Starting a New Journal

I purchased a couple of handmade sketchbooks from a dear friend of mine and started one of the two last night.  

The sketchbooks I purchased are 6 x 8 inches and 7.5 x 7.5 inches.  The 6 x 8 has Fabriano in it and the square format has Stonehenge Aqua.  Since I've been working in my handmade sketchbook with Fabriano, I decided to start the one with the Stonehenge (one of my favorite papers) for a change.

The first page I decided to work a simple color chart of the colors in each of four palettes I alternate using.  Although I basically use the same colors in each brand, they are different either in tone or transparency.  I like to experiment too with brands and this collection has taken years to build.  My Winsor and Newton paints go back to 1992.  Holbein not too long after that after going to class that gave out a few tubes and I purchased other colors I wanted to use.  Daniel Smith came years later and ones I use most with QoR next in line.  

Second and third page I wanted to work a comparison with different pens and inks...to include the hacked fountain pen with the Zebra G nib.  The TWSBI Eco has a dryer feed and after doing this, I will probably load it with a darker grey ink or even black versus the Urban Grey now in it.

And today we learned two of our new rooted trumpet plants have a flower growing on each.  Took photos and immediately came inside to make this entry in the sketchbook.

Bringing Out Some of My Pens and Color Charts

Thought I would go through checking on some of my pens to see how they are doing.  If fountain pens, I'm checking to make sure they still have ink flow or if they are dry and in need of cleaning.  Other pens, I'm just working color charts and testing if water soluble.  Just something easy to do without a great deal of thought.  Plus I was in the mood for some ink and wash.

These are using a Shaeffer Calligraphy pen with Italic nib.  It had a cartridge in it that appears to be a brown but not 100% sure.  There's not much ink left in the cartridge making it a little hard to really tell.  When applying water to it, it has a pinkish tone.  After the wash dried, I took a little watercolor to it.

Fabriano Soft paper


Next I worked in the Stillman and Birn Zeta journal using one of my Sailor Fude pens with ink cartridge that came with it.  This ink really bleeds when wet so have to be conservative with the water.  Also noticed dark ink areas dry with a shine....especially noticeable in the palm tree.

Worked in the Stillman and Birn Zeta sketchbook

Left Page:  Shaeffer Calligraphy Pen (as above).

Right Page:  Bayam Bullet Journal Fineliner pens (set of 18)

And this last is a color chart of all my Various Tube Greens.  Didn't realize just how many I had until I worked this chart pulling out all my different brand palettes.

Ink Chart and Stippling Fun

This first is just a color chart of the five DeAtramentis Document Inks that I now have.  I first worked the outside lines and then with brush and pool of ink, worked the color wash.

I find with inks (just like staining watercolors), I feel a little intimidated but wasn't so bad with pre-wetting the areas before applying the ink.  I also toned down the ink on my palette with water so it wasn't real concentrated.  HSFab01

Last night was one of those nights where I laid down to sleep but was back up a couple hours later.  To fill the quiet time until I could lay back down, I turned on the TV and stippled these old fashioned rose flowers.  Stippling can be really relaxing to me.

I used the DeAtramentis inks Dark Red and Dark Green in the Stillman and Birn Zeta sketchbook and then this morning I decided to add a Magenta wash to them.

Dad had a beautiful plant wildly growing up a huge tree he had in his yard back in West Virginia.  We had taken an offshoot and planted it at our house (there in West Virginia) and it grew up a trellis and then across the bars of the railing on our elevated porch.  It was a beauty but have to say very thorny.  One had to be careful walking past because it just seemed like the vines would reach out and grab you.

Before the move here to Florida, we had taken an offshoot and planted in a pot.  Now five years later, here in Florida, it still grows in the pot but has yet to flower.  Not sure why and something I need to do some research on.  With the intense sun and heat (along with sandy soil), not sure the best place to plant in the ground.  In West Virginia it flourished under tree canopies to include our house by the porch.

Starting a New Sketchbook - Hand Sewn

I have finally reached the end of the journal I've been working in for awhile ..... giving myself permission to start a new one.  I chose one of my hand sewn journals (labeled HSFab01) that I made back in April.  It is made of old stock Fabriano Artistico 140 lb Cold Press watercolor paper.  Paper purchased back in 2005 or 2006 when I could get 10 sheet packs and before the manufacturer changed their papers.

