January 2022 Sketchbox - the ACTUAL last one!

 So I thought my December Sketchbox was my final one, but it turns out that I still had one more coming to me!  This box was all about watercolor powders, and was quite something.  Here's what was in the box and my thoughts on each item below:  

1.  Sketchbox Signature Watercolor Powders in Orange, Navy, Turquoise and Grape

Ooooooo boy.  To start, I really dislike this trend of "Sketchbox Signature" supplies.  Scrawlrbox has pulled this too recently, and I feel like it's a very frustrating way to disguise value in a box.  It's very hard to "compare" a signature brand to price it out, AND if you end up liking a product you still can't replace it when it's done.  I have several TCW ColorSparx Powders and Ken Oliver Color Burst Powders and I love both of those companies.  These powders were not as quality as either of them and the bottles were absolute garbage.  The bottles actually don't sit flat on a desk, and will DEFINITELY fall and be insanely messy.  The grape color was a nasty shade of purple, and the navy and turquoise looked backwards to me.  Overall these were a total fail to me and because they were the main item in the box I'd advise that you buy one of the other companies I mentioned above instead. 

2. Sketchbox Signature Filbert #4 Brush

Again, this was a pretty normal brush, but it being labeled as Sketchbox Signature makes it really hard to price out and possibly buy again if I like the brush.  It was a decent brush but nothing terribly special.  

3.  Copic Multiliner 0.5 in Lavender

This was a nice liner!  I didn't feel it was a terribly good color considering the rest of this box, and so I could have done without it, BUT I will use the liner in other projects.  

4. TCW Color Sparx Exclusive for Sketchbox Powder, Bouganvilla

This was the best thing in the box.  It's a great powder and the color was really nice.  I'm excited to add this color to my other watercolor powders! 

5. Rembrandt Extra Fine Transparent Watercolor - Titanium White

I REALLY wish this had been a tube of white gouache.  It would have given us a LOT more options with this box if it had been a gouache.  It did dilute the very bright powders down to create differences, but I still think a gouache would have achieved the same thing and also have given us some more highlight capabilities.  

5. Sketchbox Signature Magnani 1404 Hot Press Watercolor Paper

This was really nice paper.  I do think that for the value it was given that there is better paper out there.  The Megnani paper always seems to feather on me badly if I use a lot of water on it, and that shouldn't happen with properly sized paper.  If you want solid 100% cotton hot press watercolor paper, grab a paul rubens hot press watercolor sketchbook on amazon.  

I was so irritated with these Sketchbox Signature powders that I didn't even try to make a piece of art with them because I didn't want to make a complete mess of my art space.  My personal opinion is that even though this box technically has a "good value" (but like 2/3 of the box was sketchbox signature stuff I couldn't price so take that for what you will...) I think you'd be better off to just purchase some Ken Oliver Color Burst Powders, a Paul Rubens Hot Press Sketchbook, and a small tube of white gouache and still be at around $40 for MUCH better products.  

Here's the full video if you wanna see the swatching powder fails: 

Did you get this box?  What did you think of these powders?  Let me know in the comments below! 

April Sketchbox - Watercolor Surprises!!! And a SKETCHBOOK!

 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!!! 

March Sketchbox - Holy Markers Batman!!!!

I was so excited for this Sketchbox to get here, and my heart just about burst when I opened it!  

Late last year, we got a box that had a combination of water-based and alcohol-based markers and I had commented at that time on how much better it would have been if it was all alcohol markers.  

WELL IT'S HERE!  

This box is full of alcohol markers and MAN was I excited!  But of course, not all alcohol markers are created equal, and so I tabled my excitement and got to swatching!  Here's my swatches and my thoughts on each product.  

Contents, Prices, and Swatches: 

1. Marabu Marker Set (Sketchbox Exclusive) - $17.50

This set came with a blender, pink, purple, and red alcohol markers with chisel and bullet nibs.  I honestly loved these markers.  They are pigmented, blendable, and a fabulous standard alcohol marker! They performed fabulous on their own and with the other markers as well,  These colors were a fabulous foundation for the rest of what was to come.  It also came with two "permanent" markers in brown and green with bullet and fineliner nibs. These permanent markers are alcohol-based and worked beautifully as fineliners and as regular alcohol markers as well.  Other than the barrel/nibs, I saw no difference between these and the other alcohol markers.  

