Inspiring new art supplies + swatches

Gouache colours for new artworks, handmade paper and more!

Hello and welcome to my first post on The Cosy Creative!

I initially signed up to Substack about nine months ago, but I was unsure of what to use it for as I already share so much of my art process on Patreon & YouTube. So it sat there empty and unused…but in the meantime quite a few people have subscribed! Each time I received a subscription notification, I wondered whether I should start posting on here, and what finally made me decide to jump in was when I suddenly knew what I wanted to use this platform for. Being an artist who loves to experiment with new art materials, particularly anything unique and handmade, I seem to have become a bit of a collector. In other words, I’m obsessed with art supplies. There’s nothing more exciting than receiving a package of new materials and thinking of all the possibilities contained within. How will I use them? What will the colours look like? How can I combine them? Will some of them become my new favourites? When I look at new supplies - or indeed any of my supplies - it makes me want to create art immediately.

So, I’m going to share these wonderful materials with you! I’ll be posting ‘mini art hauls’ featuring any new supplies, I’ll share my favourite materials and colour palettes with you, and also any books I’m using for inspiration or reference that I think you’d love. It makes my eyes and heart happy to discover something new, and I hope that this blog will inspire you and make you excited to create too!

Let’s start with this little haul. The paper book and little sheets of paper (100% cotton rag, handmade in India) came from the Royal Academy of Arts online shop. I particularly love these tiny sheets of textured paper for colour swatches (scroll to see how I use them below). I find that swatching on separate sheets of paper is a really useful way to actually use your swatches to create colour palettes. You can place the colours side by side to see how well they work together, and easily add to your ‘swatch database’ when you buy more colours. They’re also a useful tool for me when I’m making videos for Patreon or YouTube. When I launched my watercolour palette with Deep Deep Light* last autumn, I swatched all of the colours like this and used them to demonstrate different themed ‘mini palettes’ from within the main palette.

(*I must just mention that you can get 10% off any purchase from Deep Deep Light when you use the code deepdeepnatasha at checkout)

The lovely little ceramic paint pans came from a small handmade business, Ericius Arts. I need to decide which watercolours I want to put in them to make a small palette of eight colours - I’ll share this with you when I make a decision! The ‘Lunar’ and ‘Canopy’ dot cards also came from Ericius Arts and I’m saving these for a Patreon video next month. I also treated myself to several new gouache colours from Schmincke, Daler-Rowney, Holbein and Winsor & Newton. These are for some new pieces I’m working on at the moment; I’ve included one of the paintings at the bottom of this post.

Adorable handmade ceramic pans from Ericius Arts

The gouache spending spree started last month when I bought four Daler-Rowney colours from Jackson’s; I’d promised myself I wouldn’t buy any more gouache, but I felt that my collection was lacking some gorgeous autumnal colours as well as the cool blue-greys I love to use in my work. After doing some research, I discovered these four colours, and then added the seven colours in the top photo earlier this month. I’ve swatched all of them for you below. I also needed a new black as my Winsor & Newton Lamp Black is running low, and I’m loving the matt inkiness of the Sumi Black from Holbein. It might be my new favourite black gouache!

If you’re looking for a warm neutral, you can’t really go wrong with Daler-Rowney’s Warm Grey 1 - I’m so glad I bought this! The Umber Greenish from Schmincke is a really interesting colour and looks slightly more green(ish) in reality that it appears in the photo.

Finally, here’s a piece I painted the other day in gouache and watercolour (with a little bit of Neocolor) using a few of the colours I’ve shared with you today. It’s inspired by the beautiful landscape gardens and lake at Stourhead in Wiltshire.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my mini art haul and hearing a little bit more about the supplies - thank you for being here and allowing me to share them with you! Which art materials have you treated yourself to recently? Is there something amazing that you’ve discovered and would like to share with the community here? Please feel free to leave any recommendations in the comments section below.

See you soon!

Natasha x