A month or so ago I went to the launch of a friend’s book and talked to a mutual friend who is an editor of a small press publishing venture about my adventures in art. Not long after, she got in contact to ask me if I was interested in doing a book cover illustration for a modern day comic fantasy book based on greek mythology.

When I went through my artwork for the Artist of the Month display some of it was from my days as an illustrator. I felt a mix of nostalgia and curiosity. I’d always wanted to do fantasy book covers, but during the years I ran the illustration business only a few came along, and none for a book. There was an interior illustration of a “friendly dragon” for the children’s education market, black and white internal sf magazine illustrations and one colour cover. I painted cover art for two of my books but my publisher didn’t use them, though they did go on some magazine covers later.

Looking at the art made me wonder if I could try fantasy art again, so my answer to my editor friend’s enquiry was ‘yes!’.

Once I knew what she wanted, and she approved some preliminary sketches, I bought two art materials that were entirely new to me: acrylic gouache and aquaboard.

It might seem crazy to tackle a professional job with a medium I’d never used, but the year of Daily Art gave me confidence that I can work out how to use new mediums pretty quickly, especially if they were similar to what I’d already used. I’d got pretty familiar with both acrylic and gouache during that year. As for aquaboard, I had a small piece from a bag of free art materials given out at an art society meeting, so I had a play with that with the acrylic gouache and liked it.

Both products weren’t available when I ran the illustration business, and they proved ideal for the job. The acrylic gouache dries flat like ordinary gouache, but it can be painted over without disturbing the previous layer. It dries really fast, but the drying retarder I use with normal acrylics worked really well with it. The aquaboard can be wiped almost clean if the paint is still wet, or the paint scratched off if it was dry. All these qualities allowed for the sorts of changes that happen in commissioned illustrations – and I certainly needed them. I wound up scraping off an entire arm and painting it in a new position, and changing the colour of the clothing and skin. I was also able to use the drying retarder as a tinted glaze to change the overall colour of an area.

Some days I had a bit of paint and time left over, so I added some art to my ideas sketchbook – preparing the surface for the cat and dog with gesso.

And I realised that I rather like acrylic gouache. It’s easier to use than acrylic, especially mixed with drying retarder. I wouldn’t say it was better or worse than gouache, because their reactive/nonreactive natures simply means they’re suited to different purposes and styles of working, but I may like it just as much.

In fact, I like it enough to buy a ‘student set’ of smaller tubes to take plein air painting or to still life sessions at the art society. It won’t replace oils, but it would be much easier to pack for a plane trip when I next go on a holiday.

Recently the art society I joined last year asked me to be their Artist of the Month. This is a ‘getting to know you’ exercise rather than a merit award, but still flattering to be asked. It involved hanging examples of my art and writing a short bio. Easy peasy.

Or so I thought. Turns out, I had artwork stored in five different rooms of the house. It included a small amount of surviving school work (almost every place I’ve ever lived has flooded or sprung a leak right where I stored my artwork), work from when I ran an illustration business, many years of work (mostly oils) made in workshops, a whole lot of life drawings, and the Daily Art works that haven’t yet found a home.

When it comes to framed paintings, I have either my favourite work (which I don’t want to let out of the house) or the least successful pieces of those worth framing. I’ve been better at selling or giving away art than I realised – and the portraits I did all went to the sitters. All this mades it difficult to gather a set of work that was good enough to display. In the end I chose one favourite figure painting because it is huge and will take up 1/3 of the space, an animal painting, a portrait loaned to me by the sitter, some life drawings, some Daily Art pieces and a recent still life.

In the process I did a some tidying up and a bit of culling. Mostly from the big pile of life drawings.

I found the first, and only, self portrait I’ve ever made. I was 14-15 years old.

Paul made me a folio holder on casters many years ago. After going through all my art I asked him to add shelves at the base for smaller pieces like Daily Art and still lives.

So participating in Artist of the Month had an extra benefit – making me get all my old and unframed art organised, locating some pieces I’d forgotten about or hadn’t seen in a while, and nudging us into updating the art storage.

It was a surprise when the June Sketchbox arrived on the 2nd, because the previous two boxes had arrived in the middle of the month. I don’t know if it was due to the Sketchbox organisers sending the international subscriber’s boxes out early or the couriers being extra efficient, but I was certainly delighted to receive it around the same time as other subscribers.

The only down side was that I’d just opened the January one and was still testing out it’s contents, so I waited a week before opening the June box. Initially the box seemed similar to the January one in that they both contained brightly coloured ink, but that’s the only way they were alike. June’s box contained reactive inks.

Unlike the permanent Inktense inks, the Hero Arts inks are meant to rewet, mingle, bloom and bleed. And they certainly do. The sampler I made didn’t hint at how much more reactive they could be.

The behaved themselves in the first artwork – leaving a gap between the background and the objects was a design decision that turned out to have an extra benefit.

It was only when I painted these marbles that I experienced some dramatic bleeding when one colour met another, even when the earlier colour had dried. Fortunately, the marbles were small and have no precise internal edges, so it didn’t matter.

