 Let's see if I can get my thing to work today. Oh yay, it seems to be working. Hey, so if you didn't catch my post on social media this morning and a couple days ago, we're not gonna do any watercoloring today. I wasn't sure I actually could be on today because it's Thanksgiving week here in the U.S. and all that jazz. But I thought I'd come on and answer some questions and I have a bunch of these little gift cards that I've been making to work on. There's a video coming up on YouTube on how I did these and these actually are partly watercolored. So I'll walk you through how I did them while we're here on Periscope this morning. Just taking through my like, painty papers and bits and pieces and happy mail scraps and finding some things to use on the cards. Oh yay, I have some more of this. I have to get my jelly plate out soon and do some more jelly printing because I'm running out. All right. So anyway, what's up with you guys today? I got a question over, I think the question was given over YouTube. I haven't replied to it yet about Shin Han watercolors. If I had tried them or not, which I haven't, but they seem to be very reasonably priced on YouTube. I mean on YouTube, holy cow. On Amazon, they seem to be artist grade watercolors. So you guys might want to check into it. It's Shin Han, S-H-I-N-H-A-N. Let's see, I want to take this off of here. What did I buy? I bought something at the Goodwill. I set the label to the, I don't know. I want this part for one of my cards. So I'm here to answer any of your questions. Next week, we will be back with a regular watercolor Wednesday. Hey, our zoology, hello. Next week, we're going to be back with a regular watercolor Wednesday and we will be doing the Bird of Paradise painting. I saw your trees. I watched your video, our zoology. I thought you did a great job. You were a little hard on yourself. I thought you did a great job. You do need, I hope you made your color key though. That would be helpful. Then you'll know what your colors are gonna look like. I forgot how big this is. You're welcome. Let's see, two and three quarters by, I should really have, you know, every time we start these things, I never run my reading glasses on. Why is that? Three and three quarters. Okay. So I made a lot of changes recently to my website. I'll put this out here on the table so I don't have to keep spelling out my website address. Oops. All right. So you guys go over there and take a look and let me know what you think. I made a page listing over there with all my classes, whether they're free ones or they're paid for ones. You can find a page with just all the classes here at my website. I know you're seeing this upside down, aren't you? I just realized that. Let's flip it this way. It's upside down for me, but it's more important that it's right side up for you guys. There we go. All right. Hello, Mark. Oh yay, see? I'm glad you did too. All right. So I made a class page on my website with the free ones and the paid for ones recently. I also did a store page with links to my current favorite listings across the World Wide Web of my stuff. And let me know what you all think. I updated the blog page. I changed the way it looked a little bit. There was a reason I was saying this. Oh, God, I feel like I need more coffee. Anybody else feel that way? The reason I'm saying this is because I'm about to come out with, at the first of the year, a bunch of new classes over at Crazy Island University and one class that will be at both, thank you, that will be at both Crazy Island University and over at Udemy. It's the same class, so you don't need to take it in both places. Just pick one. That's gonna be about working with watercolors. And in the class, we are going to, what did I do with it? Oh, here it is. As part of the class, we're gonna start out the class. Hello. We're gonna start at the class by making a journal. And then we are going to paint every page in the journal. And that's gonna be the class. So by the end of the class, you'll have a full journal full of little paintings and a bunch of new watercolor techniques that I really haven't shown you too much yet in your journal. And you'll have some really good experience to do some really great paintings. So that's, I'm working on that for January one. I will still be doing watercolor Wednesdays, don't worry. Oh, I'm sorry, Brandy. Yeah, Rust is kind of odd. I don't know, but if that's the, you know, I don't know, that's the best you can do. So this morning, I'm just gonna make some of these cards. Okay, see, now we were talking and I forgot how big these were. Okay. So on these cards, let me cut a couple of these first. This is my little small paper trimmer from Creative Memories back in the day. These are just little scraps of drop paper. And this is just craft card stock from Hobby Lobby. This is, this is four and a half by six and a half. And this is what the base from the cards. Hey, hey, Michelle. So Zig Clean Color Pens. I have, do I even have those? I know of them. I have the Wink of Stella and I have, oh, I do have some. I have Zig, oh, see, I only have the Zig Wink of Stella. I don't have the others, but I have a bunch of distress markers and other, I have so many markers, I've never marked before. There's nothing wrong with them. They're great pens from what I know of them, but I just need to stop adding pens to my collection. Michelle, you have to stop telling me about pens. I love the Wink of Stella. They're, they're some of my favorite pens. Just sorry, I was reaching over for a bone folder, but you know, it's like paint. So, you know, at some point with your art supplies, you need to decide, do I really need it? Do I really love it? Do I just like it and kind of want to try it? You know, if you just like it, wouldn't you rather do something else with that money? I don't know. I mean, you know, sometimes I buy these things and try them, but then