 I'm, I'm just testing the new webcam and the settings FYI for whoever is watching and I think I might have figured out how to hook the HD camera up for live streaming also. So I'll be testing that in a little while. It's not bad. The camera does focus on the room behind me instead of on my face. I guess that's not a bad thing. I think I'm okay with that. Let's see if we click follow my face and auto focus. I don't know the picture is way better in Google hang in the Google hang out screen than it is on the YouTube screen. There it's focusing on my face in and out, in and out, in and out. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm going to be able to do. Thank you, Tiffany. I'm glad I'm just trying to get used to the new camera and figure out the settings. The, I'm just, it's going in and out because I'm playing with the buttons. I'm going to stop doing that now because that annoys me. I don't know about you guys. This is not bad. It's not a bad for a webcam. It's not bad now. And it's HD. So I'll be able to film and or potentially record with it. But I also might be able to do both of those with my standard HD video camera. And I like the idea of having a backup and something I can and both pieces of equipment being able to do both things. So I'm going to be testing that later today with the cables and cords I have before I order anything. I did put down a piece of fabric in front of my window and the lighting is a little bit better. It's a little bit harsh, less harsh. So that's good, I guess. I don't know. I have a black technology thumb. I can paint your pretty pictures and talk about art stuff, but I'm bad with technology. I know how to blow things up really well. I'm sorry for the problems with yesterday's YouTube live broadcast for Watercolor Wednesday. Whoever was watching, I know the video got a couple of thumbs down and I expected that. Yeah, see, tech frustrates me too. Like, you know, most of us creative types, we can paint pretty pictures, but technology is just beyond me. And at 5 a.m., wow, what are you doing up? I'm going to try to adjust the times on some of my live broadcasts so that some of them are a little later in the day. So I can catch some of you who are in other time zones. Maybe the Mondays with DecoArt should be a little later in the day. So we're going to work on that a little bit because I don't have a problem with that. And I think adjusting the time might be better for me and you guys. We'll catch more viewers and you guys won't miss live and you'll be able to ask me questions. And I may occasionally pop up with these testing or Q&A things just with absolutely no notice. So you're going to have to just catch me. I'm not always going to schedule these like today where I'm just playing with the equipment. But the picture looks okay to you, Tiffany, and whoever else is watching. We've got somebody else watching. Oh, good. I'm glad. Yeah, yesterday was completely impromptu because I got the new camera and again, I was testing it. And we ended up having a little chat about art and motivation and all that stuff. And that was that was kind of nice and encouraging you all to, you know, write for samples. From some of these companies. I know Liquitex and Sennelier both have pre-prepared sample packs they can send to you. No talent. Okay, well, you know, I have a teacher of mine who teaches me who will tell you that she was not born with talent that she learned. And she's a world famous artist and a good selling artist. She makes a pretty good living at it. So it doesn't have to be something a talent that you're born with. If you really have a love for it, you can learn. And there's a certain aspect to art I think that is learned anyways. That's not you can't be born with in my opinion. That's my opinion. You know, I'm wrong about stuff all the time, but that's my opinion. And I'm glad you like watching me. I like being on YouTube. So I have stopped friending a lot of people on my personal Facebook page. I will still friend the occasional person, but not I'm getting a lot of strange people trying to friend me on Facebook. I do have the Facebook group though. For all of you guys, you can join the Facebook group. And the nice thing about doing these chats on my desktop is I can pop the link in the comments. Let's see. There we go. Yeah, you know, one of the reasons we're doing the watercolor Wednesday. Product review swatch book is not to decide if Schminke or Daniel Smith is really the best brand of watercolor on the planet. It's to give you guys some kind of an idea of how all the different brands compare one to the other so that you can go to your store. That's local to you with your budget in mind and make a better educated decision about what kind of watercolor paint, for instance, that you want to buy that's going to work for you. I like all brands of watercolor. I have a lot of different brands. I own them. I bought them. They weren't gifted to me. I have some that were, but I have a lot that I bought and I use them for different things. And I love them. My favorite, of course, is Daniel Smith. They're made in the USA. And, you know, I am pretty proud of that fact. They also have over 200 colors in their color line. So huge, gigantic color line. And although I know how to mix paint, it's not my