Etchr Review: Perfect Sketchbook, Field Case, Watercolors

The last time I played with watercolor paints was in 2017! 4 years ago I was a second-year art university student and my work wasn’t that good at all. I kind of gave up on the medium since then, until…

A few weeks ago Etchr team reached out to me and offered to send me some of their products for review.
(NOTE: they DID NOT pay me to write this review or say anything in this post, so read on my honest review.)

I wasn’t sure if I should do it at first, but then I checked out their store and I felt inspired for the first time in a long while! I haven’t been creating art much recently, so this hint of inspiration was a welcome change. And I agreed.

And so began my journey to rediscovering my love for watercolor painting.

As soon as the package arrived I rushed in to unbox it, and what I found was the…

1. Etchr Pearlescent Watercolours: Versatile 12 Half Pan Set

I was excited to have a little box with watercolors that I could easily carry with me. I had never painted with pearlescent paints before, so I was excited to see what it would look like.

It’s 12 half pans with the colors: Pearl, Jade, Bright Aqua, Teal Blue, Sapphire, Copper, Symphony Yellow, Deep Orange, Ruby, Sparkling Grape; Royal Purple, Elegant Black.

It includes a swatching paper, where you can test all of the paints, and carry it with you for reference. This was a fun little exercise to familiarize myself with the colors.

They come in this little cute box that’s really easy to carry, and when you open it, you can use the sides to mix your colors. You can also take out the side with the paints (as shown on the first image above), and put whatever you like in the box itself.

Check it out on Etchr Website.

So far so good. But before I test them in an actual painting, let’s check what else arrived.

2. Etchr: The Perfect Sketchbook

Not going to lie, this one I was the most excited for! You know I’m a geek when it comes to sketchbooks!

“The Perfect Sketchbook” A5 size, has 44 pages and uses 300g acid-free, artist-grade, 100% cotton cold press paper. 

It’s in the landscape format, case bound and glue reinforced. Also, uses a PU vegan-friendly cover – LOVE IT!

It’s a traditional white color and has a nice tooth to it, which will be perfect for large washes as well as little details. There’s also a little pocket at the back where you can store your lose sketches, and I’m planning to keep the watercolor swatches page in there. I’m beyond excited to try it!

Check it out on |Etchr Website| or |Amazon|.

3. Etchr Field Case

And last but not least is a beautiful Etchr Field Case that is “Crafted for the Artist”.

My first impression was that it’s really small and I wasn’t sure if I could fit everything I have in it.

Currently, I have two pencil cases that hold all of my smaller art supplies, and I wanted to challenge this field case by trying to fit the contents of both of them in it. And.. it worked! Apart from two pens everything else fit and I realized that I was fooled by the small size, but it’s really compact and can hold so much more than I imagined.

Plus, it comes with a little cute strap that I can just hang over my shoulder when I go plein air painting.

It’s compact, high quality, weather-proof and vegan friendly as well. LOVE IT. And here are the product dimensions.

External Dimensions:

• Length: 24 cm or 9.5 in
• Width: 14 cm or 5.5 in
• Depth: 4.5 cm or 1.7 in

Internal Dimensions:

• Length: 21 cm or ~8.3 in
• Width: 11 cm or ~4.3in
• Depth: 3 cm or ~1.2 in

Weight: 0.4 kgs or 0.9 lbs

Check it out on |Etchr Website| or |Amazon|.

Testing by Actually Using The Supplies

Now, onto the painting experience!

You can also watch my YouTube video where I go over the supplies, and show the time lapses of me painting.

So, I decided to challenge myself, and apart from trying to paint with watercolors for the first time in 4 years, I also will try plein air painting!

Woah, I know right? Crazy.

Here’s how it went…

The first two pieces I did during my plein air challenge were…well, challenging.

I was constantly thinking about how much water to use, what colors to chose and even how to hold my brush. So, they turned out “alright”, not my best work.

But, the other part of that was the experience that I had and it was beyond pleasant. I loved being able to play with art supplies again, hold onto the brush and make beautiful mess.

The field case allowed me to bring everything I could need, and more. The watercolors were lovely to use, and I came to appreciate the shine that the pearlescent pigments add to my work. Just holding it and slowly moving the page from side to side, letting the sun hit the pigments from different angles made the experience so beautiful.

And the sketchbook held a lot more water than I expected without wrinkling, so the worry of flooding my page came to pass quickly.

Overall, EXCITING! I couldn’t wait home and try again on the next day.

New supplies always tend to inspire me, if they do the same to you let me know in the comments below! 🙂

Day 2 of Watercolor Painting

I woke up today thinking about what I should paint. This hasn’t happened to me in the longest time! It makes me so happy, I just hope it lasts.

So today I decided to do another painting, this time remembering my trip to Florence and painting the Duomo. This was more challenging than I thought, but I played some documentary on the background and got to work.

The intricate lines of this beautiful architecture intimidate me to the core, and at first, I found myself wanting to draw every line. Soon, I realized how unproductive this process is. I’m not going for realis or trying to be an architect or planning to build it on my own.

So, instead, I decided to focus on the warm feeling I get whenever I see pictures like these and remember the summer I traveled there. This is a much better approach I think, to share the feeling, not the preciseness, especially when working with such a freeing medium as watercolors.

And to be honest, I LOVE how It turned out, it might be that I’m biased as I have so many warm feelings towards this place, but I think it’s definitely an improvement from yesterdays drawings.

What do you think?

Guess what though?

At 1 AM the same day, instead of going to sleep as I should, I started on another painting. Can you tell how inspired I was? And since I’m always inspired to sleep, today I’ll follow the other passion.

And with this one I decided to go back to my comfort zone slightly by drawing a person, but I’m still including them in the background to keep up with my original idea.

I really felt the improvement since the beginning as each new scene, subject and atmosphere present new challenges that I have to figure out. And if it started with worrying about how much water to add and how to blend, today I’m more concerned with creating a sense of depth and atmosphere. That’s a big difference for sure!

And I had a truly wonderful time getting back to creating watercolor pieces. So I wanted to thank the Etchr team for reaching out and giving me a chance to explore a long-lost passion of mine.

Overall, I had a very pleasant experience and came to the conclusion that Etchr have some very high-quality supplies. Working with them was fun, and non-distracting, which is my highest standard for anything I work with.

Hope you check them out, and try some new art supplies this week as well! Especially, if you are feeling stuck or have an art block. This challenging experience might be just what you’ve been missing.

Keep creating!