My Upstairs Studio: The Nugget Awards

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

The Nugget Awards

I love teaching because I always come away with little nuggets (= cool stuff I didn't know about) that my students share with me. I taught last weekend, so I came away with a few more! So just like that, I decided to invent the Nugget Awards!

Nugget Award #1 goes to Lori W!

Lori mentioned how much she's loving 2 new watercolor paints she's recently bought. One is Holbein Peach Black and the other is Daniel Smith's Green Gold. I use Holbein Leaf Green but I'm going to have to add the Green Gold to my arsenal. You can see how it can be useful in a less diluted form in the image below. And Peach Black definitely has possibilities (although I'll never EVER use up all the blacks I already own. I just don't use black very often because it's such a dead color but this one has a little life to it). Do YOU have a favorite black, and do you like to use it straight??

Nugget Award #2?...Lori again!

Lori uses knitting needles to apply masking fluid! The Dollar Store carries them in a variety of sizes for pennies. Priceless! (why keep different sizes? Because the bigger the needle, or twig in my case, the more masking fluid it holds and the bigger area you can cover).

And Nugget Award #3? It goes to Claudia H.!

I always keep a value finder handy, especially as my painting nears The End. Tell me which of these 2 looks you would prefer me to sport from now on!

These are VALUE FINDER GLASSES which are marketed to Quilters because who knew?....it's just as important to have strong values in your quilts as it is in your paintings!