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Fall Planning Thoughts

Of the many things I’m considering for school this fall are 2 questions, first: Is it feasible for me to make all my notebooks, or will I even need notebooks or are things all digital since I was in school so many years ago? Second: Is notetaking with a fountain pen a realistic option? It seems kinda crazy when I think about all the changes that have occurred in note taking technology since I was in school.

One of the major projects I had to complete in my 3rd year of school was to create a binder/archive of projects to do with  my art students. This involved heading to the library stacks with a card loaded up with money or a pocket full of nickels and dimes, finding an interesting article, photocopying it, and then making note on the first page margins what magazine it was in as well as the publication date. I then had to place this into one of 3 giant 3 ring binders I had for the project and decide what tab it belonged under and which age it was appropriate. After I did that I had to create an index. It was labor intensive and not an easy task. In the end I had a milk crate full of photocopies in binders and lots of ideas for last minute classes. I haven’t cracked those binders open in 10+ years. I still have them, I spent hundreds of dollars on photocopies.

I have to think about how much easier this project would be today with either a smartphone or tablet and a scanbox or DIY version of the scan box coupled with something like Evernote or Google’s knockoff, Keep. There are a number of apps that will let you shoot a series of pictures and create a searchable PDF. It would be crazy easy to create a pdf database on the computer that is fully searchable either through the search function of the computer or by creating a spreadsheet.

Maybe the reason non-traditional students do so well is because they are all, “Holy crap this is soo much easier than when I was 18!”

Back to the question at hand, notebooks, should I make them? Things to consider- I can only make them unlined and 5.25x8 inches or so in size. This is a size I like but will I miss lines? What paper should I use, if I do make them? It will need to be economical yet, if I decide to use fountain pens, decent for fountain pens. Is it cheaper for me to invest time and energy into making my own notebooks, or should I simply buy some?

As for the fountain pen questions, I’m going to see if it will work or not. If it doesn’t I’ll grab some back up pens, probably something from Uniball. They are great for doodling.

Watercolor Basic Tools

I was recently asked to do a brief “intro to watercolors post.” So here it is.

Watercolors have a variety of ways of being used, from larges washes and free wet into wet application to tightly rendered pencil drawings filled in with layers of colors. I work somewhere in between. I enjoy making a mess and creating carefully rendered illustrations of things I see. Here are some basic tools I’d sugesst with a budget in mind:

First the colors themselves. I’d suggest starting off with a Windsor and Newton Cotman Sketcher's Pocket Box Set. It has 12 colors all of which are usable in a variety of settings. The box itself is sturdy and completely usable. The brush it comes with is, well, crap. This is the best of the small pocket sketch sets by W&N. It generally runs about $20. They are carried in most places like AC Moore and Michael’s.

If you are the crafty type I’d suggest making a recycled mint tin watercolor tin and picking up a student set of tubed watercolors. This will be more expensive but half the fun is making the tin and sourcing materials for it. Van Gogh student watercolors are inexpensive and work very well.

I like to buy most of my watercolors locally. I really like to walk into a place and look at the displays. This also lets me use my discount coupons best. I keep a running list in my planner of colors I’m running out of, this lets me walk into a store and walk out without buying more than I intend. This also has let me buy some REALLY expensive Winsor & Newton colors at half price! Although I am prone to buying tubes of every brand’s version of indigo and sepia.

Brushes are important. Using shitty brushes doesn’t  help your experience with painting, it merely serves to frustrate you. I have several sizes that I like: #12 round, #8 round, #6 round, #4 liner, 1/2in flat, 1/2in mop. I find myself reaching for the #12 and #8 round the most followed closely by the 1/2in flat. You want to look for watercolor brushes that are springy and hold a point. How can you tell this in the store? Take a small pot of water with you, swish the brush around until it’s soft and saturated with water and flick the water off the tip. Look at the tip, is it holding a nice sharp point? Yes! You have a winner! No? Put it back and try again. If they will not let you do this, or you feel uncomfortable trying it in stores, buy the brush and try it at home, return it if necessary. Start with one round- maybe a #8 or #6 depending on the size you plan on working. If large, buy larger and if small, smaller.