I turn around and sell them because I don't like them. They're not, yeah, I use my distressed pens. I already have distressed pens and they are water soluble. So I use them occasionally. If you love them, I love the Zink Wink of Stella. So if they're anything similar, then I would probably like them a lot. See, Blue Crafty, that's Michelle. She's like my pen guru. So if I have a question about a pen, she's probably got it or tried it already. So she's the one I ask. I gotta move this. This is in the way. There we go, that's better. All right, so I just take one of these little bits of painty paper scraps after I folded the card stock in half and then I took, this is kind of watercolor-y. So I don't know, those of you who may not know, I have my own line of rubber stamp designs. They're available in my Etsy shop, which you can find here on the contact, there's a contact page that has all the places on social media, on the internet you can find me. I stamped them on some hot press watercolor paper because I had it, not because you have to do it this way. You just want something really smooth. Regular card stock will work. I stamped my images with waterproof ink. I used Rangers Archival ink, but you could use Stazon and I stamped all my designs in black on a sheet of paper. And then I took my watercolor paints and I colored the images in with watercolor paints. As you can see, here's a couple of different birds. And then I cut them all out and I stuck them in this tray. And we're gonna make something like this. The other thing you're gonna need is like some words. These are Daniel Smith watercolors. And this, like I said, is just a scrap of drop paper. You know, one of these little pieces of painting drop paper and then some tape runner. You know, low-tech, easy, nothing complicated. I didn't even, you know, cut out special sizes of paper or anything. I just used what I had. Just eyeball it and stick it down. I prefer my Daniel Smith watercolor paints but there's a million brands out there. Oh, I love Jet Pens. It's a great source for pens of all kinds for your artwork. See, my only problem with doing this is the goal is to like not think about it too much but I always think about it too much. But you know, your watercolor paints are good for more than just painting a watercolor painting. There's no reason why you can't do these little embellishments with them or use them on your art journal page. You just need to be aware, especially if you're using them as a layer, that they're water soluble. So like if I'm using them on top of the stamped image, I need to make sure I use waterproofing. If I'm using them underneath, I need to know that what I put on top of them, if it's got a lot of water in it, may make the watercolor move around. And I'm sorry, Jet Pens doesn't ship to Canada. That sucks. Tokyo pens. So there's another one. See, I told you Michelle is my pen guru. I don't know what Tokyo pens is but if she says they might ship to Canada, you might try them. So then I'm just gonna put this on here. I'm gonna put it off center and then I'm gonna just pick a word. And I just pick the words at random. Tokyo pen shop. Okay. Maybe somebody can look the link up and post it. So obviously that word's not gonna work. That's too big. Oh, I'm sorry. I do, I just ordered a Montana marker refill and new nibs for my Montana marker pen. I love my Posca pens but Montana markers are refillable. So I'm gonna start doing that. It's less expensive. Oh, the duty. Yeah, duty. I have to send a box to Canada later today to Erin Young if she's watching and I got her happy mail. So is everybody cooking Thanksgiving dinner? Are you having turkey? Are you going out? Those of you in the US anyway that celebrate Thanksgiving. So then you just create a little cards like this and these make little great little gift cards, gift enclosure cards. And if you have an envelope punch board then making an envelope for it's not a big deal. And I do have one, it's off camera here. So the other question I've been asked a lot lately of course is I get lots of questions about my watercolor paints. My favorite brand is Daniel Smith but I do have Schmink. I do have, and is it Schmink or Schminkie? I don't have any idea. I also have May Mary blue and Van Gogh and I have a few Windsor Newton and Koi. I'm thinking I'm missing one but I can't think of what it is. I just like watercolor. Now some of them are going to be great. I don't have to cook. I'm going to visit the in-law. They're doing all the cooking. I'm just, we're just driving. So the lesser expensive watercolor paints are great to try. Yeah, so then if they're on sale I would buy them. That's the time to buy them. But if you can get the artist watercolor quality paints like Daniel Smith, then you don't have to worry about your paintings a few years from now, yellowing or fading. Anybody who has little kids knows, your little kids have done you a little watercolor painting or a little drawing with Crayola felt tip markers. After a few years it turns green. It's not pigmented. It's not archival. It's not light fast. So that's why that it's best, yeah, see, that's why it's best to use artist quality if you can and just get the one that you can afford. Now if you're using your watercolors in your journal and once you're done with it, it's really never going to see the light of day. It might be okay, but there's only one way to find out. I know my taper under doesn't like this drop paper. I think anybody who's noticed doesn't like the drop paper. So next week we're gonna do the bird of paradise paintings. We also have some galaxy paintings coming up and some of you have sent me these words in Happy Mail. Any more questions? I also get asked a lot about if I'm self-taught or gone to school, I'm self-taught. I went to school for early child development. I wanted to be a counselor. I did not go to school for art. Although looking back on