Comfortable Shoes Studio

Baa Baa Sheep

Awhile ago I picked up some Staedtler watersoluble crayons. They work okay, but seem to resist melting as easily as other brands. For this page I started with some collage of personal ephemera. I then dusted the page with watercolor crayon shavings and added water. I smeared and moved the crayons around the page with my procaulk tools. After allowing the page to dry I sketched the olde-timey dude and used a stick eraser to remove some of the watercolor crayon to add areas of light in his face. After that I added the die-cut sheep and tissue paper.
In the Pukka tea sachet is a folded up note that was written to me. I added a small tab to allow the note to be removed and read with ease. The sheep, as usual, reflect sheep-like thinking on my part and the author of the note.
I received some neat parting gifts from my coworkers as I left my DayJob. The frog I sketched here was one of the gifts. It's a neato still life subject.

Review: Iroshizuku Asa Gao Ink

Recently I bought a sample of Pilot’s Iroshizuku Asa Gao ink. I’d read great reviews of it online and figured I should try it. I’ve tried one of their gray inks previously and loved it. This one well, read on...

All of the Iroshizuku inks boast a smooth writing experience. They have good flow coming out of the pen and lubricate the nib as it glides across paper. Asa Gao performed well in this respect, it’s a very enjoyable ink.

I’ve got it in my Pilot Prera medium nib and my TWSBI 530 medium nib. Both pens write flawlessly with this ink, on any paper I throw at it. From my absorbent Canson XL pocket sketchbook to my Leuchtturm1917 dot grid to my new found HP LaserJet 24lb paper it worked well, even impressively on all papers. It resisted feathering on most papers but showed some bleed through on some. Dry time was slower than average, but not by much.

All in all writing was a joy with this ink. 

My problem with it is the color. It’s boring. It’s straight up blue. There is nothing that makes this blue stand out from the crowd when compared to other blue inks. It’s simply a nice blue ink.This is not the ink that will sell you on the Iroshizuku line.

To me I can get other nice blue inks for a lot less then $28 a bottle. Do I dare suggest that Parker Quink blue is also a nice blue ink but is a mere $10 a bottle? It is also a nice blue color that has decent lubrication, flows well and is kinda boring. Or what about Noodler's Blue? Less expensive, good lubrication, but it's Noodler's.

I feel like a blasphemer for suggesting this but, if you are going to go Iroshizuku check out one of their other colors for the wow factor Asa Gao might have you falling asleep.

Personal Ephemera and Writing

I sat down with my art journal this evening and started to write while watching some TV. (I love me some Amazon streaming.) I reacted to some of the personal ephemera from my last days at the DayJob. I wrote and wrote some more. then I looked at what I had been writing and what I’d been reacting to and I asked myself the most important journaling question ever:

 

Why am I reacting in this particular way to this particular item and moment?

I looked hard at myself and realized that the answer was in my head. My reaction was less about the other person as it was about me.

I control my reactions and actions.

While it’s useful to explore the negative emotions and ideas that come along with those reactions it’s also important to explore the reasons behind those reactions and actions. The further exploration is the hard and most useful part of journaling.
Is the page pretty? Hell no. I’ll add a few more layers of collage and stuff but honestly it isn’t a pretty page but it’s a useful page. There is more meaning to the page than anyone else will ever see.

These pages are an example of some of the work I'm doing for my upcoming zine, "My Headlines and Stories."

 

Facebook Sketches

I’ve written before about how I occasionally get bored and draw from the facebook pictures of my friends. A couple of weeks ago I realized we’re not all 20-somethings anymore*, most of us are married or are on our second or 3rd marriages. We’ve all got some gray hair and a few wrinkles.

In some cases I bet we’d hardly recognize each other of we met up in person.

*We're all closer to 40 now than 20.

The First Day of Real Work

Today starts my self-employment. I’m forcing  myself to take a week to relax before I dive head long into the work of the site and writing. I know that by the end of the week I’ll be working hence the forced relaxation period. This weekend C and I watched some crap TV shows and cooked. It was great.

I started some random art journaling last night by culling through my pile of personal ephemera. I picked stuff out and glued it to the page. No rhyme or reason, but where it called to be glued. Where it looked good to me. A simple concept but one where I had to let myself be random and not plan out the page.

