Paletteful Packs – March 2022 

What is Paletteful Packs?
Contents
Prices
Supplies
Prompts

Contents

1. Cobra Water-Mixable Oil Paint: 3-Color Study Set, Ivory Black, Titanium White
2. Art Alternatives Stretched Canvas 6″ x 6″
3. Art Alternatives Canvas Panel 6″ x 6″ or 5″ x 7″ and 8″ x 8″ or 8″ x 10″
4. Robert Simmons Sapphire Brushes: Filbert Brush, Fan Brush
5. Art Alternatives Plastic Painting Knife Set 
6. A sticker

Prices

I paid 35$ (around 145 PLN) for the pack plus 15$ for shipping (~62,5 PLN) and 40 PLN (around 10$) for customs fees. Altogether it was 60$/245,5 PLN. Let’s see what’s the actual cost of the items inside the package.

• Cobra Water-Mixable Oil Paint: 3-Color Study Set – MSRP: $7.99 / 33,97 PLN. This set as well as any 10ml Cobra paint isn’t available in Poland. The smallest ones I found are 20ml but they come in a set of 6 the lowest. That set’s price is around 74,20 PLN (on SklepPlastyczny.pl), which makes 12,36 per paint. Half of that times tree makes 18.54 PLN which is significantly less than MSRP but I’m not sure how much the set would have cost in Poland if they were available, so I’ll just calculate the suggested price.
• Cobra Water-Mixable Oil Paint: Ivory Black, Titanium White  – MSRP: $8.60 / 36,64 PLN per one. Available on ArtSzał for 15,98 PLN / 3,75 USD each.
• Art Alternatives Stretched Canvas 6″ x 6″ – MSRP: $10.99 / 46,74 PLN. As I mentioned in my previous posts – Art Alternatives products aren’t available in Poland so I look up a similar product, also we use centimetres rather than inches. The closest product to Art Alternatives’ canvas I found is an AK ART canvas on ArtSzał for 18,60 PLN / 4,37 USD.
• Art Alternatives Canvas Panel 6″ x 6″ or 5″ x 7″  – MSRP: $2.79 / 11,87 PLN. I couldn’t find any square canvas panel with similar dimensions available in Poland but prices of panels close to 5″ x 7″ dimensions are between 2,30 PLN and 9,80 PLN (0,54-2,30 USD)
• Art Alternatives Canvas Panel 8″ x 8″ or 8″ x 10″ – MSRP: $4.19 / 17,83 PLN. A 20×20 cm panel (of a differend brand) would cost in Poland around 5,70 PLN / 1,34 USD (on maluje.pl)
• Robert Simmons Sapphire Brushes: Filbert Brush – MSRP: $18.29 / 77,85 PLN, Fan Brush  – MSRP: $20.15 / 85,77 PLN. not available in Poland.
• Art Alternatives Plastic Painting Knife Set MSRP: $4.39 / 18,69 PLN. I found a very similar set of 6 here on e-plastyczny.pl and it costs 13 PLN / 3,05 USD.

The estimated price of all the supplies is a total of $81.60 / 347,59 PLN. The real price (what I would have paid if I bought the supplies myself) is 63,85 / 271,85 PLN which is higher than what I’ve actually paid. Mind that besides the 40ml tubes of paints nothing from the pack is available in Poland so in some cases, I picked dupes that we can buy here and in others – I calculated the suggested price which might have been different from the actual prices if the products were available to buy in Poland.

Supplies

Cobra Water-Mixable Oil Paint

Cobra is Royal Talens’ line of water-mixable oil colors. Cobra is a professional oil paint with the same high-quality pigments and viscosity you know and love, without having to use harmful solvents. These water mixable oil colors have a high degree of light-fastness and under museum conditions will remain unchanged for at least 100 years. The solvent-free, water mixable oil paint gives the same great result as traditional oil paint including even brush strokes and long-lasting fade resistant color. 

• 3-Color Study Set
• Ivory Black
• Titanium White

LW NOTE: I’ve already tried Cobra paints before and I loved them. Before that I’ve only used acrylic paints and I wanted to try oils but they seemed complicated and you needed some additional chemicals which I didn’t want to deal with, so when I saw oil paints that used water rather than oil and turpentine to work with I just had to try them. And I love them! If you know Polish you can read about my first impressions after using the paints here. Long story short – the paints have a specific, intense smell that may be too much to stand for more sensitive people. For me, the smell is unpleasant but bearable for a while, but the best is still to air the room/studio. The paints are thick and creamy, they mix with each other very well, a bit worse with water but they ARE water mixable so it’s not difficult to dilute them with water either. They take several days to dry completely, depending on the humidity and temperature in the room.

Art Alternatives Canvas Surfaces 

Artists have been using canvas for oil painting for more than three hundred years and we suggest you do too. These canvases are primed with acid-free acrylic titanium gesso and ready for you to paint on.

• Stretched Canvas 6″ x 6″
• Canvas Panel 6″ x 6″ or 5″ x 7″
• Canvas Panel 8″ x 8″ or 8″ x 10″

LW NOTE: I don’t have much to say here. These are nice, good quality surfaces, I’ve never had any issues with them.

Robert Simmons Sapphire Brushes

The Sapphire line of brushes is designed for artists working in all mediums who love the pointing, color holding, spring and smooth application of natural sable, but also demand the durability associated with synthetic brushes. The handles are made of kiln-dried beechwood and the ferrules are precision engineered and 22 kt gold-plated. A unique blend of the finest red Kolinsky hair and synthetic filaments delivers the ultimate painting experience. Each brush is hand-made and carries a lifetime guarantee. 

• Filbert Brush
• Fan Brush

LW NOTE: These brushes are of very good quality. I’ve used a filbert one from this series in my fairy painting and it worked like a dream. This time though I refused to work with them because even though the above description says it’s for all mediums, the label on the brushes specifically says they’re meant for watercolours. I did use the filbert brush for acrylics but I was afraid of destroying these delicate brushes with oils, so instead, I’ve used my older brushes that are meant to use with acrylics and oils. But I’m happy I got them, I will use them in other projects that don’t involve oil paints!

Art Alternatives Plastic Painting Knife Set 

These durable molded plastic knives are an affordable choice for all artists. A safe alternative to metal knives they are non-staining and easy to clean. The set includes one each; straight, trowel and diamond trowel palette knives as well as narrow trowel and wide angle painting knives.

LW NOTE: What can I say. I don’t normally use palette knifes so maybe these are very useful but being plastic they make an impression of cheap and tacky. I didn’t use them in the painting because, to be honest, I completely forgot about them. That only says how impressive they are 😉 But again, for people who do use this kind of tools, they might be very useful!

A sticker

This time I’ll actually comment on the sticker because I love it! It’s the first one that I actually used and I put it on my new laptop 🙂

Prompts

• Prompt #1: Sky
• Prompt #2: Black and White
• Prompt #3: Still Life
• Prompt #4: History

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I instantly knew I wanted to paint the sky with these paints but ended up painting something actually not so obviously showcasing sky. I mean, the sky is still there, but visually it’s only part of the image, not the main theme. Byt then, the road leads to it so in a way it’s still the main theme, I think… What do you think? Here is the finished image for this month’s pack (blog post with process coming soon!).