it now, it would have been fun to be an art therapist, but in the US it takes a lot of learning to do that. And I don't know that I have the patience to go back to school. Hey everybody, I hope you're all having a great day. I hope that you're all gonna, if you enjoy Black Friday, cool. Hope you have a great time. Don't get run over or trampled. Otherwise, go out, go on a hike, spend some time with family. I hope it spent too many years in the retail industry. I avoid Black Friday like the plague. Although I do have to say that I miss being in the retail shops Black Friday morning because it was always the best thing was always to stop with my merchandising crew for a minute. Right as the stores were open, would open, we would stop and we would poke our heads out of our department that we were working in and we would just watch the crowds come roaring through the door. It's hilarious. So we have a document on my Facebook group. Again, all of my links to all my social media sites, shopping sites, class sites, everything else can be found here. In my group, we have a page for Watercolor Wednesday and we have, I just cannot do more than one thing at a time anymore. We have a schedule and suggestions given by you all and if you have a particular thing that you'd wanna see me do on an upcoming episode of Watercolor Wednesday, you can go in there and suggest it and it'll be on an upcoming episode. Don't know if you all know that because usually I'm painting it. I don't have time to tell you all this stuff. Has anybody got any good deals for watercolor paints or anything that are gonna be on sale for Black Friday besides Craftsy? We just heard that Craftsy is having some good sales. Are there any websites for watercolor supplies that we all should be keeping our eyes out for? Guess not. Did you all go into the Facebook group and get your free coloring book download? You could print that on cardstock, something nice, some kind of nice cardstock like Nina and watercolor on it. Most of your big craft supply stores are gonna probably have some kind of sale for Black Friday so I'd keep an eye out. I love Craftsy, yeah. And the starter sets are great, whether you're talking about watercolor, acrylic paint, mediums, gold and along with a lot of other companies have these starter sets and it's a great way to try these products without buying a huge, gigantic container of it that you're then stuck with. And then you won't be stuck with mediums you don't like for eternity like I am until they dry out and are gross. What's the other good bargain website? Another one is create for less. Spell just the way it sounds, create for less, F-O-R, less. They have all kinds of arts and craft supplies, not just fine art. So you might try there. Your big stores like Dick Blick and them are probably gonna have some good sales. Jerry's, Artorama, Chief Joe's, Jackson's might, things are probably a little different in the UK than they are here but of course y'all know I love Jackson's art supply. Yeah, gouache are nice. So gouache is another water soluble paint but it's opaque rather than translucent, watercolors translucent. That's the easy, simple difference. I'm sure it's not the only difference but that's the easy, simple way to think of gouache paints is that they are, cut some off at this end, they are opaque. And if you're doing faces and you like to do something that's more realistic and you want to do it on a mixed media background, you might wanna use gouache paints. Brushes too, this is the time of year that is good to look out for paintbrush sales. You all know if you've watched me before I prefer Princeton brushes. They're synthetic but they're good quality. Grumbacher also makes a decent brush. This is the time of year where a lot of places will have brushes on sale. My favorite place of course is a local place to buy brushes. Aaron Brothers Art and Framing, you may have one local to you, you should look it up. They are a subsidiary of Michaels and they frequently have things like paintbrushes buy one, get one free, buy two, get one free and that sort of thing. And that's my favorite way to buy to stock up on brushes and paper. That's another thing that's good to stock up on at this time of year that might be on sale. Is good watercolor paper and it's had a bunch of pieces. So the best watercolor brush is really a matter of personal opinion but what I generally look for, let's grab one of my buckets, is a brush that, and I do this to my brushes when I'm at the store. And what I'm doing when I do that is how flexible are the bristles? How easily do they pop back into shape? Close that before I cut myself. And also are any bristles coming out? So most of the time, if I'm in the fine art store, usually they're fine. This happens to be a royal watercolor brush. It's a really inexpensive brush. I think you can get these in a set of like four, I think almost anywhere. I probably got these at Tuesday morning but I think you can also get them at Walmart. And they're a decent brush, they're synthetic. They don't hold a ton of water but I like that the bristles bounce back and are kind of on the stiff side so when they get wet, they're not too floppy. I like brushes that after they're dry come to a nice fine point on my rounds anyway. This is a Royal and Langnickel brush. I prefer brushes with the acrylic handle because I have a habit of leaving in the water and then the wood swells and the handle cracks. I have some Grumbacher brushes and I love them, especially the little round one I have. Let's see if I can find it. I have this one. We'll talk about that one in a minute. This is a similar one by Princeton. Actually, here's similar size, there we go. I have a Grumbacher brush, let's see if I can find it. I have this one. This is a watercolor brush, but it's artist loft but I got it because look how teeny tiny it is. So like if you're doing really small like ATC cards