favorite thing. And I would rather have a big palette with a lot of colors that I don't have to mix. So I love Daniel Smith for that. That doesn't mean I don't love the other. I don't like the other brands. I do. But, yeah. You know, I'm not a big fan of the artist loft paints. They're not very pigmented. Yeah. Daniel Smith can be really expensive everywhere. Here it depends on the color that you buy because then it depends on the pigment that they made that color with. Some pigments are more expensive, but they're generally speaking between like nine and 11 on the low end and 15 to like 25 on the high end per tube. And I just started my collection with one or two tubes at a time. But there's lots of other brands out there that are really yummy. And you can get the Daniel Smith, you know, dot color chart that has all like 238 or whatever colors on it for like 20 some dollars. And then you have all, you know, a little dot of all the colors and you can just pick the ones that you love and start collecting them that way. But you may have a brand near you that's totally out of a normal person's price range over here and hard to get. That's easy for you to get there in Australia. I know there's a few brands like that. Schminke is a worldwide brand and it's, you know, a great paint and it's very popular. I can only get certain things of their paint here. And like, if I want to refill pan of paint, I have to order it. There are some Italian brands of paint that I've heard are really great. I can't get them here easily. I'm going to address that in a minute, Bonnie. I can't get them here easily. I can't and they're really expensive and you have to pay import and all that. I'm trying to get samples from them. But if you're in Europe, they're easier to get. So you just have to go by what's low. You know, I just want to give you guys enough information that you can make a well educated decision about what you're buying. And you know what? I, okay, I bought my share of stuff at Walmart. I'm not a big Walmart fan. That's probably because they used to be in merchandising and Walmart's icky. That's just everyone by me. They're all icky. There's like one that's a few hours away from me that's in an area of California that we go to spend a weekend once a year. And their Walmart's gorgeous and beautiful and clean. And yeah, I love shopping at that one. The rest of them I can leave. But that being said, there's nothing wrong with some of the brands they have at Walmart. And if that's what you can afford, then do that. I started with an $8 cake watercolor set that I think I either got it at Walmart or I got it at Michaels. I don't remember where. I think the brand was Art District, not great watercolors, not super well pigmented, but they worked in using those. I discovered that I like watercolor. So everybody's got to start somewhere and watercolor. Walmart has some great deals on stuff. And so then you have to go with what's near you. If you don't have art stores and you don't have Michaels or Hobby Lobby or Joann's. So your choice is Walmart or mail order and you don't have the money to pay shipping and all that. Then you have to go with Walmart. And so then you go with the brands they have. Now they carry Royal and Langnickel at Walmart. And I just got gifted a kit of their paints. I didn't swatch all the colors. We're going to be doing that coming up soon. But I have their brushes and I love their brushes. There's nothing wrong with their brushes. And we have, this is just a test. We have six people watching. Hey. Yeah. Well, I live near the San Francisco Bay. I'm in the San Francisco Bay area. And I wanted to share. Let's see. That's February. It's March, isn't it? So there's a Royal and Langnickel unboxing where I show what they sent me to try and review. It airs on Monday. So look for that. They sent me a whole kit with a bunch of paints and some brushes. And I've already actually owned one of their brushes and I love their brushes. And Royal and Langnickel is a brand carried at Walmart. So I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I'm all for a good cheap paintbrush. And yeah, I'm, because I'm in the San Francisco Bay area, you know, it's a big city area. So we have a lot of different kinds of options for art supply shopping, I should say. Now, Dick Blick isn't super close to me. It's over an hour away. And it is in, I'm in San Jose, which is, yes, a big city. San Francisco is bigger and a lot more crowded and a lot more icky to drive in. And so I don't go up there often unless either somebody else is driving or I have a friend that wants to go because it's not my favorite thing to do. Drive around in the city by myself. But we also have the salvage place and we have a few Daiso shops. And yeah, you know, I like Royal brushes a lot. Their paper is not bad. I've tried their gouache in the past and their gouache is not bad. You know, it's not Schmincke, but it's not, you know, it's a good affordable sort of student quality paint. And, you know, you also have to think, what are you going to do with your watercolors? Do you want to become a serious watercolors? Or do you just want to make cards and tags and do some mixed media? If you just don't want to do cards and tags and mixed media, Royal is good. The Windsor Newton Cotman, one of