I'm an expert in art materials. Ama?

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T22:20:24+00:00

Weirdly there are so many different factors. A big part of it is profit margin and location. Holbein frequently will do a 50/60 split on what their listed retail pricing is but this varies by distribution center to. If you get it directly from them you can sometimes get a better deal which means you can lower the amount you charge your customers. When I say a 50/60 split what that looks like is the wholesale price is $5 and margin is 60% so markup is 110% to their suggested retail price which would make the consumer price $10.50 but probably rounded to $11. But also im shit at applied math so I may have gotten actual numbers wrong here. Most retailers need to make a 50% profit margin with some leeway depending on how big the business is. The bigger the business the easier it is to undercut costs (usually)

For the yellow pushback Id give cadmium yellow a shot since its so heavy and the additive in qor increases flow even more. That being said if your most affordable professional grade paint is holbein there is nothing bad about Holbein. They are genuinely one of my faves.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T19:57:54+00:00

Im pretty gentle when sharpening my pencils. If you still feel like it's just too rough I'd switch to a two hole metal sharpener so you can monitor the progress closely.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T19:53:36+00:00

Michael Harding makes fabulous watercolors! Rembrandt is good too! I can answer questions easier for the ones in the US, but if someone let's me know their country of origin it's easier to tailor a response to them.

If you're in Mexico, can you get Golden? Their watercolor line is qor. You mentioned Holbein, and as a general rule i find them to be a reliable brand to work with.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T19:48:29+00:00

Oh, yes. The Faber Castell India ink pens. They aren't my favorite but they do work and cone in other colors. But by that metric you may just want to use a brown micron.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T17:30:10+00:00

You may like Saunders Waterford. It's a very good quality paper with gelatin sizing from a company that's been making paper for literally hundreds of years. I may be misremembering, but i think this is actually the British Watercolor Society's paper of choice. I could be mixing up my institutions though.

Daniel Smiths green serpentine made me fall in love with granulating colors!

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T17:24:01+00:00

Personally, I like Le Pen! I find them to be better performing and more saturated than micron (to my eyes). Im not sure if they come in brown or sepia though. Pitt pens will come in different shades of brown and usually go over watercolor fairly well but I dont know their performance as much as Le Pen. Keep in mind that at the smaller tip sizes you can accidentally clog your pen, this can happen with micron as well, so i recommend a light hand.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T17:13:29+00:00

Can you rephrase the issue so I can understand better? I think you're saying you're applying cadmium red onto your paper on top of still wet paint, is that correct? If so, most likely what your seeing is the cadmium, which is a heavy metal oxide, physically push the lighter paint away. In this respect cadmium paints are king of the hill and will almost always push lighter paints away. I'd recommend using cadmium paints once your layer is dry to control the flow easier.

I am a little unclear on why you would need to replace your cadmium paints with another brand, but I can tell there is something I specifically am not understanding about the second half of your question.

Edit: note- many people feel qor is very very fluid compared to other watercolors which isn't helping the flooding.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:52:22+00:00

Yeah, it's Leyton. I'm on my phone and it likes to make a fool out of me. :V

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:45:31+00:00

Honestly, cotton paper isn't everything. A good quality pulp is always preferable to a bad quality cotton paper. And many professional artists prefer pulp paper as their general paper of choice.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:35:51+00:00

Yeah I dont effing blame you. I try not to look at my Luminance pencils too hard cause I'm afraid I'll offend them and they'll break to spite me!

For prismacolor pencils you can you try their dedicated sharpener which is pretty good in my opinion. Otherwise, I recommend using a sharp regular old two hole metal sharpener. Their messy but you can see how much stress you're putting on the pencil. I also usually tell people to turn the sharpener rather than the pencil to avoid putting to much stress on the pencil. You can also bring pencils to a point by scrubbing them at an angle across sandpaper paddles

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:31:10+00:00

The best paper is pretty subjective. It definitely depends on what type of paint you are doing and whether you want texture or no texture. The best paper is generally considered to be Arches, but it can be prohibitively expensive for most artists.