or something. Here's a Van Gogh, there's a Princeton Select. I like my, of course I can't find it right now just because you asked. Oh, here it is, okay. I like my Grumbacher brush. This is a Grumbacher Academy Gold. This is a number five round and this is a really great brush. It holds up really well to lots of abuse. The bristles are soft but not too soft. Frequently when I'm painting with any brush I tend to like a stiffer bristle. I don't like a super soft bristle and maybe that's cause I have a habit of pushing down hard on the paper although I always am telling you guys not to do that and dig any holes to China. I have a tendency when I'm not thinking to push down hard. These really bounce back really well. They're also not super expensive, which I love. Cause if I'm gonna spend a lot of money on something it's probably gonna be the paint, not the brush. Although you should not get super cheap brushes. Get something nice that you like. I have loads of one-stroke painting brushes. I haven't bought any new ones in a while. They're all in my acrylic paint stash. Some of my favorite paint brushes are the Folk Art one-stroke paint brushes. I love them, so I agree with you. This is a Van Gogh brush. This one came with my Van Gogh paint kit. It is a number six round and it says Royal Talons Van Gogh number six. I actually really like this brush. Again, it's synthetic and the bristles are soft but not too soft. They have a nice spring to them, which I like and I prefer that in a brush and I only know that from playing with different brushes and experimenting. The biggest thing you wanna be aware of is you don't want your bristles to fall out and you want them to hold a decent amount of water so that you're not constantly having to dip back into your paint just to paint one blade of grass. This is a Princeton Select round, again, number four. Number four is a good size for doing little things and bigger things so I have lots of number four brushes. The Princeton Select line is good for acrylic or watercolor and this is a Princeton Neptune. Now the Princeton Neptune is intended just for watercolor. This one works really great and there's some shapes of brushes in the Select that don't make in the round because most people use them for acrylic. I use them for both so I stocked up on some extra Select brushes I can just keep just in my watercolor stash but the Princeton Neptune brushes hold a lot more water. This is a Princeton Neptune number four quill. So watercolor brushes generally speaking hold more water than your acrylic brushes. They're made to hold a lot more water so that you can get your painting done and your stroke done without having the brush go dry. That's the main difference. This one is made for using on watercolor or acrylic and it works okay. The Princeton Neptune's are better. They hold a lot more water. Now this is a Princeton Neptune quill number four. This is a Raphael Soft Aqua. I don't know if they call it quill but it's a number four. No, it says number 805. These are both synthetic brushes. This is imitation squirrel. This one holds a lot more water than this one. This one works for me. The Princeton Neptune works just fine. The Princeton Neptune is half the price of this little brush is really expensive. If you look these up, Raphael Soft Aqua, these brushes are really expensive and I think I'm crazy because I think I have like two of them. Can't find the other one right now but I do think I have two of them. They are super, super expensive. So I would say stick with something like, hey, like the Princeton Neptune, it's less money for basically the same kind of brush. Yes, the Raphael Soft Aqua comparing these two brushes which are virtually identical. This one is more expensive and holds a lot more water. You can almost do an entire painting without having to dip your paintbrush into more water. That's how much this holds. This one does just fine. I don't mind having to dip it. Hey, I don't mind having to dip the brush back in the water. It doesn't bother me for the less price on the brush. Hey, Gabriela, how are you? So get the best brush that your budget will allow. Okay, see, how do we block people? Oops, I think I have to be on the other thing to block people. All right, I don't know if you guys, we have some trolls, we will block you, don't bother if you're gonna be nasty. We're here talking about watercolor supplies and paintbrushes, if that's not your thing, just go somewhere else. All right, so get the best brush your budget can afford. The Princeton Neptune's go on sale a lot. They're a really good paintbrush. They're not sponsoring me or anything like that. They're half the price of this brush. This is a great brush. If your budget can afford the Raphael Soft Aqua brushes go for it, they're a fabulous brush. I like the Princeton Neptune's and I've gotten some on Amazon because every time I go to the art supply store, this particular size or shape must be really popular and they don't have it in stock. But my local Air Brothers Art and Framing carries them. My fine art supply store carries them. I've also seen them occasionally in I got one of them, I blocked them. I've also seen them occasionally in some of the craft stores like Michaels, although they're not super common and all your Michaels are not created equally. So some of them are gonna have like, I know on the East Coast, some of the Michaels stores have like PBO paints, but out here they like don't have them. So you'll have to look around. I know Air Brothers Art and Framing carries them. I know my fine art supply store carries them. If you have like a Jerry's Art Arama near you or a Dick Blick near you, they're gonna have them. So go there or like I said, Air Brothers. I try to wait until Air Brothers is having a sale and then I go there and that's when I stock up on these. They will have a couple of times a year, a buy one, get two free. Got