their pocket sets, it's probably good. Yeah, see, they make really, Royal and Langnickel make really nice brushes. And their Zen, they just sent me their Zen brushes and their Zen brushes are fabulous. I love them. I already owned one. I picked it up on clearance and fell in love with it. And then when they sent me this box, big box of stuff, it included a whole bunch of Zen brushes. So like I said, that video airs Monday. So if you're doing mixed media things with watercolor and water soluble media, I wouldn't go investing in a bunch of, you know, Daniel Smith paints or Schmincke paints, especially if there's budget issues and they're really hard to get. I would go with like Windsor Newton Cotman or Royal and Langnickel or Prima or Koi or something like that, because the watercolor is going to be used with other mediums. And I don't think being super worried about pigmentation and all of that stuff is an issue. You don't, you do want them to be light fast. So you don't want someday your journal pages to fade any more than they're going to naturally probably do already. So I wouldn't go with something that you can't find light fast information on. Now that being said, Koi and Prima will both tell you, yes, their paints are light fast, but they won't tell you how much, what the range is. I don't think they know. So you keep that in mind. If you're going to do serious watercolor and just watercolor paintings, then you probably want to upgrade. Yeah, I just have the one little, I have the one little palette I use when I'm doing mixed media where I don't care if I stick an acrylic paint brush in it and I don't care if it gets ink in it or, you know, anything like that. But when I'm doing watercolor paintings or working in my watercolor journal, then I use the nicer paints. I will be doing some more four part paintings with some of the other brands we've been swatching. Yeah, for mixed media, it gets really messy. And so, you know, you want a little palette that didn't cost too much money has decent quality paint. You don't care if it gets icky and messy. You know, if you get, you know, acrylic brush stuck in it or something like that. Can you tell I just got out of the shower? My hair is all wet. I told you guys I was going to just do testing. I wasn't going to stay on a chat. Oops. There is like a minute or two delay. Peerless are nice because they're very well pigmented. They're light fast and they're easily portable because peerless watercolors are more of a, you know, dry pigment. They're on little pieces of paper. And so you can have a little peerless watercolor booklet and have, you know, a gazillion colors with you, but it's just in a little tiny booklet. And you got to love them about that, especially if you like to take some of your art and drawing stuff with you on vacation or when you're water driving around. No problem, Tiffany. Five o'clock in the morning, you should go either go back to bed or have a cup of coffee. And I have some Prang semi moist student grade watercolors, not the washable that we're going to be swatching with some of our other lower end ones. Wango, Van Gogh, Emily, Emily, do you mean Van Gogh? And yeah, the peerless are great for that. So if you like to go on road trips, go on vacations or even just go and, you know, do plain air art, you know, out at a coffee shop or a park or something. The peerless are nice because they're, you know, you can take a whole bunch of colors with you in a little small space. And I have peerless. There will be swatching them. I was gifted some peerless. Van Gogh, Van Gogh, I, you know, I have a lot of Van Gogh paints. I like Van Gogh paints. They're, some people can't stand them. They're a student grade paint, but, you know, I like, I have yet to really meet a paint brand I hate. I'm not a big fan of the artist's loft brand, the Michael, which is the Michael store brand. My hair in my mouth. I don't think they're very well pigmented and it takes a lot of water to get the cakes like reactivated. So they're not my favorite. And I'm not a big fan of their acrylics either. They're for the same reason. They're not very pigmented. Yeah, an acrylic, you really want like a soft or heavy body acrylic. You want it to be fairly opaque and their acrylic paints are really not. So I'm not a big fan of the artist's loft brand. Somebody asked if I would try their paper, their level two watercolor paper, which I can do. It takes a lot for me to go into a Michael store, though, because I'm allergic to all the popery and stuff. So I'm just trying to work up some courage and get my mask that I have to wear and I'll get into the store and get some paper. And I didn't miss stuff that you said you were in Israel, Emilia. That's fabulous. I love that I can, you know, just be on YouTube and make friends all over the world. Oh, creatively Amy, hey. Arches is one of the best watercolor papers. I also like Fabriano. When I'm just doing testing and fooling around swatches and that kind of thing, then I use just Strathmore, usually 140 pound, either yellow or green cover. The difference is paper that's made out of cotton versus paper that's made out of paper pulp and Strathmore, I believe is made out of paper pulp. And better brands like Fabriano and arches are made out of cotton. And they absorb the