Potentate watercolour paper is from China and this is made with 100% cotton content. I found these at local artshop ArtFriend and bought three packs to try. These are available with hotpress, coldpress and rough surfaces. The paper size I bought is 13 x 19cm and each pack cost SGD 3.50 for 10 sheets. Paper weight is 300gsm, acid-free. The packaging can be resealed to prevent moisture and humidity from damaging the paper. The best way to test watercolour paper is to use wet on wet techniques and observe how paint moves and colours blend. Shown above are the three tests on the rough, coldpr ..read more

Review unit on loan from Asus Singapore The ASUS Zenbook Duo UX8406 is the new model released in 2024 for the Zenbook Duo series. As the name suggests, there are two displays, and this time there are two full-sized displays compared to the half-height ones from the previous models. This laptop has two 14-inch 16:10 touchscreen 120Hz OLED displays. Weight is advertised as 1.65kg. Here in Singapore you get the Intel Core Ultra 9 (16-core), 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD for SGD 2999 (or USD 1499). Increase the RAM to 32GB and price goes up to SGD 3399. My review is from the perspective of a visual conte ..read more

Fabriano 1264 is a series with paper for drawing, sketching, watercolour, mixed media and there's also bristol paper. 1264 by the way is the year that Fabriano paper mill was created in Italy. The Fabriano 1264 watercolour paper is made with 25% cotton content. This student grade watercolour paper and the quality is almost similar to the Fabriano Studio watercolour paper. Fabriano Studio has coldpress and hotpress, 200gsm and 300gsm, and sold in glued pads. Sizes available are 8 x 10 inches 9 x 12 inches 11 x 14 inches Fabriano 1264 watercolour paper only has coldpress, 300gsm, and is sold ..read more

Stephan Travers shows off some amazing illustrations in this video. Tags:  stephen travers youtube ..read more

Datacolor released the Spyder X2 colour calibrators in mid 2023 to replace their previous model, the Spyder X. The two models released are Spyder X2 Elite and Spyder X2 Ultra, priced at USD 269 and USD 299 respectively. The main difference is the Elite model can measure brightness up to 750 nits and the Ultra model can measure up to 2000 nits. In other words, the Ultra model can be used to calibrate HDR displays for HDR workflows. According to Datacolor, you can upgrade from the Elite to Ultra through software upgrade if you want to. I had been using my Spyder5Pro since 2015 and decided it's ..read more

This is embarrassing. I had totally forgotten to create the monthly roundups for five months. Looks like I will have to put create a calendar notification for this. Books Nioh & Nioh 2: Official Artworks Sketching Outdoors: Discover the Joy of Painting Outdoors by Barry Herniman Iridescent: The Art of Laia Lopez The Art of Lord Gris Overwatch: Declassified - An Official History Local Fauna: The Art of Peter de Sève The Art of System Shock The Art of Skulls and Bones Grafis Nusantara - Indonesian labels and stickers COASTALVISION: Heavily-saturated Tropicália by Ardneks Artists’ Master S ..read more

A video for March's sketchwalk at Geyland Serai with the Urban Sketchers Singapore. Tags:  sketchwalk urban sketchers singapore ..read more

Passes for AsiaLink Sketchwalk 2024 Penang will start selling on March 30 ..read more

Canva has just bought Serif, the maker of Affinity apps. I hope they don't go the subscription route because the selling point of Affinity apps is the one time purchase. More details here ..read more

If you're a fan of the Nioh games and like artbooks, this companion artbook for the game is pretty much a must-buy. This is a large format 304-page hardcover published by Udon Entertainment. The book collects the concept art for the two games. There are designs for characters, environment and enemies. There's a good mix of hand drawn art and polished high res renders. Designs for the characters and the guardian spirits look awesome. There aren't dedicated pages for the props and weapons. There's plenty to read too, such as profiles for the characters, commentary on the locations, design not ..read more