another one. I also have a few of these Japanese brushes from, I know. So I got another one. There's one more that called me a bitch. So I didn't catch that one. So hopefully one of you guys did. These are like Japanese watercolor brushes. They have a name and I never know what the name is. But these I got just from the Japanese dollar store and you do wanna be careful with them that do this kind of thing and make sure the bristles aren't gonna come out on ya. But these are great, especially for just doing washes and that kind of thing in your background of your watercolors and I don't know why I bother trying to put these little cap things back on the end. And they come in lots of different sizes. See, I've got a few. I was at the Japanese dollar store not long ago. And this is one of those brushes that's intended for acrylic, but the Princess Select can be used for watercolor or acrylic and this is a fan brush. And this is great for the same kind of things you would use it in acrylic paint, splattering, doing like pine tree branches back and forth like we did in the tree tutorial. I love this brush. And I just keep, you should keep a set of watercolor brushes separately from your acrylic brushes because the acrylic paint gums up the brushes and makes it so they don't hold as much water. And then it's difficult to have watercolor with them. So I do have a set of watercolor brushes that are separate from my acrylic brushes. I didn't used to do that, but I do do that now. This is a mop brush. This is a master's touch, which is a Hobby Lobby brand. And it looks like a makeup brush, isn't it? But it's great for just, and it holds a lot of water and it's great for just getting your background really wet and doing like a quick wash of color on the background. See, here's another little or fan brush. And this one I got some Sumi ink on it because I do sometimes use these same brushes for ink. Water soluble inks. And something that's fun in my watercolor brush stash. So you dip it in your watery watercolor paint and then just, you know, splatter. So a toothbrush. This is just a bucket of round ones. We'll end the toothbrush. I have a bucket of rounds, a bucket of flats and a bucket of watercolor brushes that have the water in the handle, you know, like the, I can't think of it right now. The trolls caught me off guard. So on the flats, you know, the same, it really is the brand. Now the Princeton Neptune flats come with these acrylic handles. I wish all of their brushes had this handle because I love this handle and it has this angled edge so that you can scratch into your watercolor paint and then the watercolor will pull into that scratch and it'll leave an interesting texture in your painting. These are great. And this again is a master's touch flat. These are great just for getting the paper wet really quickly. I do have a couple of Philberts. I have Grumbacher and Princeton Select. And I have this one, which technically speaking is more of an acrylic brush, I think, than a watercolor brush. This is a Princeton Select Lunar Blender one inch. I never have used this on my acrylic paints and I only have used it on my watercolor and I love it for texture. I love the way the ends of the bristles are shaped. I love that it's stiff. I can dip it into a really thick mixture of watercolor paint. It leaves a really great texture on the page. And the master's touch flats come really big like this three inch, they're priced really well, really nice soft bristles. They hold a lot of water, the bristles don't fall out and you can use your 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby. These are from Hobby Lobby. I have little brushes. I don't even know where I got in here too. Probably they came free with something. This one says Alex on it. I don't know where that came from. But see, I have some Grumbacher brushes. Here's another one. Grumbacher Academy Flat, number two flat. These are fun. These are a flat brush, but it's a pointed filbert. So you could do all kinds of different brush strokes you can do with a flat or filbert brush, but you can also get a really sharp line like you would with a round pointed brush because of the way the end of the bristles are shaped. And I was so intrigued by this brush I bought it in a couple sizes. See, here's another one. This is by the Neptune, but it's basically, look at the same kind of like pointed filbert brush. You don't need all of these brushes to get started. You really only need, this one, is this one? Yeah. So you really only need like, this is a half inch flat. You could do a three quarter inch flat, but I probably wouldn't do any bigger than that. If you have the budget, you could do one of each. These are both Princeton and Neptune. And then I would do a couple of round ones. I would do a smaller one, like a number four, something that's small and pointy. And then I would do a bigger one, like this is a 16. So you really only need like these. I have a lot of watercolor brushes, but to get started, you don't need all of these. You really only need these. You could do it with this many, three, four at the most. That's it. And we're gonna be talking about specifically about, you know, in the paid watercolor course, we're gonna be talking about brushes as we go along. I'm gonna be real specific. And as a PDFs come out going forward with watercolor Wednesday, I will be putting the brushes I use in the demo in the PDF so that you guys know exactly what I'm using for sizes. But remember that the number four in the Princeton Select may look completely different in a different brand. The size may be different. This is a number five grumbocker. And this lighter blue one is a number four Princeton Select. The top is about the same size, but the description, the numbers are different. So you wanna keep that in mind. The width on this is, let's see, like an eighth of an inch at the end of that, right at the top