ArtSnacks Box for May 2019 and Review of Faber-Castell Gelatos

The ArtSnacks Box for May featured Faber-Castell Gelatos and a Marabu acrylic spray. Since this box featured Faber-Castell Gelatos, I included a review of my own Faber-Castell Brights set of 15. As you will see it kind of snowballed into an oil pastel review from there. For those who want to try out these supplies for themselves, I have included my Amazon and MisterArt affiliate links down below including my UK links.

When I opened the box this is what I saw. An acrylic spray!

Cutie Boots decided to check out the camera instead of the box.

The first item was a 50ml Marabu Mixed Media Art Spray. This is an acrylic spray and works well for backgrounds and large areas. I received the red orange color. This retails for around $3.95 to $5.99 a bottle on dickblick.com and Amazon.

You can never have too many waterbrushes! The second item was a Faber-Castell Water Brush. This one is a miniature water brush and has an ergonomic shape. It costs about $7 on Amazon.

Third there was a Spectra AD Marker. It is a double ended alcohol marker with a chisel nib and a brush nib. I got the True Blue color. These are available open stock on Misterart.com for $3.29 a piece.

Then there were two Faber-Castell Gelatos in Strawberry and Aqua Dolce colors. Gelatos are a soft oil pastel that is water soluble.

I also had a set of 15 Bright Color Gelatos that I had purchased previously and I wanted to try them out with the ArtSnacks Gelatos. I purchased this set from dickblick.com and the price ranges from $18 to $25. You can get several different sets or get them open stock on dickblick.com. They are also available on Amazon and the sets range from around $19 to $24 on their site.

This set of 15 comes with a paintbrush and two foam blenders. This set has pinks, blues, purples, greens, yellows, and oranges. The pastels are in a screw tube sort of like lipstick. Gelatos are also available open stock on Misterart.com for around $1.95 a piece when you join their VIP club and for $2.19 if you are not a club member.

There was also some samples of Stillman Birn Nova series paper. This paper is for mixed media and comes in Beige, Black, and Grey. Also included was an art supplies list and an ArtSnacks sticker. The Stillman Birn sketchbook with colored paper retails for around $26.33 on Amazon.

Doodlin ' Time!

The Marabu Mixed Media Art Spray worked well for making a paint splattered background.The Spectra AD Marker blended smoothly and had a beautiful blue color. The ArtSnacks Gelatos were very light in color and dissolved very well.

I swatched the set of 15 Bright colors. They go on the paper very smoothly sort of like butter. When I added water each color dissolved into a light color wash.

'Flowers in a Bucket Sketch'

by Ellie Taylor

This is my first attempt with the Gelatos and the supplies in the ArtSnacks box. I used the Marabu Art Spray for the background and made a rough (really rough) sketch of a bucket with the Spectra AD marker and tried to make flowers with the Gelatos. However, this didn't really work because the Gelatos were too transparent.

Since the Gelatos were too transparent, I decided to add another kind of water soluble oil pastels. I had a pack of 24 Portfolio Series water soluble oil pastels. This pack retails for around $8 to $9. These pastels are more like traditional oil pastels in that they are not as buttery soft or oily feeling and more like crayons. They don't seem to be as transparent as the Gelatos.

The Portfolio Series oil pastels come in packs of 12 or 24. This pack of 24 retails for around $8.04 on Amazon.

Inside the package there were two rows of colors and these oil pastels came paper wrapped with a pointed tip.

'Yellow Cactus Flowers'

by Ellie Taylor

This was my second attempt at using the Gelatos and this time I used the Portfolio Series oil pastels with them. The pointed tips of the Portfolio oil pastels helped give a little more detail on the cactus flower, but still not as much as I wanted. The Gelatos seem to work best as background colors. I used the yellow Gelatos dissolved with water to create a yellow wash on the flower petals. I used pink and green Gelatos for some of the flowers and the cactus part. Then I used the red and green Portfolio pastels on the edges of the petals and partially dissolved the lines with water. I still couldn't get the details that I wanted in the flower centers. Markers will definitely not work over the top of oil pastels so I had to sketch the flower with the Spectra AD marker first before I added any of the oil pastels.

So I was determined to figure these pastels out. This time I sprayed some of the Marabu Art Spray for the background and just used the Gelatos and the Portfolio oil pastels for the cactus flower. Again I used the Gelatos for the big areas of color and the Portfolio pastels for the details on the petails. And again I still couldn't get the detail I wanted for the center of the flowers, even though I used the Portfolio pastels more like a regular oil pastel with minimal water.

I decided to see what would happen when I added regular oil pastels to the mix. I have several different brands of oil pastels including Pentel, Matisse, and Sakura Cray-Pas. These sets are very affordable and range from around $12 to $20 on Amazon depending on the set size. I received the Matisse ones from someone who didn't use them anymore and that brand may no longer be made.

'Wind Mountain'

by Ellie Taylor

This painting was created with all three of the oil pastel types. I used the Gelatos for the large areas of color such as the sky, base colors of the mountains, the underpainting of the vegetation, and the ground color. I dissolved the colors and created a wash for the first layer with the Gelatos. Then I used the Portfolio pastels to add more details to the mountains, more color to the distant greasewoods, and more color to the foreground dirt. I used a light wash of water, but didn't dissolve all the Portfolio pastels because I wanted the texture to show. Then for the final layer, I used the regular oil pastels to create some clouds in the sky, canyons on the mountains, and leaves and branches on the foreground greasewoods. This method of layering seemed to work fairly well. I do think it would have worked even better if I had used thicker paper such as watercolor paper or card stock. I used thinner sketchbook paper and that peeled up when I added the final oil pastel layer.

Well, that was quite a journey and I may have gotten off track, but I think I've sort of figured these Gelatos out, you kind of just use them to color big areas with washes. If you use them with markers or pencils, you have to put those mediums down first and then add the Gelatos as a wash over them or just stay inside the lines.

This ArtSnacks box was definitely a good art box because it led to a discovery of several different art supplies and testing them out. This illustrates why art boxes are fun and get you to try out new techniques and supplies. If you want to try out this subscription box company, their website is http://www.artsnacks.co/ The boxes start at $24 a month with free shipping to the United States. International shipping is available for $34 with free shipping. ArtSnacks now has a referral program and if you go through my link first time customers can get 10% off of their very first order. My referral link is http://artsnacks.refr.cc/eleanort