After that I wanted to clean off one of my watercolor palettes so I wet the colors and used a big brush to slather colors onto my pages. Again I wasn’t calculated or planned about where and what colors I used. I simply looked at what colors I had and what looked good on a page, then slathered the colors onto the page. I mixed colors on the page, worked wet-into-wet, and layered the color on top of the ephemera. Some of the ephemera resisted the watercolor, some absorbed it like a sponge.

I’ll write on these pages and then add more color and collage over my words. It’s all process.

Review: HP LaserJet 24lb Paper

I’m always looking for a printer paper that works well in my printer and with fountain pens. The standard photocopy paper I can get feathers and bleeds with fountain pens or liquid ink pens and is now about $6 a ream. When did paper get so expensive? I decided to branch out and try out a new paper. I’d heard great things about HP’s laserjet papers on the fountain pen network, but the often recommended 32lb is simply too thick for me to bind into journals with ease and runs about $19.99 for 500 sheets. Also my printer has trouble with the thicker paper. I took a chance and picked up the HP LaserJet Paper that is 24lb and bright white. It was $11.99 for 500 sheets at my local Staples. Regular printer paper is about 1 cent a sheet. This is 2 cents a sheet. The HP 32lb paper is 4 cents a sheet.

It feels very smooth when I run my fingers over it’s surface. The paper is a crisp bright white color. At $12 a package it’s about double the cost of the lowest priced paper we usually use in our laser printer. The printer prints really nicely on this paper. The lowest priced paper from Staples tends to occasionally jam the machine when I print longer documents. Occasionally an entire ream won’t run through the printer well.

Testing out a few different pens I had no feathering or bleed through. I tested the following pen and ink combinations:

Pilot Prera M Iroshizuku Asa Gao

TSBI 530 M Iroshizuku Asa Gao

Rotring Esprit (non Retracting) EF Private Reserve Sonic Blue

Kaweco Sport M Noodler’s Eternal Brown

Zebra Sarasa 0.7 M Black

Noodler’s Ahab Flex Camlin Turquoise with a touch of my black junk ink blend

Not one of these inks had any bleed through or feathering on this paper. The pens didn’t quite skate across the paper. In my mind this paper has just the right amount of tooth for writing. It wasn’t as smooth as a Rhodia Webbie but it also wasn’t like writing on newsprint. It reminded me of Staples sugarcane paper. Smooth but not too smooth. The paper was dense enough that there was no show through, which means that both sides of the page can be used and you can read both sides. This makes me really happy. I plan on making some books with this as the filler.

Overall this paper is a great choice for people looking for budget fountain pen friendly paper that is not as heavy as the HP LaserJet 32lb paper. It fold well so it’s great for bookbinding.This paper will save the frustration of writing on paper that feathers and bleeds like crazy. To me that’s worth the additional penny a sheet.

You can get this paper through amazon here: HP LaserJet Paper

30 in June

A few months ago I came up with this plan, I called it 31 in May. It was a good plan to get me producing art on a daily basis and then requiring me to list it on etsy. When the plan hatched from my brain I assumed that my last few weeks of DayJob would be uneventful, sadly I was wrong. So 31 in May becomes 30 in June. I’ll need to come up with a new drawing for it, but there you have the idea in a nutshell.

The reasoning for it is that I’ve gotten out of my daily art journaling habit. I journal but not daily and I miss it and let’s face it, I need it. So the plan is that I work in my small coil bound Stillman and Birn Beta journal everyday for the month of June. When the page is finished to hold myself accountable I load that page to etsy. Each page will be a real journal page. Sometimes with writing, but not always. I’ll work this coil bound journal just like I’d work any other journal, keeping process to the front of my mind. Each page will get a blog post and possibly a video. (The video portion will be harder due to video editing constraints. Editing a video a day is way harder than it sounds.) Anyway, that’s the idea, thirty 5x7 inch pieces in June, all loaded up to etsy and my blog.

A Ditty for my Readers

I read a tweet from one of the many people I follow on twitter (I don't remember who) discussing how people don’t comment on blogs anymore. One of the people responding said it made blogging feel empty or alone. Another said why bother and switched off the comments on her blog. So on and so forth, a bunch of bloggers down on blogging. But why? Comments are certainly validating, they feel good.