2.  Copic Sketch, V12 Pale Lilac - $7.99

What can I say, it's a Copic Sketch.  It's the king of all alcohol markers.  It worked like a dream, and the other markers worked wonderfully with it!   Copic Sketch has a brush and chisel nib, which is my preferred nib combo for an alcohol marker BUT I'm not too picky - I've worked with all types!  

3. Copic Classic, V15 Mallow - $7.99

This was a lovely medium purple which allowed for a LOVELY purple gradient!  Purples are generally VERY hard to blend with alcohol markers, but these three purples (Copic Classic, Copic Sketch, and the Marabu Purple) actually achieved a great blend on the paper!  This marker has a bullet and chisel nib and will get lots of use in my collection because of it's color! 

4. AD Spectra Marker, 047 Walnut and 012 Wine - $6.55 each

These were also a fabulous addition to the box!! The wine color was a beautiful dark red that worked wonderfully with the Marabu red marker!  The walnut made a nice blend with the brown Marabu marker too!  These markers have a brush and pointed chisel nib.  I LOVE the pointed chisel nib, it gets fine details AND can cover large areas - it's a really unique tip!  I have had Spectra markers before and I am always impressed by their quality. 

5.  AD Marker Paper, 4x6in Pad, 24 Sheets - $8.49

So at first glance I LOVED this paper.  The swatches worked so well on there, the blender marker did it's job with everything and the gradients were lovely.  It also bled through but not to the next page, so it can clearly take a lot of marker before ruining further pages would be a problem.  When I started blending on the paper, the paper was not my favorite type of marker paper.  I worked with it for awhile, and the pigment sat on top of the paper and blended so easily that it mixed up on the tips of my markers and blender.  I have used marker paper like this before, and it is not my preference BUT I know loads of people that love it.  I think I need to learn how to use it, and so after doing two practice pieces on it I decided not to use it for my large art piece for this box.  HOWEVER, I do think this paper is worth the money if you like this type of paper!  

My first practice piece was of some floral doodles that I used to check out the gradients.  I do like how this piece turned out, but the lightest colors got totally erased by the way I tried to blend on the paper.  I still like where I ended up with this one, but I knew for my second idea I wanted to get smooth blends, so I used my marker sketchbook.  

It's no secret at this point that I love the Legend of Zelda.  When I saw these colors, I KNEW I wanted to draw Vaati.  Vaati is the villian of the Minish Cap.  If you are a Zelda fan and you haven't played the Minish Cap, I *HIGHLY* recommend it!  It's such a great game, and is $8 on the Wii or WiiU shop if you own one of those consoles.  Vaati does have some gold on him, but I just swapped out the brown for the gold.  I also used the lightest purple and the blender to make the skin as "purple gray" as possible, and I think it worked out quite well!  Full disclosure, I did use a black fineliner and a while gel pen to do line work and add details to this piece, but he was so beautiful that I couldn't resist adding those details!  Overall, this is my second Vaati piece in the last year, and I love drawing him.  I love his cape too!  

In addition, my lovely 7 year old daughter always does the Sketchbox with me!  She LOVES them and is often even better with random supplies than me. I love her creative spirit so much!  When she swatched this box, she immediately knew what she wanted to draw - the Truffula Trees from the Lorax!  I love how her picture turned out: 

 

So overall, was this box worth it?  ABSOLUTELY!  The color palette was absolutely beautiful, and worked together SO well to make artwork.  The alcohol markers are all good quality and will be added to my collection proudly! The nibs on the Spectra markers make me want to look out for them on sales to see if I can grab some more because they were so useful and unique!  And, even though I didn't love that marker paper I now KNOW how it works/behaves and so I can practice on it and decide if I'd like to buy more of i.!  This box was SO much fun to play with! 

