I love an art haul, it’s like opening them myself when I watch. 😊 I’m blown away by your quilts, there’s no end to your talent! x

Nice haul, the square hold punches are shouting my name. Now I’ll have to check out some oil pastels. Just filled my Amazon cart with wished for items. It will be a while, since I had packages arrive yesterday and more on its way. Not sure if I have enough lifetimes to play with what I already have but play I will. Thanks for the ideas. These art videos cropping up on my feed are dangerous, full of inspiration and mayhem. Love it!

Lovely! I’d love to see more of your process with oil pastels. I have the mungyo set but have always been intimidated by this medium. I cannot use any spray fixatives so I’m also curious about alternatives to it. The stencil looks really nice also, I might get one.

So fun! Helen, I swear I could hear you almost vibrating with excitement when opening the Mont Marte box lol. There is nothing better than a new set of anything with a pile of colors - all that POSSIBILITY just sitting there fresh and clean :-) If you end up liking the Nova sketchbook, there is also a Nova trio version available in some sizes that has grey, black, and beige in it; it's quite fun to play around with!

In Australia Mont Marte supplies are carried in $2 shops.

These pastels look amazing on the tanned paper! They seem more like a mix between soft and oil pastels. I kind of like this consistency from your swatching session.

The hahn toned 200gsm is my preferred paper for acrylic markers. The RF look like so much fun. I need to resist, I cannot branch out into oil painting.

You can get Strathmore toned series such as tan or black or blue etc in mixed media version - 270 gsm. It’s the same stuff but much thicker.

I love love love the Hahnemühle sketchbooks. they are my go-to together with the Strathmore watercolour sketchbook.

That first book interests me. I'm also a fan of peeking in other people's sketchbooks. A few of my favorite older books for this are "The artist's journal workshop" by Cathy Johnson. Also two books by Danny Gregory, "An illustrated life" and "An illustrated journey" I love the variety of colors in the oil pastel set, especially the lighter pastel colored ones. I haven't tried oil pastels yet, they're kind of messy for my liking, so I might try pastel pencils first, at some point, but I'm on a no buy from now until hubby finds another job. I've been stocking up on my most used stuff since we found out last Christmas that he was being made redundant in June, so I don't have any worries about running out of anything expensive for a while. My birthday was on Monday and I used my birthday money from my mum, to invest in some small bamboo storage drawers. I have three low wider 2 drawer units that now hold all my paint tubes and washi tapes and empty palettes. I also bought 4 taller and narrower 3 drawer units that now hold all my clips, pen refills/pencil leads, business cards, computer storage drives and SD cards, tools, and half pans I have, with a few empty drawers I can grow into later. Who knew regular half pans are a different size from portable painter and portable painter micro pans? Even the Meeden pans I got with a metal palette have a wider bottom and don't fit in some plastic cases I really like to use. Thankfully I've got them all sorted out now and I just need hubby to finish building the small shelf unit he's working on and then all my art supplies, art reference books, finished and new sketchbooks and computer bits and bobs, will all be tidied away. I can reclaim my desk from being a dumping ground/storage spot and I might have space to paint something bigger than A5 soon 🥳 Then it's my daughter's sewing, crocheting, and crafting supplies turn for some better storage. That has different criteria though, she needs to see it to use it and she needs much bigger storage for wool and fabric so we're still thinking that through.

Mont Marte is in all the newsagents and cheap stores over here in Aus - will have to try some of their products !

I love gouache on toned paper

Amazon is trying to persuade me to buy the Emma Block book too! I’m glad I’ve seen it, as the cover alone made me want it, but i resisted. Now I know I’ll like it. I have the same oil pastels but a smaller set. I love them but don’t use them enough

Titan Green Pale is one of my most used colours ❤

Lovely new haul items to drool over! I’ve hardly used the oil pastel sets (Gallery and Sennelier) I already own but I do love the colors in your new set! Hmmm… I have a 36 starter set of Liquitex acrylics but feel the need to branch out. Those Golden acrylics are calling to me! Thanks for sharing your haul. I look forward to seeing your new artwork with them!

I used to think toned paper was just a different color of paper to use, but after I researched how to use the paper, I was just amazed. Ohn Mar Win, on KZfaq, does an amazing tutorial on how to use this paper. Ever since then, it's really helped in my sketchbook studies.

Lovely purchases! The R&F sticks are so intriguing and those books look fantastic! I have all 3 of those toned paper books as well. Personally, I like the colour of the Strathmore and the Stillman & Burn the best. I ordered the Hahnemuhle online and was surprised by the yellowish tint, which was disappointing since the weight is nice. I use (and really like) the S&B for gouache but I don’t like it for watercolour, it doesn’t work for the way I use watercolour. Can’t wait to see you use everything!!

Like your quilts! A friend gave us a lovely blue/white one she made. After watching your”haul” I had oil pastels on hand & was inspired to use them. Really like the books you’ve bought! They all give inspiration even if it’s not a style we use. And, we can appreciate how much work is in each painting/ sketch & like the colours. Thanks.

That's plenty of toys you've got to play with there :o) The pigment sticks look great, I want to try them myself at some pint, but you know..... cash flow.... Onwards !!

I find the Mont Marte Oil Pastels are great in initial layers but I did find there was a point I needed to switch to my Mungyos to finish a piece. They were really cheap though and they get used.

I love the R and F sticks. I have the student grade ones which are good and a trial pack from sennelier.

Aww! Such a great art haul!

Mont Marte …. Popular brand in Australia and affordable

I love the quilting with paper idea! I might have to try that myself

Love the selection of materials!

What a great art haul,and lovely to see your beautiful quilts,I’ve just started to learn EPP on The Last Homely House with Kate,(another great you tube channel,)really enjoying that. Looking forward to seeing your work with your new art haul materials.❤

Those oil sticks look so luscious

There’s some lovely supplies in your haul! I bought the mont marte oil pastels to try a few months ago but I’m yet to open the box. It was nice to see your swatching. I’ve never used them before x

All of tools are so beautiful , my style too ❤

I got some oil sticks in a lot from an estate clean out. They have not been used in ages and are a bit mousy (mouse snacking on them). I am excited to see if any are still ok and will work after watching you use them. 😊

I just found some R&F sticks on sale at Blick! Lovely!

What size is your foam stencil? When I looked on Amazon it was really small, yours looked bigger.

great colors, thanks for sharing

Thank you for your interesting videos. I’m really intrigued by the oil sticks. I bought three from Sennelier, because I didn’t want to spend a lot of money and maybe then not like them. But I’m a little bit hesitant to take the plastic wrapper off, because I’m afraid they will try out if I’m not using them too often. Do you have any experience with that how to use them? Thanks😊😊

How would you compare the consistency of Mont Marte and Haiya pastes?

Makes me laugh when you say you've forgotten what you ordered. 😂