My favorite budget friendly brand is Princeton with the red handles. I have several of these that I reach for again and again. These are not the cheapest brushes available, but I have used them again and again since college with good success. Cared for properly they will last you many years. I have one I bought in college that I still use, we won’t talk about it’s age. These range in price from $5.99 to $12.99 each. These are available all over the place. These are a great coupon buy.

If you are looking for a still cheaper brush check out the Loew & Cornell Soft Touch line. These are dirt cheap but remarkably nice brushes. I bought them on a whim expecting them to suck and they were shockingly nice. I bought these in #10 round and a 1/2in flat. I find myself reaching for them again and again. Their #10 is the size of a Princeton #8. These are awesome cheap brushes. They run $3.99 for most sizes. The only place I’ve found these is at Joanne’s.

As for waterbrushes I’m a fan of the Koi brand. Which you can get at Jetpens. I have not liked the niji and the pentel I’ve tried.

Many watercolor pieces start out with a sketch. I like mechanical pencils for starting a watercolor painting. There are a lot of brands available, but I’ve been particularly in love with the Uniball Kuru Toga which you can get at Jetpens. I prefer it with a B lead. You can really use any pencil, but a good one is a joy to use.

As for paper. This is greatly a matter of preference. I’m a fan of cheap paper. I said it, I like cheap paper. I also don’t mind working in a regular sketchbook with watercolors, the cockles, wrinkles and curls don’t bug me at all. I do note that for most people, they hate this. Watercolors make even heavier papers curl. It is a fact of life and with watercolor you are going to have to deal with it or buy really really expensive paper. I strongly believe that buying paper that is too expensive encourages people to be stiff with their art. Buy cheap student grade paper to get used to using watercolors. Buy better paper later when you feel more comfortable with the materials. Fill a sketchbook before moving onto the next one. Test each color on every paper, they will respond differently.

A really nice paper for beginers and students is the Canson XL line. It is 2 sided, one side is smooth and the other is cold pressed. Compared to other watercolor papers it can’t be beat in terms of easy use, size and price. It also folds well incase you want to bind your own watercolor sketchbook. Their bristol pads also do well with watercolor.

A sketch paper that is slightly harder to find is the Clairfontaine Graft it Sketch pad. This sketchpad is simply brilliant with pen and ink, pencil and does great with watercolor. It’s thin but is just wonderful. It’s also pretty inexpensive as far as sketch pads go, $5 for a 6x8 pad. I’ve been making pocket sized notebooks out of these for awhile now and they are just awesome.

Some basic sundry items you should look into getting: a spray bottle for moistening your pallet or one of these, an assortment of rags, some plastic cups to rinse your brush- one for dirty-ish water and one for clean and maybe something to store all your stuff in. Keep your brushes safe somewhere!

Don't Pin MY Stuff #donotpin

Pinterest. Sigh. I've written about how much I dislike Tumblr and Pinterest due to finding a ton of unattributed images on both sites. That was way back in September of last year.

And now this article created a firestorm on twitter this afternoon. (search for #donotpin on twitter)

My feelings on Pinterest (and tumblr) can be articulated as follows:

• Pinterest should link back to the creator DIRECTLY
• Attribution should never ever be stripped.
• They should only create a thumbnail of the image, not store a hi-res image.
• Their weak section in ToS "you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms" is complete bull shit and probably won't hold up in court should an artist be damaged by their website. After all they know how their users USE their produt- to pin stuff that doesn't belong to them. If you pin my stuff without my permission (without attribution) then you have damaged me.

Every click on either of the 2 services that should come here is a damage. I know my pics on flickr have been pinned and shared on Tumblr. Imagine my surprise at finding my art journal pages shared without attribution? Shocking, only not, when you start to follow an image around the service. One person pins it, another pins from their pin, and another and another. After the 3rd click you stop looking for the original page out of shear frustration. How many sales have been lost to good honest artists and craftspersons to the vortex that are these 2 sites. I'm not suggesting that  they shouldn't make money off their service, but they should be more fair to the artists and crafts people who are really the driving force of their site.

This quote gets at the heart of why I hate pinterest so much, "If someone pins a photo on Pinterest, they've created a competing version of the image, which could siphon image search traffic away from the source site." (Link to original article.)

Pinterest and Tumblr may just drive me toward watermarking my photos, though I hate watermarks. It's the only way for me to drive traffic to my blog if someone steals an image.  So, you know, don't pin my stuff.