Did you get this month's Sketchbox?  What did you think of it?  Are you a fan of alcohol markers?  What would you make with this box?  Let me know in the comments below!

February Sketchbox - Water Soluble GRAPHITE!!!!!

 Another month, another Sketchbox!!! I must admit, I've been playing around with this box of supplies for over a week now and I'm just HAVING SO MUCH FUN!  More on this later!  

Let's start with swatches, what's in the box, and my thoughts on each item in the box:  

Supplies: 

• Princeton Heritage Brush - Round #6 
• This is a beautiful paintbrush.  I enjoyed using it very much!  Valued at $14, I would have settled for something a little less expensive if it meant getting an eraser in this box. 

• Derwent Graphitint Half Pans - Dark Indigo and Juniper
• These. Are. Amazing!  I have seen people use these online before, but I was NOT prepared for how awesome they are!  I really want the whole set now!  The colors were beautiful and granulated so nicely.  They of course are the quality I expect from Derwent.  These erased a bit, but not completely. 

• Derwent Graphitint Pencils - Ivy and Chestnut
• These were also pretty darn awesome!  I loved the colors and they dissolved quite nicely when using water on them.  These erased a bit, but not completely.  

• Spectrum Noir Colortint Pencil - Cafe Au Lait
• This was a nice pencil as well!  I didn't love it as much as the Graphitint pencils, but it was still a nice, dissolving pencil and it was great to have two different browns to create nice contrast.  This pencil *did* have a more clean erase than any of the Graphitint products, which was great.  

• ArtGraph Drawing Graphite Putty
• I was terrified of this package when I saw it.  I waited DAYS to open it.  When I opened it, I used a tiny scoop to take a VERY small amount out into my palette.  As soon as I put the paintbrush to it I was IN LOVE!  This stuff is literally liquid graphite.  I loved being able to use graphite like paint.  But THEN the best part - YOU CAN ERASE IT!  That's right!  It takes a little more to erase than dry pencil, which is perfect because you can draw on top of it and do a light erase without messing up the under layer, but you can also erase it to create highlights!!!!!  WHAT!?!?!  This is the star of the box, and I'm so excited to use it in the future too! One small thing I'd wished was that the plastic bag had a zip top instead of a tear open top so that I could easily keep it sealed.  But this stuff was AMAZING!  

• Cretacolor Watercolor Graphite Set, 6 pc
• Finally, these were decent!  I LOVED the two graphite pencils, the blue and the green.  They were high quality.  These pencils dissolved decently well and they erased pretty well too.  BUT, the red was weak, and was almost the same color as the juniper Graphitint so it didn't really get used much in my piece.  And the white, the white was absolutely useless.  It didn't layer over anything, it didn't write over any of the other graphite, and I didn't use it at all.  I even tried to scribble a bunch of it out and pick it up with a paintbrush to go on the top of the other graphite, and it did... nothing.  I'd much have preferred a 4 piece set here and a swap out for those two pencils for an opaque white medium.  

Quick Notes: 

• We didn't get paper this month.  I'm totally fine with that because the value of the rest of the box was great!  Also - Sketchbox has sent plenty of wet media paper in recent boxes, so everyone should have something to put their art on/in.  
• I definitely benefited from having the Caran D'Ache Palette Aquarelle.  (Palette pictured below.) This is a palette with a smooth side and a rough side, designed to scribble out pencils and pick them up with a wet brush.  It is easily the best $11 I've ever spent on a palette.  I'd HIGHLY recommend it if you ever use watercolor pencils!  
• I used the TINIEST bit of graphite putty!  I have a picture of the palette I used for that so you can see that a little really does go a long way with that stuff!  

Caran D'Ache Palette Aquarelle and my Palette with the Graphite Putty

Box Value: Sketchbox values this box at $52.93 and I have to say it's definitely worth my money!  I will use 90% of what's in this box over and over again for a long time to come.  The *only* thing I would say is that the Creatacolor red and white weren't very useful, and I would have traded them out for a nice eraser and a white opaque medium that actually layers over the graphite.  

