Sidetracked Along the Way to the Pen Show and a Wonderful Watercolor Related Haul

I left my house early with every intention of getting the pen show around the time weekend traders are allowed in. For some reason, my vehicle made a turn into a familiar parking lot. I made a quick stop to my local art supply shop. It’s one of those few times when I’m in the area, I might as well stop in. Also, I had received a flyer in the mail that my local art shop was turning into a Blick store.

When I stepped into the shop, I could have sworn I heard the angels singing. The store had a different feel and vibe to it. Bright and happy. I saw several employees organizing and stocking the shelves. The store was humming. I immediately saw Blick branding on pads of paper and other artist’s mediums. I also saw some cute artsy gift items.

I immediately grabbed one of their small hand baskets. You know, the smaller size baskets for just small items. No need going overboard when I had a pen show to attend.

I made my way down the sketchbooks and pads of paper aisle. I saw a lot of familiar brands. I was looking for unique items to try and add to my watercolor stash.

I found the watercolor aisle which had lots of paint palettes from various brands, pads of watercolor paper, and display cases filled with tubes of paint. I narrowed my focus on the Daniel Smith paints. One of the Blick employees mentioned they now carry the full line of colors in the store. It took me a while to go through the display case, but I was able to find the color I was looking for Coral Reef. I also added two new colors Imperial Purple and Quinacridone Burnt Orange.

Here’s my haul from the Blick Art store. I purchased the tiny pad of Legion Stonehenge paper to try out. Also the Fluid 100 paper pads is actually in a block format. It’s 100% cotton paper and I bought both 140lb and 300lb cold press finish. I haven’t tried this block-type format before. I’ll report back my findings here on my blog.

There were a few things I treated myself to and kind of related to celebrating my special month which happened to be in July. I also had a gift card from several Christmases ago that I did not have a chance to use until now. So this was a double whammy treat for me.

Out of all the items I found, I did find something that was much needed in my watercolor arsenal. The Blick empty watercolor half pans. I wasn’t sure if these were considered standard sized half pans. Would they fit in my current fave W&N plastic palette?

You can see in my picture (below) how my W&N palette is holding different kinds of half pans. My clear pans fit nicely in all of my palettes. I had purchased the clear pans a few years ago and they are currently no longer available. I ended up with some white half pans from Amazon. They sit high in the palette wells.

In the above picture, I have placed the two white half pans side-by-side to show the difference in sizes. On the right, you can see how the pan appears to be rectangle shape. This is the pan that sits higher in my palette. The pan on the left is slightly slanted towards the bottom. This slanted pan, which is the Blick brand, fits in my plastic palette.

The empty Blick half pan fits nice and snug in my W&N palette.

I’m very happy to finally find the right size half pans. Eventually I will swap out the old pans for the new ones. I also have three new tubes of paint that will need to be squeezed into the new half pans.

Tip: I wanted to include this picture of how I label my half pans. I use my Avery 5422 labels. I write the name of the paint color using a permanent ink marker. I then cut up the label into squares and place them on the bottom of the pans. That’s how I keep track of my pans of paint.