Grumbacher Black Diamond and Academy Brushes

Oh how I love new art supplies!

If you are in need of new brushes {for paint, that is}, I highly recommend the Grumbacher Academy Multimedia and Black diamond brushes.

First and foremost, I love the way that they fit in your hand. The sleek black handles have a textured rubberized finish on them, so you don't have to worry about your paintbrush getting away from you while you're painting. They're light weight and easy to manouever, which is a huge bonus if you're working on a large piece.

The Academy brushes are amazing for blending colours together. They're so soft and really blend the colours in a beautiful way. The end result, even with acrylics, is a highly blended painting.

Now, the difference that I found between the Black Diamond and the Academy brushes were the coarseness of the bristles. The Black Diamond bristles were coarser, which lends well to detail work and hard lines when you want to work contrast into your piece. The Academy brushes blend it all beautifully together and soften those lines.

The round brushes are perfect for small strokes and detail work. While made with the same soft bristles in the Academy line, since they are are smaller they work to highlight certain areas of your painting.

All in all, these paintbrushes are by far the best ones that I have used in a very long time. My favourite feature is the rubberized handle, and I most definitely have a new favorite brush in the large round blending brush!

*I was provided these brushes and paints by Grumbacher Art for the purposes of this review. All opinions are my own.

Grumbacher Academy Acrylics

As we all know, I have a deep and profound love of acrylic paint. The viscosity, the building of layers...it all has a very special place in my heart, so when this box of gorgeousness arrived from Grumbacher at my door, it was like Christmas morning.

I had a project in the works, two large painted glass ornaments, and I wondered how the acrylics would do on a rather nontraditional surface. Acrylics, typically, are used on canvas or board {at least in my studio} but the results on glass were exactly what I was looking for.

First, I mixed the Cadmium Yellow and Ultramarine to get  really awesome forest green colour. I was really impressed that while the paint is nice and thick, it comes out of the new plastic tubes very easily. The paint blended really well together, another bonus since some acrylics resist one another and never fully mix.

Next, I went to town with the small angled brush {stay tuned for a full brush review next week} to paint my ornaments.

I was really impressed with how the paint held up. I've found in the past that layering with wet acrylics either means that you need a tonne of paint, or that you're setting yourself up for frustration as when you paint one layer over another typically the underlayer wipes away. Not with the Grumbacher Academy Acrylics. They are so nicely buildable, I was able to create such dimension and depth in the trees.

All in all, these acrylics are top notch. I really enjoyed using them, and would highly recommend putting a tube or two of the new Academy Acrylics under the tree for the artist in your family this holiday season!

disclosure: I was provided the Grumbacher Academy Acrylic and brushes by Grumbacher for the purposes of doing a review post on my blog.