That being said...  

This box was AWESOME.  This is exactly what an art subscription should be and should provide.  I would *never* play with graphite on my own accord, but give me graphite the works like watercolor and BAM - I'm pricing out Derwent Graphitint everything online!  And that graphite putty is one of the coolest things I have ever gotten in an art box.  GREAT JOB Sketchbox!  

What did I draw? I knew *immediately* when I saw how the graphite putty worked that I had to draw a statue!  And so of COURSE I drew Hylia from Skyward Sword!  I knew right away that the indigo Graphitint would look amazing as a dark sky.  I also used the pencils and half pans to create a cobblestone path.  I used both green and brown pencils to create the trees, that turned out whimsical just like the trees from Skyward Sword.  I used a combination of wet and dry graphite for Hylia herself.  I'm so very pleased with how this piece turned out!  

Have you ever played with water soluble graphite?  What would you make with this Sketchbox?  Let me know in the comments below! 

January Sketchbox - All About Ink

It's Sketchbox time!  When I opened up this box I was excited and scared all at once because it was all about INK:  

I'll admit that at first glance, I was very excited by the fact that we had three primary colors AND a boss looking fine liner to start out with.  PLUS, the paper looked to be quality as usual, so I was excited!  

I ended up having a LOT of fun and mixing some really vibrant colors, and ended up with this Yoshi:  

He isn't my best work by any stretch, but after a LOT of struggle he turned out better than expected.  

I'll start by laying out the contents of the box and what I thought of each item:  

Swatches

Color Mixes from the Inks

1.  Sketchbox Signature Plastic Palette

This was a perfect little palette to accompany these products.  As shown above, it allowed for secondary mixes and cleaned easily after the project.  I love having little palettes like this around my art space for all sorts of wet media projects.  

2.  Caran d'Ache Grafwood Pencil, 3H

This pencil was a fabulous surprise in this box!  I've never used fancy pencils before (always just been an HB girl), and so I found that I absolutely LOVE sketching with this pencil!  I've already used it to sketch several other pieces and it's got a home in my main stationary bag.  This was a great item!  

3. Dynasty Dagger Brush, 3/8"

I found this to be a very high quality dagger brush, better than the one I've been currently using! For the size of the paper pad, this brush seemed a little bit large at times, but the pointed end did allow for a decent amount of detail.  I will say that having this size of a brush made me think that this in should be able to lay down large wet on wet areas, which I found to be very frustrating with this paper/ink combo.  

4. Staedtler Pigment Liner, 0.3 - 2.0mm

Again, another fabulous addition to this box.  I loved the chisel tip on this liner and thought it worked fabulously.  I did have smudging in a few spots but that was because of my own impatience!  Overall, this liner layed beautifully down on top of the inks and didn't bleed if you let it dry before applying water overtop.  

5. Inks: 

Holbein Acrylic Ink, Naphthol Red 

Speedball Acrylic Calligraphy Inks, Primrose Yellow and Indigo Blue

I greatly preferred the packaging of the Holbein ink, and felt like I wasted way more of the other ink by having to use and clean droppers to put it into the palette. In all other ways I felt the inks could be talked about together.  

When I saw these colors I was SO excited, because they were vibrant and I knew I could get good mixes with them!  They did not disappoint in that department.  HOWEVER, as someone that works primarily with watercolor, I had a hard time with these inks on this paper.  If you layed down color, it DID NOT MOVE.  And yes, they are inks, it's to be expected.  BUT, I wanted to get gradients or looks that were a little more muted and so I watered down the inks to achieve this.  That *seemed* great until I realized that the inks were feathering on the paper WILDLY.  So, if I put them straight onto the paper I got really bold colors with very little buildup ability, and if I used water to lighten the colors I had much less control than what I wanted.  If you look at Yoshi, you can see that on his back there was definite feathering.  I even ended up using a white posca pen to cover over the white details to make them look cleaner in the end.  I don't usually do that but I was too far into the piece to start again and I knew using a Posca would fix the feathering issue.  I am not faulting the inks for this, but the paper.  