 

Some Observations: On Paper and Frisket

Iv'e been working on a variety of papers, settling on Canson's XL Watercolor paper, for a variety of reasons- it works well with the watercolors I'm using, it's cost is nice and it has a relatively smooth surface that my pens rather like. It's also got 2 sides, a right and a wrong, ot a front and a back; which ever way you prefer to call it, but I like the judgemental aspect of right and wrong... In this case. Any how.

One side has a little more tooth an grab to it than the other, this is the right side. The reverse side AKA WRONG is smoother. It also has less sizing... This affects a number of things- how ink and paint react with the surface. Less size means it's more absorbent.

This is good and bad.

It's bad when you use a mask. I applied a liquid frisket rather heavily to the surface of one of my paintings and the frisket grabbed to the paper so strongly it ripped when I removed it. Quite badly. It was crazy frustrating.

I went ahead with the mixed media piece anyway, knowing my paint would adhere the ripped pieces down and it would be okay, but I had to change my plans for color and other ideas for the image, and I know that the torn piece could come back to haunt me.

Additionally in my frisket/mask adventure I've found that the frisket REALLY doesn't like the spray inks. If the frisket is too thin the spray ink "leaks" through it. A total pain in the ass. So I've learned to put on one thin coat and then a heavier coat to seal it all up.

Review: Exacompta Plain Journal

 

I was given the Exacompta plain (unruled) journal to review by Karen and Stephanie of Exaclaire,the US distributor for Clairfontaine and a variety of other French stationary products. I like to put journals through a few paces before I do a review and since it took me a full year to get through my last journal, it’s been awhile.

The paper is off white, a very nice cream color that I really like a lot. The paper is laid textured on one side and much smoother on the other side. For some this would be a detraction, personally I like it very much and feel it opens the journal up for a variety of media I wouldn’t normally consider. Dry media does much better than expected- things like charcoal and soft pencil really like that laid texture. Though it is textured fountain pens love it’s surface.

Wet media also does admirably on this paper. I was pleasantly surprised when I soaked the paper down with water and color that it held up. It didn’t just hold up, it out performed the luxury of the Rhodia Webnotebook. When it dried the wrinkles (cockles) relaxed. While the paper is not perfectly smooth it’s less cockled than I’d have expected. I was able to lay down a nice wash of watercolor on BOTH sides of the page and have not one drop show through or soak through to the reverse side. That is pretty amazing.

Even my wettest writing pens don’t soak through. Occasionally you can see dark colors through the pages, but that is the case with most any journal. I’ve painted pages with ink and it doesn’t soak through to the reverse side, which again, is pretty amazing. I haven’t been interested in doing any collage in this but I’m sure it would take to it well.

In summary:
100 Laid Textured Ivory pages 100gsm
5.5x8.5 inches
Ribbon Marker
Soft Covers with a fabric spine, meant to go inside a leather cover, many companies make them
Price $15.50 at gouletpens.com

It handles wet media like a champ and is wonderful for a fountain pen. Pencil does amazing textural things on the textured side but doesn’t smudge as much as would be expected on the smooth side.

It’s not cheap but it’s a better value than the moleskine sketchbook, it’s got more papges that behave better and respond better. I’d rate this 2 happy thumbs up and would recomend it to anyone looking to get a nice journal that they can write in, sketch ink, test watercolors in, and abuse.

Observations on the iPod Touch

I've been shooting some new videos with my iPod touch. Using eht regualr camera on it led to some really pretty decent videos. I was estatic. It also made uploading a breeze. One of the issues that I've had with my Everio is trying to figure out which video format do I save in? I really don't want to mess around with that, I want to add a few titles, trim the crap off and upload it. Easy.

The iPod with out iMovie won't let me edit or add titles. It's a one shot video and then upload. I could upload to yutube and use their editor. But I don't want to put stuff up love and then worry that I'll have an embarassing moment of picking my nose or swearing visible. iMovie was $4.99 and well worth the $5.

One thing that I noticed is that it takes more than double the amount of time to load to YouTube as the plain uploader. So what I've learned to do is export to the "camera roll" on my iPod and then upload to YouTube. Much faster. The iCamera app will also let you load directly to vimeo as well, which is nice.

Anyway, check out my videos on youtube:

 

Art Journal Essentials: Books About Making Books

Another question I get a lot is “What books would you recommend for someone who wants to start making their own journals?”