of the bristles. And this one's like three eighths. So you wanna get a small one and a like medium. This isn't a large, this is a medium because your large would be more like this. And round brushes for the most part, I like brushes that really hold their shape that come to a nice point so that you can either do a flatter stroke or you can do a nice fine line, a point. And it's good to have a small one and a medium one and then you need a flat. You could do a half inch flat or a three quarter inch flat but you don't need to have lots of brushes to get started. Just make sure that the bristles will stay in. When I first got started, I bought lots of really, really cheap brushes like Artis Loft and some of their brushes are fine but some of them, the bristles come out like crazy. And there's nothing like working on a piece of artwork and halfway through your artwork realize that the painting is full of bristles that you've got all these bristles stuck in it. Now it's quiet, now that the trolls are gone. So that's brushes. You can of course get real squirrel and real other kinds of animal hair. And I'm not necessarily against that but they're a lot more expensive than the synthetic brushes. So just be aware of that. I'm gonna try, let's see. Got all these weird kinds of glue left over from the scrapbooking days that surprisingly enough are not dried up which kind of shocks me. Like this scotch scrapbooker's glue. Other thing about making these little cards is you can use up lots of things like that. Might be easier than the tape runner. So anybody else have any other questions? Unless you're on a serious budget constraint, I would stay away from like the really super cheap kinds of watercolor paints like Crayola and that if you're on a budget and you're totally not sure if this is gonna be the thing for you then of course, if that's all you can afford to start with that I did. Know that going forward that that artwork is not archival that those colors are gonna fade over time and you might want to think about scanning your artwork right after it's done and dry so that you have a good clean pristine image. So to clean my brushes, I use Murphy's oil soap and water and that's true for my acrylic brushes and my watercolor brushes. But if I catch my watercolor brushes the right way, I just give them a good rinse of water. I don't use the Murphy's on them unless I've forgotten to clean them. But the Murphy's is really great on your acrylic brushes, especially if you catch one like I did the other day. Let's see if I can get a rag. Hang on, I'll show you guys how soft it is now. Okay, this brush has been soaking for a couple of days because I caught it the other day and I guess I forgot to stick it in the water and it was dry as a rock. Literally you could have pounded nails with it. It was as hard as the handle, the bristles. It's been soaking in Murphy's for three days and look. So the next thing to do is you can see some of this white in here. I'm pretty sure I must have used glue on it or something. So I'm gonna lay it on a hard surface and scrape it out with a palette knife. I guess I can actually show you guys, let's see. I need to grab a palette knife, let's see. So you want a palette knife, something that's metal. I know, right? So, and this has happened to me a couple of times. I probably shouldn't say that out loud. So I'm gonna put this rag. So without rinsing out any of the Murphy's or the water, you want to leave the soap in there and then you wanna take your palette knife and look at all that. That's what was stuck in the paintbrush. Murphy's oil soap, like the stuff you clean your furniture with. Now I know you can't get it everywhere worldwide. That you can order it in Amazon. But literally, this was that hard up here. Like, I wish I should have filmed it for you guys. It was so hard. And you just keep scraping it until you get, feel like you've gotten all the gunk out. And you need something with a hard semi-sharp edge, like a metal palette knife. If I couldn't find a palette knife, I could probably do this with this ruler because it's metal. Yeah, you just soak them for a couple of days. And now this works on stencils and stuff too. In fact, I clean a lot of stuff with Murphy's. There was a YouTuber, the art junkie. She did a thing about stencils, cleaning stencils with Murphy's. The trick to cleaning stencils with Murphy's is to use a lot of Murphy's oil soap. Now you may lose some bristles, but I can sacrifice a few bristles if it means I'm not gonna lose the whole brush. Let's see now, look, nothing's coming out. But Murphy's oil soap will clean the paint off your brushes. It'll clean the paint off your stencils. It'll clean the paint off your clothes if you can't count it right away. Journal Artista, that's it. Journal Artista, hey Cindy. She did a really great video about cleaning stencils with Murphy's oil soap. And the trick to it, like she said, is just using a lot of Murphy's and not skimping out on the Murphy's. If you use enough Murphy's, the paint just peels right off your stencils. I'm a fabulous one for never cleaning my stencils until the design starts to get gunked up. Yeah, so glue. I've had a few of these brushes where I've forgotten I used glue on them. And then by the time I find them, they're hard like rocks. But I've been able to save them every single time by soaking the brush in Murphy's for two or three days. One time I had to soak it for a week. This one was really bad. This one was bad, but that one was worse. The trick is to put it in a jar or container with some more Murphy's than water. I always put a little bit of water in a whole bunch of Murphy's. But the whole mixture together shouldn't go over the metal part of your brush. So you don't wanna have the water and Murphy's come up to here. It shouldn't go over the ferrule. If it does, then, oh, see, hey. If it does, then it's gonna crack your handle. So