Currently Browsing: Commercially Bound Journals
The Blackwing Notebook
Sometimes I simply can’t help myself when I find lined notebook paper. A few months ago I was in Wet Paint and they had small notebooks by Blackwing (the company that makes the pencils with the rectangular erasers—I use the soft lead version to do my daily sudoku). The notebook is about 3.5 x 5.5 […]
Picking a Pen to Suit Your Paper
I write about picking your art tools and media to suit your paper (canvas, etc.) a lot on the blog. Lately I’ve been working in one of the journals I bound in #2017BigBind that I made with the OLD Gutenberg paper. (This is the Gutenberg paper made before 2017, before the cancelation of the paper […]
A Quick Review of the Leda Art Supply Sketchbook
Why a quick review of the Leda Art Supply Sketchbook? Specifically the “Baby Leda Pocket Sketchbook” which is what I purchased, but seems to be the same paper and construction as the larger version? The paper didn’t work out for me at all. It took three quick sketches to learn what I needed about this […]
It’s Fun To Change Media Now And Then
Sometimes if you’ve been working steadily in one medium it’s good to take a break and do some sketching with a totally different medium. I’d been sketching so much with pen and watercolor before the Minnesota State Fair that I decided to start a sketchbook for color pencil quick sketches. (I say quick sketches because […]
Painting with a Paper Towel?
If you don’t remember to restock your regular day pack with all the tools you put in your Minnesota State Fair fanny pack, you’ll have to manage with what you have left. Saturday when I visited my father-in-law with Dick I didn’t realize I had practically nothing in my pack! My last Fair day was […]
The Field Artist Watercolor Journal: A Review
It has been several months since I first picked one of these up. This review will be heartbreaking for me to write. They came so close with this commercially bound journal—sewn signatures, paper that actually liked watercolor, several convenient sizes, a covering material that’s pleasant to hold… So What Is Wrong With This Book? The […]
More Changes for CR
It has been a long weekend of change. Friday we got a call from the care facility that CR would need to move into the memory ward. We had expected this day would come, but it still seems like it happened very fast. His short term memory disappeared a couple years ago. Both Dick and […]
Richard Doesn’t Have a Clue
Yesterday was Father’s Day and like many fortunate people who have parents who are not only still living but living nearby we spent the afternoon with Dick’s dad CR. We brought treats and sat and talked. Later we struggled to get him into clean, fresh clothing. CR has lost the ability to stand for even […]
A Little Hiatus While Some Technical Issues and Deadlines Are Addressed
I have some great posts in the draft stage, including a review of the journal today’s image was created in, and of course the Stonehenge Aqua paper review. However, I’m stretched very thinly right now as I balance teaching the Drawing Practice class with resolving some long standing technical issues about my website. Because of […]
Simple Approaches for Backgrounds—A Five-Part Series: Part 2 Multi-color Backgrounds
This is Part Two of a five-part series on executing simple backgrounds in your journal or other artwork. Part One of this series can be found at this link. One of the simplest, yet most interesting approaches to a background, especially for a portrait, is to have broken color. This means that one or more […]