There are a thousand books out there on making books. Some are more useful than others. For beginners I always say that people should look for a book with clear instructions and easy to read diagrams. Steer clear of overly complex diagrams and overly verbose instructions. Additionally start with simple styles- start with the baby step of pamphlet and figure-8 stitches. These single signature structures will keep you in journals until you make your way to more complex stitches. In fact in my book binding class I show you those stitches and show you how to make a multiple signature book with basic stitches. That wasn’t meant as a sales pitch but as a “THAT’S HOW MUCH I BELIEVE IN THIS” kinda declaration.

The book I started with and would suggest that you start with as well, is Alisa Golden’s Creating Handmade Books. She details a variety of structures from single sheets, single signatures to a very basic Coptic chain stitch. She has another book that is a great follow up if you are interested in more complex books as well. Her instructions are clear and concise and diagrams very easy to read.

The next is The Decorated Journal by Gwen Diehn. Again, simple easy to read instructions and clear diagrams. She combines her bookbinding instructions with journaling instructions.

And, well that’s it. Those are my 2 must have beginners book binding books, all of the others that I have to suggest are not for beginners, so they’ll have to wait for another post. Of course those 2 authors have other books that you should also read, they are somewhere between beginner and not beginner. All of their books are good.

Art Journal Essentials: How to Books

The following 3 books are what I consider must have’s for people new to art journaling. The techniques are basic but explained well and these books suggest that you experiment.

Danny Gregory’s The Creative License. He includes interviews from a wide range of people and suggests a simple set of tools- pens, watercolor, and journal with a sense of documenting the simple and everyday items around you to appreciate the moment. Danny Gregory has a great blog that he no longer updates as much as he used to but is a great resource.

The Journal Junkies Workshop by Eric Scott and David Modler. This is a comprehensive guide to techniques that you can use with pretty simple materials. Again observation is mentioned here, as well as writing and creating texture and visual interest. This book works much more in the abstract realm than Danny Gregory. These guys run a neat blog too.

Diana Trout’s book Journal Spilling is another favorite of mine to suggest to people just starting out. She gives you a serious list of tools to use in your art journal, all using simple materials that are inexpensive. Additionally she’s got a set of youtube videos that go along with the book as well as a blog. I’ve reviewed her books for the zine and I’ll report that article here at some point.

What you’ll notice about these 3 books is that they suggest simple materials and gathering your own materials to use in your journals. These books avoid pre made materials that you can buy at the craft store. This makes your journals 100% your own. It’s this sense of unique that I think people look for when they create a journal. These books all foster that spirit and not the “cult of stuff.”

 

Art Journaling Essentials: Books for Beginers

One of the questions I get asked pretty often is what books I would recommend to someone just starting out in art journaling. There are 3 books I think are essential to anyone just starting out in Art Journaling.

First is Keri Smith’s How to be an Explorer of the World. I reviewed this for the zine and I’ll republish the article here at some point. But this book is all about looking at the world around you. It’s inspiring. It’s full of proposed action. Get it.

The second is Dan Price’s How to Make a Journal of Your Life. I haven’t reviewed this but will. It’s about opening up your perception of the world and learning how to look and to be in the moment.

The third is Danny Gregory’s Every Day Matters. I also should review this book. It’s about learning that life, every moment of it, matters and that we should take time to fully savor and enjoy it.

What you’ll notice about all three of these books is that not one of them is about technique. They are about enjoying your life, opening up your mind and looking at life and enjoying every day. None of the books recommend expensive materials; in fact Kerri Smith’s book is made to be used as a journal. Dan Price suggests you start out in a cheap pocket sized spiral notebook and Danny Gregory suggests a cheap watercolor set, black ink pen and a moleskine.

As I see more and more of the “cult of stuff” filtering into my precious art journal scene I am more and more drawn to “old school” art journaling- a black ink pen, a set of travel watercolors and a simple sketchbook. These 3 books are just that good old fashioned basic books on art journal, full of inspirational text that will get your art journal mojo going.

 

You can also buy Dan Price's book directly from him via his website.

Art Journaling Essentials

I'm starting a series of posts for the next few Saturdays called "Art Journal Essentials." Each post will have a series of themed items I think are necessary for art journaling. I'm starting this tomorrow (saturday) and will run it until I'm done.