Another Newsflash!

Great Art www.greatart.co.uk are offering free delivery until the 28th October, providing purchases exceed £29.95p (normally £39.95p). They specify on the website any exceptions to this. The website is complicated but can be navigated with care.

Great Art offer a huge range of items for the watercolour artist. For the budget conscious, aren't we all, I suggest Centenaire paper is worth consideration. Centenaire is 100% cotton, whereas amongst the other budget papers sold, for example Bocklingford, Veneto and Brittannia,  are made from cellulose. Bockingford,  is usually described as made from `high quality wood pulp'. They also offer two `own label' budget papers in blocks. I have tried both but wasn't overly impressed - too hard a surface my main criticism.

 Great Art are German and deliver from Germany, but have a UK ordering telephone service and an English website. I have found their service excellent and have had no problems. It was suggested to me (by a competitor)) that they were a bit `rigid' if a problem occurs or items are out of stock.

Other products worth looking at are various watercolour paints, First Van Gogh, made by Talens whose premier line is the well-respected Rembrandt. I have used Van Gogh in my early days and it is good. The range of colours, 40 in all', is adequate unless you desire a really exotic palette. Downsides? No Cobalts or Cadmiums,with `hue' equivalents for the expensive blues, usually based on Phalo Blue (PB15) and white. They have other `student' makes, a misnomer if ever there was one, and have recently introduced the Pebeo range of 28 shades. Amongst artists quality Lukas is a great buy.

They also offer a massive range of brushes including synthetics and mixed hair brushes like the Da Vinci Cosmotop Mix B (used by Viktoria Prischedko and Piet Lap) much cheaper than sables.

My advice is always to shop around and compare prices before buying.