With the first page in this sketchbook, I decided to sketch the palette with Holbein watercolors for reference.  I set this palette up like over a decade ago but has been sitting in a drawer all this time.  I am totally amazed by how fresh the pigments have remained and the ease in re-activating.  I tend to grab my palette with Daniel Smith, QoR, or Winsor & Newton (in that order it seems) first.  I don't much care for Winsor & Newton pigments as many dry and crack or become hard as a rock not re-wetting very easily.  I'm finding a few of the Daniel Smith are doing the same thing.  Anyways.........I decided to use the Holbein for awhile.

With Miya healing and improving, I'm back to feeling like sketching again.  With the round the clock care for several days and lack of sleep, I just didn't feel up to doing much of anything.

Trying to get a feel for working on cotton paper again, I worked this sketch after I did the Holbein palette color chart.

Yesterday's sketching was setting up my miniature animals as sketching models.  For today, I decided to pull out several items from one of my drawer units that sits on top of my table/desk in the sun room.

What's Next

Although it's probably just silly superstition, it's seems to always play out to be true for us when something bad happens, it comes in three.

First it was the refrigerator and now it looks like our vehicles.

Wednesday evening Terry went shopping for groceries and came out to his truck only to find it wouldn't start.  My first thought was the battery but we didn't have cables on either vehicle to test that out.  He was thinking starter because he thought he heard a clunk sound when he turned the key in the ignition.  I brought him home and Thursday he had his truck towed to Toyota.  As it turns out, it was only the battery and an expensive one at that!!!  Here he was sitting in a parking lot where Advance Auto sits and could have had a choice in batteries at I'm sure a lower price.  Oh well.  The positive to this.........he FINALLY has maintenance done on his truck while at Toyota.  Something he's been dragging his feet on for over a year.

My SUV has had an ongoing issue with the tailgate.  Started years ago and three trips to Toyota only for it to work just fine when they tested it.  And we always left feeling like idiots because they would just pass it off as needing to hit the reset button on the tailgate.  Each time following the trip to Toyota, we'd get home and it would not operate correctly.  This went on until it reached the point where we had to forcefully open and close the tailgate 90% of the time.

Friday we scheduled for my car to have it's maintenance done (only a few months late) and Terry went to the service manager about the tailgate rather than relying on one of the techs.  We were tired of being put off without them holding onto and really taking the time to check it.  Of course at first try, the tailgate opened and closed just fine.  The service manager said they would test it while doing the maintenance and lo and behold, it failed to open.

Out of three prior trips only one tech bothered to document our complaint and fortunately it was when our car was still under warranty.  The service manager did some research and found this was a common complaint for our year SUV and is submitting for approval for Toyota to cover the cost since it was first reported while still under warranty.  No promises though (and I'm not holding my breath) but we can keep our fingers crossed.  If they don't cover the repair under warranty, we're looking at least $1300 just for the part.  We won't know until this coming week.

So we're asking ourselves, will these two added issues with vehicles be considered #2 or #3...........lol  What's next?

Yesterday was rather uneventful here but my nephew was married up in West Virginia.  I hated we had to miss it!!!  The entire day my mind was on them while I tried to focus on here at home.  At least my oldest son and his family were able to make it and I'm so thankful for that!!  At least someone from my side of the family made it to the wedding.

With yesterday's lack of focus, I at least managed a little illustration of the wedding and then decided to chart my greens for comparison.  I have all these tubes of green paint but normally only grab the Sap Green.

KG sketchbook / Mixed brands / Micron 01

Trying to Regain Motivation to Sketch and Paint

It's been a trying month for family so haven't had much motivation to do a great deal of sketching or painting.  This post basically catches me up with what I've managed to do in the last few days.  I'm trying to push forward even though my heart's still not quite into it yet.

After several weeks and finally getting the inks and fountain pens I wanted to fill with my new inks, I worked this page in the Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.  I figured stippling was a good way to start back into sketching.

 This is of a flycatcher I've seen for the first time outside our living room window.  He and a female showed up the end of May and continue showing up in our palm and our feeders.  Worked in the Fabriano Venezia sketchbook with a .7 mechanical pencil.