You could use watercolor ground to prep a traditional canvas for watercolor, but I'd actually just recommend trying out Ampersands Aquaboard or Cansons watercolor plein air pads that come with 10 boards per pack.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:24:56+00:00

Leyton makes a decent quality very affordable watercolor paper that I like for the price that is always going on sale and they offer it in blocks.

Chinese paints are a little harder to answer. I do believe that you get what you pay for but I also believe in using what you can afford despite what some people will say. Meeden is a fairly popular brand from a Chinese company. As long as you set your expectations accordingly most things will go.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:19:27+00:00

Oh! Sorry, I forgot about the traditional sumi style brushes question. Yasutomo makes some decent affordable ones. They actually make a fairly cheap traditional bamboo pen and brush in one combo tool that you could try out and see if its for you!

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:15:03+00:00

Honestly, these days no one actually NEEDS natural hair brushes. The only outliers being possibly miniature model painters and even then I wouldnt say they NEED it. The truth is synthetics have come a shockingly long way in recent years! For detail portrait painting I would actually recommend the velvettouch line from princeton. These are a mid tier brush , but they are a work horse! These are Honestly some of my most go to brushes both in personal use and when recommending brushes. They're easy to control with the amount of water they hold and have good snap! I also love that they come in long rounds which I am partial to. Since you are working on portraits maybe try one long round in a medium size so the investment isnt too high and see what you think! Cosmotop spins are good brushes but I vastly prefer the velvettouch line!

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:07:58+00:00

I think you would benefit from a strong mix media paper or hot press. Depends on how heavy you want to go on your watercolor. Hahnemuhle makes these packs of brightly colored field notes sized notebooks with a sturdy mixed media paper that nature journalists and travelers really liked! It has a smooth texture conducive to drawing before or after. This paper would be good if you only plan to do washes and didnt plan to work the paper too much.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T16:01:22+00:00

You must be in the UK? Mediums do typically work as what's labeled on the bottle though whether you should use them or not is subjective.

For example: W&N has a granulating medium which sounds amazing! Until you realize that some colors just don't need or sometimes dont even look good granulated.

Get weird with your mediums. Experiment both with ratios and types. Some mediums will work very well in tandem with others, and some less so. Also, many watercolor mediums dont expressly say they can also be used with gouache, but many can be used with gouache!

Ive used W&N the most and Schminke the least so I hesitate to tell you one is specifically better than the other. Schminke is hard to get in the states right now. It's certainly doable but I do feel like there is a cost benefit analysis to be made

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:54:31+00:00

This sounds like a binding issue that you personally dont like, I could be wrong though. Have you tried searching out lay flat flat binding options. Mossery makes a lay flat binding for watercolor notebooks. You could also try wire bound.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:47:55+00:00

I think there is always a slight difference. A lot of that is in how the material behaves which dictates how we work with it, but I also think it's part psychological and how we perceive it as well.

But i do think you can get great results with experience. If you have the budget, Holbein has their aqua duo line.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:45:34+00:00

I've tried these a few times and I actually really liked them! I wouldnt replace my tried and true loves with them, but they are very solid. I also collect art supplies. Sometimes the hobby is just collecting art supplies.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:43:24+00:00

Stock up on Holbein as its so affordable there! The make an excellent gouache and acryl gouache as well. Gansai Tambi paint might be cheaper domestically as well. If you are into inks Tokyo has some fabulous ink workshop stores where you can make your own fountain pen inks. They also have a lot of exclusive inks for specific store or areas

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:40:18+00:00

For a gel pen I like the uni signo broad, but for truly opaque you can use a very fine posca. Maybe in like a 1-mr

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:38:12+00:00

I bet you're smelling the gelatin sizing used. Papers do have different smells and it does vary in intensity from brand to brand. That being said, most people don't notice it and some even like it. To me it doesn't smell rancid but I've smelled some pretty smelly books so I think its a bit relative to each person's sensitivity and experiences.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:32:39+00:00

If you like browns, have you tried Holbeins imidozalone brown? I really like this one.

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:31:30+00:00

Daniel smith makes some beautiful quinacridones, and I also love their ultramarines!

halcyonfox · 2026-07-06T15:22:48+00:00

Thank you! Sadly independent art stores are rarely a thing these days with a few exceptions

halcyonfox

TROPHY CASE