the comments below!