To me comments are an added bonus. I know people read, my stats tell me that. I know that many of my readers prefer to be anonymous, just out here learning about art journaling, maybe they don’t feel safe yet. Maybe commenting feels like too much. I used to do that, way back when. I read a whole lot of blogs about stuff that was of interest to me. I didn’t feel safe commenting. Until one day I did.

When people comment on my blog it’s a little gift from the commentor to me, a high five. I don’t expect it and I can’t always respond, but I always adore a comment or two when I resonate with the reader.

You guys are awesome, when you feel like commenting I'll be here, writing, and enjoying your comments like early/late birthday presents.

When I get bored I draw from pictures my friend's load up to facebook. The first image is a friend's father-in-law (I think it wasn't labeled.) The second is another friend's daughter, who is super cute, does not have a pig nose and is a very normal kid. The final image is a friend who I inadvertantly made look like an angry dude, I swear she was super excited in the source picture.

Sticks and Carrots

I’ve got 5 days left of the DayJob. All I can do is sit here and think, wow. It’s mind blowing, well to me. After 10 years in a place there are all sorts of comforts in knowing that everyone knows you when  you walk in, the office is in the same place every day, and that for the most part nothing changes.

I threw away that certainty. I know this summer will bring hardships and difficulty but I had to try it.

For 8 years I climbed toward the carrot. Then the carrot went rotten and I didn’t want it anymore. After that I had to make my own carrot. School became my carrot and it’s now only a few months away and I can’t wait. The future is what I make it. Let’s hope I do well in school.

Review: Palomino Blackwing Pencils

I have been holding out on getting one of the oft lauded Palomino Blackwing pencils. I don’t know why I held out for so long. All my friends said they were great and I knew I loved the Palomino pencils I already owned.  I snagged a couple from a friend just to see what they were all about and not sure what to expect. I’m not going to go into the history of the pencil, you can read all about that here. I suspected going into this that this would be a good review. I've got many other Palomino pencils and I really enjoy their velvety smooth graphite core.

When I opened the package they were secured in some bubble wrap. When I peeled that away I was presented with some very unique looking pencils. The black paint on the Blackwing was matte and a nice black. the printing of the logo was crisp, though not indented and I could see where it was starting to flake off already. That doesn’t matter to me but occasionally I’ll notice a fleck of gold on my hand as I use the pencil. Like fairy dust...

The part of the pencil’s look that is the most noticeable is the ferrule that holds the eraser and the eraser itself. The Blackwing comes with a rectangular white plastic eraser set into a rectangular ferrule that turns round to attach to the pencil itself. It’s pretty cool and totally unique. (Of course the history lesson here will tell you it’s NOT unique, but I shall only say here, it’s unique to the market TODAY.) The eraser is easily removed and replaced should you wear it down to a nubbin. You can buy a 12-pack in white, pink, or black. I found the white eraser to work but was not the most effective eraser. I rarely use erasers on the end of my pencils but I found myself using these because they are cool.

The pencil sharpened easily with my KUM long point sharpener. It held that point through a sketching session without breaking at any pressure. The graphite was smooth and dark. Not a scratchy bit to be found during any of my sketching times. Light pressure yielded a nice result and heavy pressure a deep dark mark. Variation in tone was easily possible simply through varying my pressure and layering.

I also had a pair of Blackwing 602 pencils in my package. These have a nice gray paint job and black erasers. The graphite was slightly harder and lighter. It was just as smooth as the regular Blackwing. The black eraser seemed to be slightly gritty but erased much better than the white erasers. Sharpening was a breeze and thought I filled pages in my sketchbook I had no breaks nor crumbles.

I also did a little writing with these pencils, just because I had to. Little pressure produced a nice line. The regular blackwing produced a nice dark line even with little pressure. The 602 needed to be sharpened less often. Both were silky smooth to use.

Overall these 2 pencils are amazing for sketching or writing. They are attention grabbing that’s for sure. I know I saw someone in the coffee shop eyeing my pencils, so I made sure they were secured when I stepped away...

You can get these pencils from the European Paper Company here.

I purchased these pencils for review, they were not provided to me by European Paper Company, however if you purchase them through the provided link I will be compensated.