I had a great time playing with my new round brushes, I got a much more expressive stroke even with fine detail, and I was able to keep layering without carving away earlier colors. I think you can see the looser brushstrokes if you click for the larger picture. Why didn't I try rounds before?

I used only size 1 and 2 rounds for this painting and didn't fall back on my comfortable filberts, even though it takes longer to spread paint around the larger areas with the rounds. I'm glad I did, I like the effect.

New Colors
I'm really loving the cad red med (PR108) for it's saturation and transparency, no chalkiness when mixed with dark colors, and has a lovely stain when mixed with lighter colors (aka yellows). But I went back to my normal cad yellow medium (PY35), the new cad yellow light (PY154) I find frustratingly weak, although maybe it will be good for very subtle tinting like warm highlights. I like the new quinacridone rose too, but am finding I prefer my old permanent violet medium if I had to choose just one cool red/magenta.

Oh no.... strangely, both my cool reds have the exact same pigment code (PV19) marked on the back of the tube, and both tubes are Rembrandt brand, and yet Perm. Violet Medium is a dark cool purple and Quin. Rose is a brighter cool red. I really don't understand that. Something in the paint besides pigment is defining the color? This color thing is complicated.

New Lamp
I painted in daylight today, but photographed the work with the new lamp as the only lightsource and wow, I am really impressed with the color. I used a daylight white balance setting on the camera and then didn't have to do any color correcting at all once I got the digital image into Photoshop, the colors were right on. Also the sheer top-down angle really reduced the glare factor. So I can shoot right on my painting easel and dismantle my "photo-studio area". So that's made this lamp worth it's $88 price tag right there.