inspiration blog

Cosy up inside with a little watercolour and doodle project in the long, cold December days! We, Trine Holmvard and Gitte Klaussen from @KreativLivsstil, created an easy step by step guide for you to make cute little Christmas art without having to be a master of watercolours or drawing. We invite you to follow along!

As the leaves change and the air turns crisp, autumn paints the world in cozy hues. It's the season for snuggling into warm sweaters, discovering the charm of pumpkins and mushrooms, and finding inspiration in the art of nature's transformation. In this blog, by Paper Den, we will step-by-step explain how to create an autumn inspired Gouache artwork!

From the wag of their tail to the sparkle in their eyes, our pets are more than just animals; they are cherished members of our families. So, what better way to honor the companionship and affection they give us than by creating a beautiful artwork of your pet? In this step-by-step plan, Karen, from Paper Den will give you all the tips you need to turn a picture of your pet into a masterpiece using gouache paint!

Violets are often found in landscapes in the form of flowers and other plants, but when you look at impressionists’ works, you can find hints of violet hidden in snow, for example. Van Gogh loved using violets in skies and even faces. Aside from being a useful colour for various artworks, violet is also a colour with deep meaning. It is the colour that represents the pope, wealth and spirituality, though it can also be the colour of mourning and loss. Violet may seem like a simple colour, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Green is the colour that is most distinguishable for us humans. Our eyes are more sensitive to green than any other colour. Remarkably enough, there are only a few green pigments on the market. This does not mean there is not a huge variety of green paints, however. Quite the contrary: there are opaque and transparent greens, yellowish greens, blue greens and even black greens. All these different shades allow you to achieve various effects in your paintings.

There are many shades of blue in the Rembrandt oil colour collection that may look similar at first glance, but each have their own unique characteristics. Each blue has its own undertone which can lean either towards green or towards red, also called ‘green shaded’ or ‘red shaded’ respectively. This undertone also determines the colour temperature of the shade: shades with red undertones are warm blues, while green undertones create cold blues.

Red pigments are the most widely available pigments by far. Each of these red pigments has its own unique properties. The entire range of Rembrandt oil paints offers the highest degree of lightfastness, so all colours have the same excellent lightfastness. Other properties such as opacity, lightfastness, colour temperature, undertone and tinting strength, however, can differ immensely between seemingly similar shades of red.

Cadmium shades are intense, highly pigmented and truly opaque oil colours. They feature high tinting strength, achieving maximum results with only small amounts. Then why do we also offer so-called permanent colours as cadmium alternatives? Find out in this blog and watch the video to see the demonstration of their differences.