Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor Sticks - first impressions

Finally got a couple of Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor Sticks to try. While I plan to conduct some comparison tests with the other watercolor kits in my studio, I decided to post my first impressions and initial doodles with them.
Brand new, the Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor Sticks are a tad too long to fit in any of the plastic wells of the Faber Castell Albrecht Durer aquarelle sticks tin set of 20. Initially they will stay in an Altoids tin. They are about the same diameter as the aquarelle sticks, and feel harder and drier than the waxy aquarelle sticks. Pity they do not ship in a convenient storage case of their own.
The cobalt blue stick produced rather faint lines while the Permanent Alizarin Crimson stick laid down darker marks when used dry to sketch.
The dry strokes were blended with a waterbrush.
Additional pigment wash was picked up straight from the stick with a moistened waterbrush and applied to paper to reinforce the preliminary shapes.
Using the Cobalt Blue watercolor stick to make a color wash by rubbing it with water on a porcelain palette in a similar fashion to grinding a sumi ink stick on an ink stone. The resulting colored wash was a bit pale because I started with too much water in the palette well. The watercolor stick does perform as a pretty efficient watercolor pan readily releasing pigment when swirled inside the water.
The wet stick was then used to scribble on the journal paper leaving more interesting marks than when used dry.
Using a smaller amount of water to start with in the middle palette well, the Permanent Alizarin Crimson watercolor stick produced a richly saturated wash in not time.
Scribbling with the wet Permanent Alizarin Crimson stick.
While I do not like the resulting abstract mess on my journal, this playful experimentation has given me a better understanding of the sticks' handling properties.
Using a #3 Trekell Kolinsky 7000 round sable brush to doodle a phoenix with the Permanent Alizarin Crimson wash. I really do enjoy drawing more than painting since I feel I have more control over the end results. I still have a long way to go on both creative activities regardless.
Couldn't go to sleep without trying out Gentian's suggestion of splattering paint directly from the wet stick with a brush. Finished my dragon and phoenix watercolor doodle by picking pigment directly from the cobalt blue stick with a wet brush. These watercolor sticks certainly seem to open other creative avenues that I had not explored before.