6. Magnani Cotton Pad, 140lb Cold Pressed

This paper seems AMAZING for typical watercolor and I'm excited to try it for that purpose in the future.  But I really REALLY think with the supplies that we were given that we should have been given either hot pressed paper or mixed media paper.   This would have slowed down the absorption of the inks on the paper and allowed for watery ink mixes to be applied with more control.   This Yoshi was my second attempt at a picture and I do not think this paper made working with the acrylic inks "fast and easy" as described by Sketchbox.  

**UPDATE** - I tried this paper with my watercolors and also had HUGE feathering issues with wet on wet techniques involving layers. It still feathered after letting the paper dry for a really long time, and so I think that I either got a bad paper pad OR that there is something wrong with this paper.  I watched several videos where people did not seem to have a problem with the paper, so I'm wondering if it's just my pad.  

Overall, I do feel like box was worth my money and I'm looking forward to using these inks with a calligraphy pen for fun AND maybe on some different types of paper to see what I can do!  I'll use the watercolor paper, pencil, liner, brush and palette for other projects too, so this box will definitely get plenty of use in this house!  My daughter did a picture too where she used a much more pigmented version of each color and I love how her rainbow/pot of gold/sun picture turned out!  Here is her piece, posted with her permission:

We always have a lot of fun working together on these boxes, so thank you Sketchbox for another fun challenge!  

What would you have drawn with these supplies?  Do you think I should redo Yoshi on a different paper?  Let me know in the comments below!  

December 2020 Sketchbox - WOW!

 Guys - I was excited about this Sketchbox because I knew it was water-soluble products and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT!  

Here is my swatch card and my thoughts on each product in the box:  

1. Sketchbox Signature Watercolor Pencils

These were beautiful!!!  I really loved the color palette this month - the earthy and muted tones were beautiful and screaming for a landscape. These pencils colored beautifully and dissolved into a fabulous lighter version of their scribbled color.  I really enjoyed using them - they are as good or better than my mid-range watercolor pencils. I loved using them!  

2.  Marabu Art Crayons - Terracotta and Caramel

These were a huge surprise - and I LOVED them!  I didn't expect to like them, they didn't seem like something I would enjoy but they were lovely!  They added a great texture to both of my pieces, especially for woodgrain and terrain.  They dissolved really nicely but with pressure the texture was awesome too.  I might pick up a set of these in the future I liked them so much!  

3. TCW Watercolor Sparx Powder

I have worked with Ken Oliver's watercolor powders before and I love them - but this powder was super quality and vibrant.  I loved that it had several colors in the bottle - that added so much dimension!  I can't wait to have more fun with this powder in future projects.  This was easily the star of the box for me!

4.  Holbein Artist Gouache - White

This is a fabulous white gouache. I love all of the Holbein gouaches and this was a perfect highlight on the toned paper. I have complained for two boxes about not having a perfect white highlight medium - so I was so glad to see this in the box.  Great addition to the box!  

5. Custom Hahnemuhle Toned Watercolor Pad

I thought at first that this paper was going to be too thin to hold up - but it was surprisingly great!  I have never bought toned watercolor paper and was super excited to try it - and I totally understand why people like it.  After my first landscape picture I knew I wanted to do a dancer because I wanted to try a person with the toned paper and I really loved how that turned out too!  

6.  Marabu Fluid Arts Brush - 3pc Set

These are water brushes - and they were decent brushes!  I'm not a huge fan of water brushes.  I'd always rather have a regular brush than a water brush, especially because we always seem to get water brushes in these boxes.  I'd argue that most people have water and a container available, so I'd always rather have a regular brush. 

7.  Derwent Line Maker - 0.8 Black

This is a great fineliner but THIS IS NOT A WATERPROOF PEN!  It was the one thing in the box that was a disappointment because I wish the box had clearly indicated that this pen was not waterproof.  The card simply says - "try layering it over your watercolors!"  which to me did not indicate that it wasn't waterproof.  I just about ruined my dancer picture because of this - though I pivoted and I think my idea was a good one!  This is a great marker but I would have really liked a waterproof addition to the box for line work.  