Testing out the new inks and making a more formal chart in the Strathmore Visual WC journal.

Color coordinating color of inks to color of pen barrels the best I could.  Ended up getting four Lamy Vistas with the clear bodies for some of he colors plus one Al Astar for the gray ink.

This is finally getting my May Challenge completed that a friend of mine and I set for each other each month.  May was tools of some kind.  Worked in the Stillman & Birn Beta journal.

Has Fabriano Watercolor Sheets Changed?

Ten years ago (plus), I was planning to work with beginners learning watercolor.  I had purchased paints, brushes and Fabriano Artistico 140 lb Cold Press paper in packs of 10 (back then) which were sold cut down to about quarter size.  I chose to do this so those I worked with were using the same materials as I was.

Fabriano has always been my #1 favorite with how I like to paint.  I liked the texture and the amount of sizing in the paper compared to other brands.  I also liked the fact my extra fine nibs didn't have trouble moving across the paper surface.

Anyways, I ended up with an overstock of supplies and have been using the paper purchased years ago until recent when I needed full sheets to tear down to the size signatures needed.

It seems different.  Feels different.  My pen nibs appear to hang and if I don't keep the nib moving, the ink feathers or spreads.

I know Arches changed but hadn't read anything about Fabriano changing.  I'm wondering if full sheets are made different from the cut down smaller size sheets packaged as I purchased years ago.  I just don't know.

Here are three pages in my Fabric Traveler's Notebook made last month using the new Fabriano.  I like how it handled the watercolor application (mainly wet in wet except the paint palette chart) and I used different pens........Lamy Safari EF nib, TWSBI EF nib (wetter feed), and a Sharpie pen.

Albrecht Durer Watercolor Pencils - Complete Set

I haven't done a great deal in days except these color charts.  I've put this off for sometime and it took me three days to complete (a little each day).

Scanning doesn't quite show them correctly (especially the real light tints) so I also took photos.  Unfortunately my photography skills leaves a great deal to be desired..........lol.  In any event, I've included both.

Scanned:

Photographed using Ipad

Mini Folding Palette - Jackson Art's Supply

Anytime I set up a palette, I like working pages in my journal that I can refer back to on what colors I've chosen.  I have been adding pages like this to a dedicated Journal so I can easily look up the charts.  Before that I had them in random journals and could never remember which one.

This palette is similar to the Whisky Palette but they were out of stock and I found this through Amazon which is very similar.

Closed it's only 5" x 2.75" and open it is 5" x 8"

I took the metal tray with rails that hold the 1/2 pans out of the palette so I could fit more 1/2 pans if I wanted or replace with whole pans at some point (or a combination of both).  Plus have room for my mini waterbrush and a sponge.

With this palette, I decided to start out with W&N watercolors although I do prefer Daniel Smith.  But I have several small travel palettes already set up with DS pigments.

Stillman & Birn Beta
Micron 03
W&N watercolors

Derivan Liquid Pencil - Testing

After working the lamp last night, I wanted to play a bit more testing a few things with this liquid pencil.  Also tried out the other colors received.

This time I worked in the Stillman & Birn Beta Journal.

I have to say this stuff is really nice!  I just love how it goes down on paper.  I even played a bit wet in wet just to see what it could do.

The 'pigment' (if you want to call it that) is of course heavy so with wet in wet it's not going to move very much.  Kind of like heavy opaque watercolor pigment.  But it did produce a nice effect.

Here is the page I worked showing:

1) values created two different ways;
2) how it handled lifting with a damp to wet brush and erasures after completely dry;
3) wet in wet example applying water first;
4) how pen and ink with fountain pen would behave and look drawn over top of a shaded area - light and a bit darker.  I wanted to test that because I've often experienced problems using a fine nib fountain pen drawing over graphite or pencil lines.
5) samples of the other three colors - red, blue, and sepia

Here is the enlarged wet in wet example.  LOVE the granular look to this!  Reminds me of Daniel Smith Lunar Black watercolor paint.

****Noticed after posting............do you see the large chick or duck hiding under the tree????  :-)****

Larger examples of the three colors...