I don’t see this volatility as a fault. It could be rather thrilling in the right situation. I know how it behaves now and can take advantage of that. Which is what I’m enjoying most about getting and exploring these subscription boxes.

The paper in this box is my favourite so far, because despite painting the entire sheet for the lorikeet artwork it stayed perfectly flat. Not the slightest buckle. I want more! The brush was excellent. I’d never normally consider outlining with a pink fine liner, but the Copic pen looks great. The white gel pen didn’t make a completely opaque line, but it was kind of cool how the colour underneath stained it. I used it four ways: as a correction fluid on the white surface, multiply coats to make white highlights, a single coat to lighten an area, and as a barrier layer to stop a new layer of colour bleeding into the one underneath.

I had subscribed to a three-month subscription, but since I’m having fun trying products that are new and/or new to me, I’ve let it tick over into another three month block. It’ll be interesting to see what comes in the next boxes – and if they’ll arrive at the start or the middle of the month.

Why am I writing about an art materials subscription box from six months ago? Well, waiting two weeks for the April one to arrive had me feeling a bit twitchy and impatient, so I figured if I ordered one of the previous boxes it would arrive right at the start of May, and distract me from the wait for May’s one.

Best laid plans, as they say. According the the tracking, the extra box didn’t ship until after the May one did, and yet the two arrived together mid May. So I decided to save the January one for the start of June, to keep me entertained until the June box arrived. Of course, the June box arrived two days after I opened the January one. By then I was pretty busy, so I waited another week before opening that one.

January’s box is all about Inktense products: pencils and paint pans that are water soluble when you apply but permanent when dry. It’s an appealing idea, especially for making a wash that, once dry, doesn’t shift when you overpaint it. Though I’ve done this with the acrylic inks that came with the Paletteful Packs box, bottles aren’t as portable as little paint pans.

I have to admit to being sucked into the internet culture surrounding these boxes, from watching YouTube videos of unboxings and testing to trying to take nice photos of the contents and the art I made and posting them on Instagram.

But by doing so, I’m learning about art materials that I probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise. The Inktense pans came up quite dark in my swatch and yet when I used them on the background of the bird painting they dried paler than I expected. The Inktense pencils, however, laid down intense pigment that stayed so when water was painted over them. I wound up layering pencil over paint. Which was a faster way to fill the background than colouring it all in with pencil then painting over it.

The paper buckled with use, but then watercolour paper does that if not pre-stretched. I didn’t like the brush – not even for the background – so only used it for the backgrounds. I tried applying masking fluid for the white spots on the mushrooms and was pretty happy with the result.

I can see myself using these products again, probably for laying down backgrounds in watercolour sketches. Maybe also for initial water-soluble guidelines, and when I need to quickly intensify colour in an area. Definitely worth adding to my travel sketching kit.

Having seen unboxing and testing videos of May’s art supplies, I was keen to try them, but I knew the box wouldn’t arrive until mid-March. A week before, I started picking reference photos from my phone and tested drawing the subjects in pen and watercolour marker. Of course, when it did arrive I was already ‘over’ those ideas and entirely different photos caught my attention.

The box contained graphite pencils, a white pastel pencil, liquid graphite and a lovely warm gold glimmer ink. There was also a pad of toned paper, a sharpener, a brush and an eraser pencil. The only supply I didn’t like was the eraser pencil, which was rather hard and scuffed the paper surface, so I used a standard eraser instead.

The first artwork was of a cat stretching, because it captured the feeling of “gimme, gimme right now”.

It didn’t come as well as I hoped, but it gave me a feel for the materials and taught me to avoid drawing with pencil until the ink or graphite was well and truly dry. Two days later I had a bit more time and did three pieces that I like much more. The suggested theme was “shadow”, so I looked for reference photos that might suit. The first was of our cat gazing out of the window. Most of it was drawn with pencil, with the liquid graphite added for the deepest shadow on the cat and day bed, and of course the glimmer ink watered down a little.

Then I found a reference for a sports car. After an initial sketch with pencils, I explored mixing the glimmer ink with the liquid graphite. It makes a useful greenish tone. By diluting, layering or mixing the graphite, ink and white pastel I could get quite a range out of what was a quite limited colour palette.

And finally, I tackled one of a heritage building at night. This took the longest, because of all the decorative details. The darkest areas are painted with liquid graphite – even the 14B pencil couldn’t approach it in blackness. I diluted the glimmer ink quite a bit to get more of a yellow shade than shimmery effect on the stone walls. The white pastel was used only on the light, and love how it conveys the glow.

Overall, this was a much more ‘arty’ box of materials, and much easier to use, than the previous box. I can see myself using everything in it again. Even the eraser pencil, which might prove more suitable on a different, stronger ground or be good for tweaking the surface colouring on a sculpture. My favourite was the liquid graphite, but I was most surprised by the versatility of the glimmer ink. SketchBOX have hinted that the next box will contain them, which I would very much like.