Jane Davenport is a very popular artist and she has her own brand of art supplies and books. Her art supplies are innovative and unusual. She has paints, pastels, markers, colored pencils, journals, and lots more. I decided to check out some of these neat supplies! For those who want to try out these supplies for themselves, I have included my Amazon affiliate links down below.
Jane Davenport has colored pencils that she calls Magic Wand Pencils. They come in a tin of 24 for around $27 depending on where you buy them. They are available on Michaels.com and Jane Davenport 's website.
The colors are sort of a basic selection of lighter colors. They have innovative names like '70s Eyeshadow' etc.
The colors in this set are sort of pastel like. They aren't very dark. They have cute names like 'Candy Floss' and 'Mermaid' so one needs to swatch them to know what they are.
'Jane Davenport Girl'
by Ellie Taylor
I did a quick sketch of a Jane Davenport face using the Magic Wand colored pencils. They are probably medium softness for their wax cores. I got quite a few layers with them (5 or 6). They are good for lighter colors and give a pastel look. I would compare them to the Amazon Basics colored pencils. They don't have any lightfast ratings, so it's probably best to use them for sketches and journal work where they are not exposed to a lot of light.
The Jane Davenport Dramastick is an innovative way to make oil pastel pencils. They are an oil pastel encased in a plastic pencil shell which can be sharpened. Usually most brands have oil pastels in a stick form covered by paper. There are two sets of Dramasticks with 6 colors in each set. They are called the 'Warm Heart' and 'Ocean Eyes' sets. I purchased them for around $25 each from Amazon.
In each tin there is a swatch card with the names of the colors. The names are interesting like 'Fire Inside' and 'Meant to Be' , so you definitely have to swatch the colors to see what they are.
In the first set, 'Warm Heart', the tin had 6 oil pastel pencils and a pencil sharpener. On the front of the swatch card was a Jane Davenport drawing that you could paint with these oil pastel pencils. This set had reds, purple, peach, and browns.
I tested out 'Meant to Be' on the swatch card and it seemed to be a plum colored purple. You can smudge these oil pastels. The pencils had a lid on them to protect the soft tips and they kind of looked like eyeliner or lipstick pencils (which is the general idea).
I swatched the rest of the colors in this set.
So I experimented with the oil pastel pencils on the card included and found that they are not meant for coloring large areas. I couldn't really use them for a complete painting, but they seemed to work best for small areas such as final highlights and accents.
The second set was 'Ocean Eyes' and it had its own swatch card too.
This set had blues, pink, purple, black, and white. It also had a different drawing on the front of the swatch card.
I swatched these colors as well.
I just colored in the eyes and lips on this picture on the back of the swatch card. These oil pastel sticks are very soft and smudge very easily on smooth paper.
Cold-Pressed Watercolor Paper
The Dramasticks are a little harder to smudge on paper with more tooth such as cold press watercolor paper. I think these are best used with smoother papers on top of other media like watercolor or harder oil pastels. They are very sticky and soft and work well for final highlights, but not for large areas of color.
Cutie Boots decided to play with the 'Ocean Eyes' set.
He wanted to see if it had any fish in it. After all, it said 'Ocean' on it.
Pan Pastels are a relatively new art supply and consist of a powdered pastel in containers. They look like eyeshadow so I think Jane Davenport decided to take things one step farther and make her pastels look like eyeshadow palettes complete with a blender that looks like an eyeshadow applicator. There is also a sponge in a lipstick tube! I think these are really cute! They retail for around $13 to $15 on Amazon, Ebay, and the Jane Davenport website.
On the back of the pastel packages the colors are listed along with the tools. I bought two color sets with shades of reds, purples, browns, blues, and a bright green. I am interested in seeing how these compare to Pan Pastels.The set with blues in it are chalk pastels and the set with reds in it is a cream pastel set. The cream pastel set contains a soft oily pastel with a glittery look.
The chalk pastels were not as pigmented or as soft as pan pastels. I think they work best as soft smudges for eyeshadow or blush on a Jane Davenport style drawing. They didn't seem to be able to cover large areas.
There were also rub on transfers in each set. These were eyes with the colors in the chalk pastel set.
The cream pastels really remind me of lipstick or rouge and work best as lipstick on a painting. I think the cream pastels work best on smooth paper like the Dramasticks (oil pastel sticks).
There were also rub on transfers in this pack too. These transfers were of the different shades of lipstick in the cream pastels set.
I found that the little sponge blenders in the lipstick tubes are best used for blenders and not applicators. Cute idea though!
Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper
The chalk pastels seemed to work on rougher textured surfaces, but they faded to a lighter color when blended. The cream pastel set was vibrant and blended well in small areas.
Another unique product from Jane Davenport is her matte Velvet Pastels. These are a matte gel pastel in a sort of liquid form. They dry to a matte finish and they don't flake off the paper. I haven't seen anything like this before! These gel pastels come in several colors. I first purchased 'Pink Princess', 'Blue Blooded, and Ice Palace from ebay.
On the back of each package is instructions on how to apply these pastels.
I wanted more colors so I purchased 3 more from Michael's. Michael's is the official distributor for Jane Davenport products in the United States. The colors I ordered were 'Throne', 'Rose Empress, and 'Neon Queen'. These retail for around $8. There are a total of 9 colors available in this line.
These Velvet Pastels are very interesting. They are kind of like a matte acrylic or gouache. I really want to play around with these some more. In each bottle there is an applicator on a stick, but I would like to try these out with a paintbrush sometime. They blended together nicely and then dried to a waterproof matte finish. I am not sure about lightfastness on these gel pastels, but they are very nice for journaling and scrapbooking.
Jane Davenport also has a lot of art instruction books. I purchased her 'Fabulous Figures' book which shows how to draw her fashion girls in quick easy steps.
Cutie boots decided to look it over.
Here he is reading the book. (Or maybe cats just look at the pictures?)
Another kind of book that Jane Davenport puts out is an art journal. These journals can be painted and they often come with stickers and special paper. I purchased her 'Whimsical Girls' journal. She has a few more books out or coming out and I plan to get them.
In conclusion, I think these supplies are really unusual and unique. I think they work best for what Jane Davenport designed them for. They are great for journaling and scrapbooking and giving the look of a Jane Davenport fashion girl. The supplies are probably not too lightfast so I am not sure they would be good for professional work, but they great for crafting and hobbyists.
This was just a small sample of the products available by Jane Davenport!
There are stamps, washi tapes, acrylics, watercolors, paintbrushes with mermaid tails (I feel strangely compelled to get some, they are so unique!), markers, inks, sponges, and tons more. She also has a YouTube channel to show all her new products. Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/user/Instituteofcute
After reviewing all those supplies, Cutie Boots was exhausted! He wanted a nap!