you just need like a couple inches of Murphy's and water and just leave it in there for a couple of days and all that stuff's gonna come out. See, there's still some in there. See that? That's what's making my brush hard. You're welcome. So I know when I first started, you know, nobody, you see all these art tutorials and they don't talk about cleaning your supplies or finishing the artwork. Like varnishing it, should you varnish it or not? Like when I first started painting, like nobody, I didn't see any stuff like that. So yes, you should seal your artwork. Whether it's watercolor or acrylic, you should seal your artwork. Now, if you're working with a water-soluble material, use some kind of aerosol spray. Tap the screen just, well, mine just went sideways and I didn't even touch it. Let's see, can I fix it? You know, I'm always watching myself sideways. No, I'm sideways. So you should, yes, you should seal your artwork. It helps protect the paint and give it longevity whether you're working with watercolor or acrylic. I may need to soak this a little longer because there's some dry glue like stuck inside there. I can see it. That's not coming out. A lot of it came out, but not all of it. Oh, good. So, you know, if you're working with watercolor, use a spray sealer. If you're not gonna work on it anymore, then use a Krylon sealing spray. Periscope is being weird, yeah, I agree. If you're not sure if you're gonna work on it again, use a, they have a workable fixative. I like their matte finish spray. If you're working on acrylic or mixed media, you definitely wanna spray, if it's mixed media piece, you wanna spray the surface with the workable fixative or spectra fix first before you do anything because if you've got water soluble media on there, you don't want it to move around when you put the sealer on. So do that first, let it dry completely and then do your sealer. I use spectra fix or matte finish spray. Then use any kind of sealer. You can use, Liquitex has a gloss medium and varnish works great. You can use Mod Podge, but know that after you, or Decopage, know that after you put that on there, that you should put a layer of wax so that the canvas or page doesn't stay sticky because those two mediums tend to stay sticky. But yes, you should, yes, Gina B. Arons on YouTube. This is me. If you Google this, you're gonna find me all over the dang place. I'm everywhere, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, you know, I'm everywhere. So yes, you should seal your work. They don't tell you that when you get started right away. Even if it's a journal page, you should give it a coat of wax, Daddy Vans. Most of us use Daddy Vans wax. It's inexpensive, it's easy to use, it's natural. I have, what is it, Dorlan's? Yeah, I have Dorlan's. Dorlan's has a chemical smell and you need to wear gloves when you use it. Daddy Vans is beeswax, all natural beeswax. So you could do it with your bare hands and a paper towel. It's gonna seal your page and it's gonna protect your page and if you have anything acrylic on there or like Mod Podge or DecoPage, it's gonna prevent it from sticking to the other page next to it. Even if you're doing a mixed media canvas, you should still seal it, spray it with like a spectrophix or workable fixative, then cover it with a varnish, a gloss medium, Mod Podge, DecoPage, whatever, and then put a coat of wax. You could use either one of these waxes, but like I said, this is a chemical and you need to wear gloves and it stinks. And I have asthma, so I don't do this unless I'm outside and have a mask on. My preference is Daddy Vans. DecoPage also makes, I'm sorry, DecoArt. Oh. You guys went flying, did you see that? Holy crap. I don't know where the other little thing went now. Holy moly, hang on a second. Hey, how are you? I gotta fix the camera, you went flying. I touched something and you went flying because you know, that's the story of my life. Are you awake now, Mark? I don't even know, are you guys the right way? You have to tell me if you're upside down now. I did a little piece when it went flying across the studio. Yes, okay, good. Wow, we're awake now, aren't we? So you definitely want to seal your, even your journal pages seal them. You know, like I said, most of us use like Daddy Vans because it's a natural product and it's easy to get and it's cheaper than Dorlan's. I like Spectra Fix because it's non aerosol and I can use it without wheezing. But Matte Finish, Workable Fixative or Matte Finish Spray are both Krylon. They're both aerosol products, they both work great. You have to use them in a well-ventilated area out like outside and if you have asthma, if you have asthma wear a mask. Okay, see you later. I will probably put this up on YouTube, that's what I usually do in a day or two. And yeah, definitely, you know, Murphy's Oil Soap should be a studio staple because it will clean your brushes, it'll clean your stencils. It gets the paint out of my clothes. It's fabulous stuff. So I would definitely stock up on Murphy's Oil Soap if you haven't already. I always have a jar here sitting here. This is my acrylic dirty paint jar. It's just an old jelly jar. You can tell it's been well-loved and, you know. It's good and icky. And it's always got a few inches of Murphy's Oil Soap in the bottom with some water. And this is where I stick my brushes and I try not to let it get too full or let them sit in here too long and then I go out into my sink in the garage and go wash them off and clean them. And for your stencils, you can get a 12 by 12 paper storage box. And that's really big for even the biggest size stencil. And you can use that, oh good. You can use that 12 by 12, the bottom of the 12 by 12 box to soak your stencils in with your Murphy's Oil Soap in a little bit of water. And they fit in there perfectly, nice and flat. And just leave them soak in there for a couple of days. If they're bad