Paintbox Addict

Tiny Daler-Rowney watercolor box

Some people can't live without Louboutins. I can't live without paintboxes. I'm a 'pan' person  more than a paint tube person. The formula is different. Paint comes up on your brush more easily from a pan than from dried tube paint. Europe is more pan-oriented so I came to the right place. 

Not just because of the Victorians took paintboxes with them as they crossed the Sahara 🌴 In the US art stores can't be bothered with tiny pans. Tubes are an easier sell. But enough paintbox trivia.

Someone sent me this book thinking I'd be interested, but its the cover that enthralled me.

This what my Kremer Pigment box looked like when it was new.

The before and after.

If you love watercolor paintboxes you start seeing them everywhere...like stacked Popsicles in a store window.

Or brilliantly colored dragée...

L'Eclair de Genie is pure watercolor beauty. Miam miam.

Fun matching icing colors with paintbox colors. More yum.

It must be what drives me nuts about macarons - the round disks of pure color look like they popped out of a kid's paintbox.

L'Occitane's sign is out in the street at Opera. If they just sold a product with this on it I'd buy it in a flash, but they don't. Dommage ;((

What's not to love? Slabs of color by Fabrice Moireau in his Giverny book. Drool-worthy definitely.

*Here's a hot watercolor tip! All new boxes come 'unseasoned'. When you try to mix colors they'll bead up in a most unsatisfactory way. The cure? Rub toothpaste on the surface.  Then wash off and do again several times. NEVER take Brillo or scouring powder to your box. You'll ruin the finish.

At the SIMP salon of miniatures show on Sunday, this dreamy set of paintboxes make any addict's heart beat faster.

I’m Carol Gillott, an artist living in Paris. Every month I send out beautifully illustrated letters that capture the true Parisian experience. 

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Darling N. wants to fix me up with a nice Frenchman. But she's too late! Walking round her neighborhood I fell deeply and madly for this Daler-Rowney box(its British). What Frenchman stands a chance against this?

Painted Wedding Invitations

If someone sends you a gorgeous invitation to an even more gorgeous wedding in the Loire Vallee at a wine chateau, do you think you should paint on the envelope?

Say the entire invitation is on FAB French watercolor paper?

Could you resist?

Particularly if you can't attend the wedding (this weekend) as you're off to a watercolor workshop in Maine with your guru, David Dewey. I'm kind of partial to my painted version of this invite - what do YOU think?

Granted the bride, D. wouldn't have been too thrilled with sketches of David McCullough inside her wedding invite.

I did do some artwork for D. of the church she's getting hitched in.

Not nearly as much fun as my version - her RSVP note.

What do YOU think?

So why all this crazy splashing of paint hither and thither on fancy wedding invitations?

Over the holiday I ordered these terrific giant Windsor and Newton watercolor pans. If you want to get some, I rec Jerry's Artarama for speedy delivery - they're not that pricy considering the quantity of paint (2 1/2" and 13X more paint than your average half pan). Yahoo

My cousin Bill of Postcards From Philly sent me this terrific foldup water container that does NOT spill over easily made by Princeton Art and Brush Co. If you paint on the floor as I do, regular glass jars just beg to be toppled over = quelle disastre!

If you'd like your wedding invites painted madly let me know.
BONJOUR Painted Wedding Invitations!