Painting and Mont Marte Watercolor Paints Review

Painting is an extension of drawing. It adds life to a pencil sketch or an inked art. While almost all of us have started as children who can doodle vivid images straight away from our little visual imagery with just about anything in hand, not all will grow up as descendants of Picasso or Da Vinci.

Perhaps as we grow older, our fondness for art subsides to a cryogenically preserved state due to intervening circumstances. The quest for getting good grades, house chores, new found friendship or even having unsupportive parents are just some of the things that may get in the way.

But why revive a hibernating fascination to art, you say?

Well, uhm, according to some scientific studies, getting oneself immersed in some artistic undertakings can have a positive effect to our brain and to our well-being. Sketching, for instance, increases our creativity and improves motor skills.

Painting, on the other hand, can have more beneficial impacts than drawing alone. According to Fox Hill Residences, painting could improve the overall quality of life. The following are six great benefits of painting that promotes mental health and life in general:

·         Fosters creative growth.

·         Strengthens memory.

·         Builds Problem-Solving and Motor Skills

·         Offers Stress Relief

·         Promotes Optimistic Attitude.

·         Nurtures Emotional Growth.

I guess I was in the right direction when, in the latter months of 2014, I began to scale down on other stressful activities and chose to resuscitate the dying artistic side of me.

Having said too much about painting, I feel a bit guilty for blowing up the introduction. Hence, let’s move on to our simple review of the Mont Marte Paints in 12 tubes.

Here are my Mont Marte watercolor brushes that I bought from Theodist. As opposed to acrylic or oil brushes, these have soft bristles. I originally did not know that watercolor needs particular brushes, until I noticed that I had been damaging papers from using the wrong brush. 

There are four ingredients to a good watercolor painting: perseverance, the quality of paints, the strength of paper and the right set of brushes.  If you have any of these, consider yourself lucky. 

Just recently, I discovered these two items at Theodist. I’m not sure why other stationery shops here in Papua New Guinea do not bother selling quality art materials like these, but I’m thankful that Theodist does.

The Mont Marte Watercolour Pad, in A4 size, is a 300-gsm cold press paper. It’s thicker than the average photocopy paper and is textured. The Mont Marte Watercolour paints come in 12 tubes filled with richly pigmented colors.

That is a good addition to my Mont Marte Two Seasons watercolors, which has 18 tubes of more subtle colors. I have a similar post about the Two Seasons which you can read on this link.

Here’s my sketch on the Mont Marte Watercolour paper for this painting. After some experimenting, I have established four types of pencil sketches for different media. For anime-inspired sketch, pencil sketch is more sharper. For charcoal portrait, it needs to be firm but subtle. For color pencil, the sketch should be almost invisible and for watercolour, the lines have to be sharp and the shades sketched roughly or a little bluntly.

The model that I’m about to paint is of someone that I browsed from Google by typing “Beautiful Face” on the search bar. It’s funny that when I browse this again, her photo doesn’t show up in the list anymore.

I hope she doesn’t get on me if she finds out that I made a watercolor portrait of her.

Here’s the sketch taped on the board. The board is just the backboard of an ordinary A4 photo frame. I’m using a masking tape to stretch the paper on the board. The paper usually warps when applied on with too much water. This technique, somehow, reduces that effect.

I love to use the medium-sized brush in the beginning. I usually start with applying transparent colors on areas that I expect to have darker shades.

Here’s the final product of using Mont Marte Watercolour Paints and Mont Marte Two Seasons Watercolour. Both watercolors complement each other very well and adheres nicely on the Mont Marte Watercolour paper.