like mine, my stencils usually all look like this. This is actually kind of clean. I don't know if you can tell. Let's see, let me get the back of something that's white. This is Punchinella and it actually was gold like this color here. But yeah, because I don't really, I mean I'm bad about cleaning my stencils. But after a while you have to clean them because the acrylic paint builds up and starts to gum up the design. If you have a very detailed design, then it will start to block up the holes. And what's one of the other basics, water color basics. So it should be common sense. But even I forget occasionally. When you, after you've been, are done painting with your watercolor paints and your palettes nice and wet, don't close the box up and put it away. Leave it open and let it dry and then put it away. You don't want anything to stay, be moist and stay moist and get moldy. Now, you know, if you've been working with your paints and they were really moist and wet when you were done and you just close it up and put it away without letting them dry, you take the chance of them getting moldy. So you want to let them dry. Especially if you have a box that seals really well. What's another good tip? Oh, I just thought of an acrylic tip. And this is a reminder of something I saw a while back that actually does work. Somebody posted on YouTube this morning about a homemade stay wet palette. And I don't remember who it was, but somebody I noticed posted it this morning and I've seen that kind of tip before. A rubber made makes a food storage container that has little wings on the side. That when you push the lid down and you click the sides, there's a rubber gasket in the lid and the whole thing seals really, really tightly. You can get one of those. You can lay in the bottom a thin piece of chamois or sponge and then use wax paper or parchment paper on top of it to create your own stay wet palette. A stay wet palette is usually used with acrylic paint to keep your paints from drying out in between uses. And depending on what kind of palette you have, the paint can stay wet for a really long time. If you don't use that, as you all know, you just use a regular palette. It's open to the air, it's dry in a few hours. If you use a stay wet palette, it can stay wet and moist for weeks. So you just get the sponge or chamois damp and you wring most of the water out, lay it in the bottom. Then you get your parchment paper damp, lay that on top. Then you put your paint on that and when you're done painting, you just seal it up, put the lid on it and seal it up. It keeps the little bit of moisture that's in there keeps the paint wet without it getting moldy. There's a lot of YouTube videos on that too. If you go to YouTube and you Google homemade stay wet palette, stay wet palettes are great, but they're really pricey. Any other questions? Art supply related, watercolor related, no trolls. We've already blocked our fair share of them this morning. All right, well, I hope you guys all have a great Thanksgiving. Next week we will be back and we will be working on our bird of paradise flower, watercolor painting here on Watercolor Wednesday. There is a PDF available in my Etsy shop. You can find the link for it at jeanobierns.com. If you go to the contact me page, there should be a whole bunch of links to like all of the places you can find on social media. There is a list for upcoming watercolor episodes and subject matter that we're gonna be working on. I will on the Facebook group, a life of art and self-expression, the link you can also find at jeanobierns.com. So if you have something in particular you wanna see, add it to the comments and I'll put it in there. Somebody suggested snow recently and I haven't added that yet, but we will work on it. We'll do it like a snowy landscape. We did landscapes once already, but there's so many million ways to do a landscape, so we'll do another one. I think that's it right now. I talked to my husband into taking me out to Hobby Lobby today, because if I'm gonna go shopping, I'm gonna go today, I'm not gonna go Friday. So just think about two, you know, oh good. Yeah, I'm glad. So, you know, this is just a Q and A. Usually we come out here on Wednesdays and we do painting tutorials with watercolor, but it's the holidays. I figured we'd just do a Q and A. Look for me on YouTube. Like I said earlier, if you just Google my name, Gina B. Arons, all one word are separately. Gina, Bs and boys, my middle, initial, and Arons. You're gonna find me all over the place, but if you go to my website, links for all of my classes, channels, stores, my blog pages there, like all that stuff is there. So just go here and that'll save you a lot of searching. All right, and the watercolor Wednesday videos always show up on YouTube a day or two later. So I will, and I'll make sure that this one gets up there. It's gonna be no different. If you guys have any questions, ask. I'm here to answer your questions and I have the new watercolor paid for class coming up for the new year, so that's gonna be fun. And I love doing these free tutorials though too. They're not gonna stop. I'll see you all later. Those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving have a happy one with family. Unfortunately, we're doing a lot of driving, so that's all right. I'd rather drive than be at the mall. We are gonna go hiking this weekend, enjoy the fresh outdoors instead of being stuck in the mall. Don't be too hard on yourself when you're working with watercolors, arzology. Just experiment and play and have some fun. Make some little cars, do something that you enjoy and spend time with family, and I'll see you all next week when we will be painting Bird of Paradise. Yeah, see, don't be so hard on yourself. You think you did a fine job, but make that color key. You need to make the color key. All right, I'll see you all later. Have a great day. Bye.