paint and water differently. If I'm going to do a piece for a customer, then I usually use the Fabriano or the arches if it's a custom order. Otherwise, if I'm just fooling around and doing mixed media stuff, I just use Strathmore. I was just going to come on to this morning to do a test of some of the settings for the new webcam, Amy, and I ended up starting to chat with people again. So I'm going to have to change the title of this when we go off the air and I load it to my video feed. How are you today? I'm going to go run and get my water, which I left in the other room because I said I didn't plan this. So I'll be right back. Hang on. I think I need a cough drop. California, everything's blooming. Hey, Connie, how are you? I was just saying I just I just got on here to do some testing and I ended up chatting with y'all. So I'm going to have to change the name of this at some point. That's okay. I like chatting. My husband calls me chatty Kathy, which is funny because when I was younger, I was very shy. Couldn't talk to anybody. Of course, it's easy to talk to y'all because it's just me talking to myself. Where are you, Amy, that your day is coming to an end? Thank you. This is one of our it was our spare bedroom. Nice. Nice. I just do this from home. So I can't say that. But my new stamp inventory, the new stamp designs come in today. So this afternoon, I will be a packaging fiend trying to get the existing orders out. Anyway, we have a four bedroom house and this is one of our bedrooms. It used to be the spare room. England. Wow. Fabulous. This is one of the places I need to go visit. It's on my bucket list. If I can manage it, I'm going to try to get over to Ireland next year for a retreat. And I want to stay a couple days later or more and visit England and Scotland. It's so funny because I'm watching myself on the screen and there's a little bit of a delay. Sabrina, welcome. Of course, I will be bringing my watercolors go with me everywhere. I take them flying. I have a couple of different art bags depending on where I'm going and how much I'm bringing. But hey, Tibby, how are you? I was just telling everybody I only got on here to test some settings on the new webcam. I'm ending up chatting with all you guys. I'm going to have to change the title. Cool. One of my favorite art supply stores on the planet, Jackson's Art in the UK. I love that place. Heard that. I actually have a niece who went to Israel. I forget why. It was a religious thing for her. But she loved it. Actually loved it very much. Thank you. Yay. Me and my black technology thumb. I can paint your pretty pictures, but I'm not sure yet. We just started thinking about it. And I have to get some legal business and funding things straightened out first. But I want to take a retreat class with Pauline Agnew next year. That's something that's on my bucket list. And if I can manage to do that, then while I'm there, I want to spend an extra few days. And I want to visit England and Scotland. It's silly to travel all the way to the outside of the world and not go to those places. And my mom's family is from Glasgow and London. So my mother's maiden name is McFarlane. Italian and Scottish. It's kind of an odd combination. Thank you very much, Amelia. Sometimes I may do these sort of things and they may not be about YouTube. And I may just go straight on to Google+. I've done that a couple of times. The problem is more, if you guys see it, if I do it this way on YouTube, then you do the other way. But if I do the other way, you can actually talk to me instead of type at me. So I don't know. I'm going to try to get my HDMI cable out this morning. And I have to learn about camera equipment. So I'm just learning about HDMI cables. So I have to... I have to see if this HDMI cable thing works. And I have to... If it does work to hook the HD camera up, then that'll be another option for me. Yeah, we spell it here. They're all related, no matter how they spell it. But my branch of the family is spelled M-A-C, capital F-A-R-L-A-N-E. Mac from the Farlane. I'm not sure. We're going to have to do that. And I'm going to be messaging a few people before the event. So we'll see what we can work out. Thank you. This room was already this... I get asked about the color a lot. It was already this color because this was the guest room. And when we decided to move my art studio out of the garage because of my asthma, which is the long story we won't get into. But we decided to move it in here. It was silly to have a room dedicated to people who only came once a year. And my husband said, do you want to repaint it first? And I said, no, I like that color. So I just loved it. But yes, I've been trying since I moved in here to get all of my art stuff into this one room. I've mostly done that, but not completely. All the McFarlane's are related, no matter how they spell their name. If they do their genealogy back far enough, I think they're all related to this. They're all, you know, it all goes back to the same clan, but... Yeah. And that's not the... How should I say this? There are some members of that side of my family that are a questionable character. So yeah. And that's true in all families, but it seems to especially be true in the McFarlane side of my family. Yeah, I know, right? My