So these projects turned out really nice!  I had a lot of fun trying different techniques on both pictures.  

Tree Landscape

Ballet in the time of Covid

Did any of you get this sketchbox?  What did you think about the products! Leave me a comment with your thoughts!  

Holiday Sketchbox 2020 Review and Artwork

Sketchbox has done it again!  I ordered the special holiday box from them, and was SO surprised when it shipped immediately and was here within days!  My daughter and I had a blast swatching everything out and creating initial pieces with the supplies: 

Initial Artwork - A Shimmery Wreath

I LOVED the metallic elements of this box!  

Below I go through each supply and my detailed impressions of that supply!  This box was so fun!  

Holiday Box Contents and Impressions:

2020 Holiday Sketchbox Contents

Swatch Card

Kuretake Custom Irodori Kobako Kit - Watercolors, Water Brush, and Brush Pen/Liner:

Watercolors: These seem very similar to the Gansai Tambi Kuretake watercolors.  The colors were vibrant and worked nicely.  They do not move the same way as traditional watercolors do on watercolor paper, but I knew that before I started and so I was prepared for that challenge.  These paints did mix to a decent variety of colors, and I found the color selection to be a fun challenge!  

Water Brush: This was a standard water brush.  I'm not a huge fan of water brushes in general and would rather have a regular round brush.  It worked well though for the artwork that I made.  

Mangaka Brush Liner: I like this pen and will use it in the future, BUT it is not waterproof!  Considering that the description of the watercolor palette is that it is "great for watercolor illustration," I was surprised that the liner included wasn't waterproof.  This is totally fine, but it definitely made me rethink how I used the supplies for an initial art piece!  

Silver Brush Chisel Blender Size 4: I really liked this brush!  It did a really nice job laying a lot of color in the middle of my piece and was able to get details by using the edge.  If this box had come with a round 6  and this brush I would have felt that an upgrade from the water brush.  

Sketchbox Signature Watercolor Pad: This is GREAT watercolor paper, though I think this box would have done better with a hot press paper.  I love 100% cotton cold press paper usually, but in my opinion the Kuretake watercolors would have worked better on a hot press paper and the other pens and markers would definitely not get as damaged on smoother paper.  So, while I LOVE this paper and will use it quickly, it won't be with these supplies.  

Copic Ciao - Copper, E18:  Fabulous copic.  It blended BEAUTIFULLY with the other alcohol marker in the box.  I want to go back and do another piece with these supples that focuses on these two markers!  Maybe a reindeer!  =)  But again, I'd likely do that on smoother paper.  

Sketchbox Signature Brush Pen - Praline: Also a fabulous alcohol marker.  I'm all about alcohol markers and this one did not disappoint!  

Marabu Graphix Aqua Brush Pen - Aqua: This was a nice pen that reacted well with water!  I really REALLY wish this color had been an olive or sap green.  One of the colors in the watercolor palette was very close to this, and I think a warmer green would have been a lovely addition to the box.  But the performance of the marker itself was great and I will definitely use it in the future! 

Koh-i-Noor Technigraphic Lead Holder: This was a cool supply to have!  I don't have a technical pencil like this and I really enjoyed using it!  I would never have paid retail price for this item, but having gotten it in a box I really am glad to have it - which I think is the exact thing you want to happen with something like sketchbox.  

Molotow Liquid Chrome Pen, 2mm: I have one of these in a smaller size and I was SO EXCITED to see this one in this box!  These pens are amazing.  There really is no other paint pen on the market (that I have seen or used) that shines like this one!  

Koh-i-Noor Polycolor Pencils, White and Black: These pencils were ok.  They were not water based, which is fine but it's hard to live up to the prismacolor white standard.  I wanted to use this for highlights on my piece and I found it difficult to get small details highlighted with this white pencil.  The black pencil worked well.  