Koh-I-Noor Artists' Drawing Pencil Lead 5.6 mm

Received this set of 5.6 mm lead for my clutch pencil yesterday.  Although purchased through Amazon, it came from the United Kingdom.  I was pleased at the speed in which it came too considering where it was coming from.  I had placed my order on April 17th with an estimated delivery date of May 12-26th; however, I received it yesterday April 28th.

Koh-I-Noor Artists' Drawing Pencils

The last set of 2 mm colored lead I received days ago were waxy color pencil like lead.  These here are more chalky and what I was hoping for.

Here is a quick chart I did last night.  The one thing lacking on this chart is testing how well they erase.  One will definitely have to use a fixative to keep these from smearing but love the blending quality.

The Charcoal is super dark and I had a problem being able to achieve a nice value scale.  Would definitely save that for when I needed a real dark area applied and using the Gray for the other values.

The White I also struggled achieving a good value scale but I think that was from operator malfunction ...... not what the lead itself will do ;-)  I did find when using a tortillon that more rubbed off than actually blended.  I need to work with that a bit more to see if that's just the nature of the white or problem with the one using it.

MEMTEXTs Color Carbon Leads 2mm / 2B

I'm such a sucker for art supplies buying new things to try out.  Yesterday I received an order of the MEMTEXTs Color Carbon Leads for a 2mm Mechanical Pencil.  These color leads are 2B.

On Amazon it's stated these are best used for Adult Coloring Books, which may very well be the case.  The paper that makes up these coloring books may have a toothier paper surface the lead adheres to better than, let's say, smooth like I tested.  I wouldn't know because I don't have a coloring book to try these out on.

One review that stood out to me was the fact they are light in color value and was not satisfactory to that person.  I don't recall if that individual shared what paper they tried their pencil leads on.

Being the person I am......curious and liking to experiment, I purchased a set.

That person is indeed right, although you can go dark if enough force is applied when laying down color.  That would quickly become cumbersome though, I'm sure, for most people.

This little example was done in a PaperBlank's journal which has a slick/smooth paper surface.
I've included on the example my own thoughts and personal findings.  Personally they are nothing more than colored pencils in a format to fit a mechanical pencil.  Great for making up a small sketch kit without having to take a tin of regular sized color pencils; BUT, definitely too much work would have to go into obtaining darker values for my liking.

I've been on the hunt for tinted "graphite" that behaves like regular graphite one can smudge and blend with a tortillion or paper stump.  These definitely do not fit that bill.

I have a set of Koh-I-Noor Gioconda 5.6mm Artists Drawing leads on order and can't wait to try them out.  They come in a set of six (browns/sepias, black, and white).  Will share my findings once I've received and had a chance to try them out :-)

What Happened to Me in March?

Getting ready to file my digital art files in the proper folders, I discover I have basically skipped the Month of March with the few journal pages I managed to work.  I've been a bit out of it ........ just haven't been all that inspired.  But I did manage a few pages other than what I have shared with the Pokemon catches.

This first is a palette/color chart I added to my home sewn journal I am working in.  

While watching TV, I did these pen sketches in the PaperBlank journal using a ballpoint pen.

Page in the Handbook journal using pencil of one of my Jade plants.

Another page in the PaperBlank journal with ballpoint pen.

Hand-sewn Journal recording one of my Christmas gifts hubby and sons gave me.

My Go To Travel Palette

I have several different travel kits set up so far to grab and go but finding this one to be my first to grab (even while sitting at home).  Part of the reason is the fact it's so light and thin.  It has my favorite pigments of the three brands I use most often....Daniel Smith, W&N, and QoR artist watercolors.

This was set up before I left for WV to finish our move.  I forgot to write down what was what so I'm not exactly sure which pigment is what brand but I have a fairly good idea (if I can rely on my memory...ha..ha).  Most are W&N due to the transparency.  The orange, sap green, and purple are definitely QoR  I prefer QoR Sap Green because it appears to be closest to a natural green compared to other brands.

Cerulean Blue, Shadow, and Moonglow are definitely Daniel Smith.

Only a couple I'm not really sure (like the yellows) as I like yellows of all the brands I have.  If I were to take a wild guess, I'd say W&N but possibly Daniel Smith.....lol.  Oh well.......this teaches me to not forget to write it down at the time I fill the pans!  In any event, I like the choices I made and I guess that's what is most important.