Tag Archives: paint

Review – Bienfang 12 Watercolor Brush Pens

Posted on by
Reply

If water color trays aren’t your style, there are of course other options. Like the Bienfang watercolor brush pens for example.

20121001-174311.jpg

The pens come in a dozen colors and with a blending pen. The colors are roughly two of the standard assortment: two greens, two yellows, two reds, two blues, an orange, a brown, a black and a purple. They vary in shades enough to make them unique from the standard assortment of bright crayola colors, but they still aren’t the most natural of colors.

20121001-174317.jpg

They come with the color separated from the brush like most brush pens. One must remove a ring to expose more thread that the cap can screw into to connect the two. The design is one of the best I’ve seen but leaves no room for more color. Once a pen is used fully there is no option but to discard it. The color must also drain into the brush before use and the body of the pen must be constantly squeezed to keep fresh color in the brush. But this is common on many cheaper brush pens and is no real problem.

20121001-174323.jpg

The brushes themselves are nice and tend to keep a point (once they are full of color). They do have a tendency to have a problem with the cap but that may just be me having a problem putting them back on. The color is applied in nice, smooth strokes if the brush is full and does layer and blend as expected. They are rather muted, though, and are hardly distinguishable from similar colors in the set until multiple coats are applied. Even then it is hard to tell the two reds or yellows apart. The color is also not true water color and is resistant when dry and stains clothes, so one should be careful when using it.

If one likes the watercolor esthetic but does not want the hassle of the tubes or trays, I’d say this is a good replacement. It does not, however, have all of the benefits of full water color. It is pleasant looking and nice to use but simply cannot capture the full water color appeal. I personally have found very little use for full water color and only a little more for this. I am not a fan of using either, but if you find that you are in need of a watercolor look, I would recommend a look.

Review – Prang 8 Water Color Set

Posted on by
Reply

Ah, watercolor! It brings me back to the days when I sucked at art but loved it all the time. And it was so easy to get off your hands and clothes (and unfortunately the paper, too). Well it turns out that it is a legitimate art medium. But, are those fancy tubes really necessary? Can’t we just use the same old Prang tray that we used when we were kids?

20120921-231702.jpg

 

 

Well, you can, but they’re much harder to use. For starters they are completely solid, meaning that the water necessary to use them is much greater and the colors will still appear washed out on the paper. And of course there are the standard problems with working with water color to deal with.

 

The colors themselves are the standard bright, crayola-type colors that every “children’s” art supply set comes in. However, with them being water based paints they are much easier to blend and tone down than many other art supplies. Realism is still hard to achieve, though. The colors also have a tendency to be sticky and/ or runny, never quite balancing.

20120921-231707.jpg

 

The brushes are okay but definitely the worst part of the set, being cheap and imprecise. Better brushes or better yet foam pads are necessary.

All in all, I think getting better paints would be a necessity for any serious work as the paints are hard to work with. At the least better brushes. But they are serviceable paints and will get the job done in most cases and in the hands of an experienced painter, nearly all cases.

Review – Yellow Dollar General HB No.2 Pencils

Posted on by
Reply

By: Austin Smith

All right, on to the art-making things. Let’s start with pencils, specifically HB or No.2 pencils. The ones I’m reviewing today are from dollar general and are 10 cents apiece. So they’re the cheap, starting pencil.

The pencils are small and light, roughly 6 and 3/4 inches to start, with about a half inch eraser. The wood is cheap, it’s splintery and rough. The paint is applied poorly, with parts flaking off and wood showing through, but it does its job and the letters are easy enough to read. The eraser is all right, it erases, but not all the way. Usable for sketches and writing. The eraser is hard and sometimes smears the graphite instead of erasing.

But that is all roughly cosmetic. One can get other erasers and the paint does its job. It’s really about the graphite. And that’s hard to screw up. HB’s are a fairly hard pencil, really medium, leaning to the soft end. They’re easy to draw with and give a large amount of control. The lead is not brittle, and stays in its wooden case. The pencil is suitable for sketches and of course writing like its main use in schools.

The wood being cheap makes it difficult to sharpen, making it lean more to one side or the other, the lead is also slightly off center. It’s cheap, but usable.

This pencil is a nice cheap way to sketch. And is useful in creating a draft for a sketch to be inked later. It being cheap it is available but it is also cheap, not the best pencil available. It does its job but it’s nothing spectacular.