husband likes that meme that says, I keep telling my husband I can get all of my art stuff into one box. And he says, stop calling our house a box. My husband thinks that's hilarious. Yeah, I could introduce you to a few that are a real trip. That's a good one. That's a really good one. I like that. I think the stubborn is all get out. I think the McFarlane's give the German side of my husband's family a run for their money. My favorite tool that I always go to. If I'm just creating art on the fly and I'm reaching for a tool without thinking about it. An actual tool tool? Wow. Probably a paintbrush. You know, I love a good pen. I love my cutter bee scissors. My little tiny... Lights good. These. These are fabulous scissors. I love these. I got them on Hobby Lobby, but I think you can get them a lot in different places. They're called Cutter Bee. They're a cute little sharp scissor. I like for cutting out embellishments. I'm working on things for collage. I'm really bad about keeping my scissors clean, but these scissors don't seem to mind it. Every now and then I get all my scissors out and I get the alcohol out and I clean them. I'm really bad about that. Like you can see the blades are all icky and sticky. Well, I love a good stamp. You know, I have my own line of stamps and I'm coming out with 40 designs. The new inventory comes today. Yes, it was delivered earlier. Woohoo. So we have birds. You want my craft room? I hear that. And you know, it looks bigger on camera than it is in real life. It's only 10 by 10. I have this with the doodle girls. We have this doodle pieces and parts set, which you can use to make borders or create flowers. And then we have this sort of planner inspired set. Okay, I just am seeing my feet. You can't see that. Holy cow. How about this way? You can't see any of those. The glare. So here's the girls and then here's the pieces and parts. And then this one is like planner inspired or journal inspired, like for our journaling little embellishments. So those are all the inventory for these came. It was delivered earlier. I haven't picked it up yet, but yay. Oh, thanks, Evie. I love Germany. Such a beautiful country. And y'all are so friendly for people who barely can say, but I can see English and do a lot of pointing. I think it was cracking up the natives, but you know, it was fun. Those designs, some of them are available as Digi Stamps, Amy. And I do have my own line of actually red rubber stamps. They come unmounted like this and you can buy them in my Etsy shop. And then you just mount them to cling foam to turn them into a cling stamp. Sam, I'm not the only one with the problem with scissors. That's good to know. All my scissors, it's probably because we're mixed media artists, right? All the scissors end up with like icky sticky bits of glue and, you know, I don't necessarily clean them until they won't cut anymore. You know, and I'm not fastidious about my stencils either. I, you know, when they get too gunked up, then I'll just soak a whole bunch of them in a bunch of Murphy's oil soap and then clean them. But for the most part, I don't clean them too well. No worries. So you all, and I'm going to, I'm going to go now. I didn't intend actually on staying on here long. I'm going to, thanks to me. Yeah, it's good to be on and talk to you guys, even if it was unplanned and I'm going to go off right now and I'm going to actually turn down the computer, boot it down, turn it off so I can rearrange some wires and plugs without blowing anything up. Since I happened to have a black technology thumb lately, let's turn the computer off before we start on plugging things. And then I may be on later. Yes. So you have to put them onto a piece of easy mount foam to turn it into a cling stamp that will stick to an acrylic block. Or you need to put it on some foam and glue it to a wood block. They don't come mounted. Now I can special order them mounted on wood or mounted as a cling stamp. And they come packaged this way. These are a special order. And I have a few of the old designs in stock. I'm not getting any of the new ones. So they, I could get them, but they would be a special order. No worries. You guys too. Have a great day. Don't forget the most important thing. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. Yeah. All right. That's it right now. I didn't come on to push my Etsy shop or anything else. It's just a test, but I will put testing slash Q&A on the title when it loads to YouTube. And I will be probably on a little bit later. Once I get everything unplugged and rearranged, figure out what I'm doing with that. Hopefully I don't blow anything up. All right. I will talk to you guys later. Have a great day. And if I don't talk to you before, have a great weekend. Do some art. Go do something fun. I can Sabrina include a sheet of easy mount foam for an extra dollar. It'll do two sets of stamps. You have to put a note in the comments section of your order. I ship worldwide, Evie. I'll ship them anywhere. And if you guys aren't a member yet of my Facebook group, you can scroll up in the chat and find the link to the Facebook group and all of these questions about the stamps and stuff you can ask me over there. Just tag me in your post. You're welcome. All right. I will talk to you guys later. Bye.