Color Swatching With the Twinks

 I am knee-deep into Dion Dior's Mastering Twinks class and I am loving it so far! These tiny pots of beautiful, shimmery color are wonderful to look at, mix and blend, and to just wash across a page.

Color swatches. You can never have too many. Quite awhile ago, I started a color journal using a Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook. The pages are wonderfully starke white and they hold up to plenty of water. Most of my colors involve the use of water, so that is an important element to consider.

I have color swatches of various watercolor pencils (I think I must own stock in the Derwent company!), watercolor tubs, pastels, markers, and pens. It's great to keep swatches of them all in one place, and I can flip back and forth through the pages of the various media to decide what approach I want to use on a piece of art.

I took Dion's Silks class last year, and those pots of color are very similar to these little pots. Bright and shimmery. Twinks have bits of mica infused into them, which give you gorgeous washes of sparkly, yummy color when released.

In today's swatch project, we matched up primary colors with natural colors and laid them out in two separate charts. I didn't care as long as I got to swirl, and twirl, add a little ox-gall here, and a little water there. Such fun!

I don't remember now where I saw this earlier today. One of the other students posted a photo of her storage for the pots. You have to get the twinks all wet and puddled up good before they are at the consistency they need to be. Then you have to let them dry completely before putting the lids back on. Sometimes this can take days and I just don't have the room to have little pots lined up all over the place drying out. I really liked the way this lady stores her pots in drawers. I had one of these little 3-drawer bins that I wasn't using, so I pulled it out to use. I put the primary colors in one drawer, and the natural and mono-tone colors in another drawer. I spritzed and ox-galled them right in the drawer and sat the drawer on the table top so that I could paint straight from the drawers. When I finished, I just slid the drawers back into the cabinet where they will stay until dry. Or until I use them again :). What a great idea! Another painting project tomorrow. Yay!!!!!