These Art Materials Tried and Tested

17/6/2019

Art Materials reviewed with Malcolm Dewey

Do you love to try out art materials? Sure you do and I am no different. It is exciting to see the new art kit coming out on the market. Not to mention the classic fine art materials that we all covet. Now why don’t I do a monthly Art Materials Review article to share those goodies with you? Brilliant idea if I do say so myself. So lets tuck into this months goodies.

What are we going to look at this month? Rembrandt artist’s paints, Krylon Quick Dry Spray and Spray Gesso, Pan Pastels and Van Gogh soft pastels. Find out how they did:

Krylon Quick Dry Spray and Gesso Spray
Krylon’s range of spray varnish and fixatives for artists is well known. I was keen to try out these interesting spray products. Firstly the gesso spray. As you know priming a canvas or panel is necessary, but can be time consuming. It seems that the folks at Krylon figured that spraying a few coats of gesso would solve the problem.

I duly tried out the gesso spray on MDF panels and on canvas. You can see the process in the video below. I am impressed with the gesso spray as far as covering MDF panels is concerned. It is very quick and dires relatively quickly too. The downside is that spaying must be done in a ventilated place and you need to guard against overspray. The usual story with spray products.

Covering panels in this fashion is a breeze. Not so with canvas. The spray is too fine to be visibly satisfied that the canvas is fully covered.

Although the gesso spray accepts acrylic paint it is not happy with solvents typically used with oil paint. A touch or artist’s white spirits for example will dissolve the gesso and cause problems with your paint. So use this product with water mediums only. I find it is very useful to seal the rear of my panels when I get to frame them.

The second spray product that I tested is Krylon Quick Dry for oil painting. Think of this as a type of retouch varnish that you can apply between oil paint layers before the paint is fully dry. Alternatively spray over the completed painting to aid transportation even if the paint is not fully dry. You can even use this spray as a medium to aid flow and dry time of your oil paint. Pretty impressive.

I admit that I only tested the spray over completed paintings and it is brilliant. A quick spray varnish and it does not interfere with the painting. Dries quickly as promised too. It is very quick compared to varnishing with a brush. This is one spray that I will keep in my studio from now on.

Rembrandt Artists Oil Paints
These are the top of the range oil paints made by Royal Talens in the Netherlands. As befitting the name of the Dutch Master these paints are highly regarded worldwide for quality. Of course this makes me want to try them out all the more. Would they disappoint?

I was fortunate to test a box of ten Rembrandt oil colors from Art Savings Club. You can see the full review in the video below. Suffice to say that the paints did surprise me. I was expecting strong color, but the paints offer so much more too.

Will these paints transform your painting? Much does depend on you and how the paint is used. But if applied faithfully and with care (the paint that is) then I do believe that Rembrandt paints will raise the standard of any artist’s work. I’m sure yours too. See for yourself.

Rembrandt Painting demonstration:
You can see the Rembrandt oils in action with my still life painting demonstration here.

PanPastels Colors
A new product on the local market is pastels in a pan. Officially called PanPastel or PanPastel Colors. The makers wanted to create a dry medium that would work like fluid paint, according to their brochure. This means being able to mix colors too and achieve different colors just like you would with tube paint. I was skeptical.

As you will note from the video below the pastels come in a compact plastic pan much like a mascara pan. Then there are a number of applicators available to get the color onto your paper. The most versatile applicator resembles a painting knife with a sponge on the end. It felt a tad silly to begin with, if I am being totally honest. But I am now a convert.

You see the pastels are darn intense in pigment. It is also to apply them to paper, rough or smooth, and coverage is consistent and smooth. It is also very quick to cover large areas with pastel. Color mixing is possible as claimed too. Plus there is very little pastel dust. Well you can see for yourself in the video demo.

But I like to liven up the smooth too so I combined the PanPastel Colors with traditional pastel sticks. I tried out Van Gogh soft pastels by Royal Talens. The PanPastels accept the pastel sticks very well. As you will see the combination worked out super. You can also use pencils of various types with PanPastels too. All very exciting if mixed media is your thing.

So PanPastels are a winner.

Van Gogh Soft Pastels
Royal Talens are producing a well rounded range of artist’s materials. They are clever too because they are producing above average student materials (Van Gogh range) and then the flagship range of Rembrandt products. Nice to able able to use those two names. Overall you could find all your paint needs met by this one manufacturer.

But what about pastels? There is tough competition in the pastel market so I was curious to see how their Van Gogh pastel range matches up.

I wanted these pastels to be excellent, but they are nothing like Rembrandt artist’s pastels. The Van Gogh version are rather hard for soft pastels. The color vibrancy is still good. But I am spoilt I think. These pastels are extruded by machine and are therefore very smooth and firm. Kind of like a pencil crayon. A little disconcerting for me when I am used to Rembrandt or Senellier pastels.

On the plus side Van Gogh pastels are better than average. If you want a good set of pastels that have vibrant color then these will do very well. They will come under stiff competition from Kho-i-Noor though. Just saying.

Exciting TImes
The many new art products reaching our shores is exciting. I hope that this also indicates an upswing in new artists. We need that. It will be interesting to see which materials catch on too. I will certainly be adding new reviews regularly so make sure you are subscribed to this blog and my YouTube channel to be first in the know.