Higgins Acrylic Ink, Metallic Copper: This is another gem of the box.  I absolutely love this ink!  The dropper that is inside of the container doesn't work very well, but that's an easy problem for me to fix.  A little goes a long way with this product and it layered over the markers and watercolors like a dream.  It really moved well with water also and I loved using it to add shiny details!  

Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen, Gold and Silver: These were also great!  While not as shiny or vibrant as the liquid chrome pen, these were a fabulous way to add sparkly details to my piece.  They layer well with paints and other markers and I know I'm going to get a lot of use out of them!  

Total Retail Value: $101.71

Cost of the Box: $69.99

**Overall, I think this box was a great value!  I will use most of the supplies in this box regularly, with the exception of the white pencil and the water brush pen.  I think the best upgrade to this box could have been a smoother paper medium like a hot press paper or a mixed media paper.  I also think even a gray toned paper could have been really neat to highlight the metallic elements of the box (which were all amazing!)  I also think a smoother paper might have made the white pencil work better, or maybe having a better white highlight medium and no black/white pencils would have been good for me.  But again, I LOVE the elements of this box and can't wait to play with them more on other surfaces! **

I hope you enjoyed reading this review!  If you also bought this box OR have used any of these supplies, please let me know what you think!  

November SketchBox 2020 - Review

Hi everyone!  I *finally* decided to try Sketchbox because I’ve heard such great things about it, and the November box is here and I’ve been playing with it for a few weeks! 

The muted colors plus the bright pink immediately made me think of Princess Peach, so I was excited to draw her with these supplies!!!  

Princess Peach Using Box Supplies

I wanted to give a full review, so below I broke down how I felt about each item and my overall impression!  Here is my impressions, along with my swatches and doodle sketch:

Swatches - Explained Below

Initial Doodle Sketch - Just to get a feel for supplies

Copic Sketch Marker - What can I say, it’s a Copic Sketch.  It was perfection!  

Tombow ABT Pro - A surprisingly lovely alcohol marker!  This one was GREAT and blended perfectly with the Copic.  I will definitely buy more of these markers to go with my alcohol marker collection!

Kuretake Zig Brown Brush Menso Pen - this was a great alternative to a typical, black fineliner.  I really loved working with this pen and look forward to using it in the future.  It worked lovely with the paper too!  

Faber-Castell Pitt Brush Pen - this was the most disappointing item in the box for me.  It was labeled as “alcohol based” but didn’t behave like an alcohol marker at all.  It was streaky and did not perform well on the paper either.  Also, the tip began to fray after only a few uses.  

Monami Color Twin Brush Pens - these were ok but also disappointing.  The colors were muted, and that was fine, but they really didn’t perform well on the paper.  They were streaky and did NOT blend very well - I’ve used other water based brush pens that performed much more nicely and were more affordable.  Layering them also frayed the paper, so that wasn’t too much of an option. 

Spectra Colorless Blender - this blender was fine, but I’m super confused at it being in the box.  It worked perfectly with the Tombow and the Copic, but they were the lightest colors in the box AND they blended together beautifully already.  This blender didn’t do ANYTHING with the Faber Castell Pen, which is the color I would have liked to have had it work with.  It will work well with my own alcohol marker collection but didn’t serve much purpose in this box.  

Hahnemuhle Layout Marker Paper Pad - at FIRST I thought this paper was junk, BUT after I realized that the Copic and Tombow were working perfectly with it, I tried the paper with my own personal set of alcohol markers and I FELL IN LOVE.  This paper is excellent for alcohol markers and I’ve almost used half of the pad.  The markers do NOT bleed through, and blend beautifully.  I included a picture of what I was able to do on the paper with my Ohuhu markers and a white gel pen for highlights:

Overall - I really enjoyed this box for the most part BUT I feel that the Pitt Artist Pen and the Water Brush Pens were 4 markers that were not worth their cost.  I would have MUCH preferred 3 more alcohol markers in similar colors and a white medium of some kind for highlighting.  That would have made the box more cohesive for me and really made that marker paper shine like the star that it is!  

I’m really looking forward to next month’s box - thanks Sketchbox!  I overall really enjoyed the challenge and can’t wait to see what we get next!