This is how it starts, one day you forget your notebook for class and all you've got is your sketchbook so you take notes in it, you decide you like the look and suddenly an art journal is born.
sketchbook cambiose from raquel pinheiro on Vimeo.
sketchbook dragão da maldade from raquel pinheiro on Vimeo.
sketchbook from raquel pinheiro on Vimeo.
Ink Wash is an incredibly old skool technique that I learned in High School. It was taught to us in Art 1 as a way to learn about value and tone, as well as their relationship. We used film canisters (retro) and India ink, which is waterproof once dried. The idea behind it is that you start with 3 to 5 levels of light to dark watered down ink. You apply it with a brush to capture the value of the image you are trying to capture. You add additional layers of watered down ink to achieve your dark darks. At the end you'd use a crow quill pen to add in details, or if you were "that good" you'd get a liner brush and use a light hand to add those final details.
In college I had a friend who did the most amazing ink washes in blue higgens waterproof ink. Amazing stuff. Since then I've sketched in black, red, blue, blue-black and a variety of other colors. Traditional is with black so that's what I've shown in my video.
I use Noodler's Black ink for this, but you can use any ink brand you want. The vials I use are from GouletPens.com. I used my syringe that I referenced in my last post about fountain pens to measure the ink.
Anyway, watch the video, try ink wash, it's an easy and fun technique.
I've been making what I call "automatic drawings" since the late '90s. The idea is that I put a pen to paper and move it around in ways that come to me, subconciously without deep thought. Think of it as a drawing style similar to stream of conciousness writing. I've noticed that during different parts of my life different images and symbols arise from the depths of my mind. When I was younger the images were raw, emotional and largely symbolic of my life at that time. The symbols and the images have changed but the process is roughly the same.
Wildly differnt than what I usually post but still, I love the rough style here.
sketchbook flip IV from Luiza Holub on Vimeo.
sketchbook flip III Summer 2008 from Luiza Holub on Vimeo.
sketchbook flip #2 from Luiza Holub on Vimeo.
sketchbook flip from Luiza Holub on Vimeo.
Over the last couple of days I’ve been dealing with very good customer service, the kind of customer service people talk about how good it was. I made an order from one of my favorite companies and it got screwed up. It arrived in the mail, I’d been waiting for it, eagerly. I contacted the company and they took care of the issue in a way that will have me forever telling people about their exceptional customer service and I’ll keep coming back.
I’ve asked myself in the past what is cheaper, not replacing/repairing a book or piece of art and having the customer talk about that forever or is it cheaper to replace/repair the book/ art and have them talk about me in glowing terms forever?
Let’s put it this way, I will forever talk about the company that gave me great customer service and I have customers from over 10 years ago that still come back to me. Why? Great customer service. If anyone who bought a book from me, even 13 years ago tracked me down and asked me to repair it? Guess what, I’d do it,happily.
Oh yeah, the company that gave me exceptional customer service? Gouletpens.com
I find a lot of inspiration in looking at images of art in a totally differnt style than my own. Take Jeff Claassen's art, it's got a graffitti style that is completely different from how I draw and paint. He uses lines in a way I wouldn't think to and that is where inspiration comes in. Check 'em out.
Sketchbook #9 from jeff claassen on Vimeo.
Random Drawings Done While Working At A Dead End Job from jeff claassen on Vimeo.
Sketchbook #7, Drawings, Art from jeff claassen on Vimeo.
This weekend I shot a lot of video footage and loaded a bunch of stuff to youtube. I have found a method of editing that takes less time than what I was doing and I’m doing fewer takes of each video. *PHEW* I was burning up a lot of battery life on all those takes.
I’m using was GlamourBomb refers to as “sandwich editing.” In which I have created a set intro and a set final scene then all I need to do is add the filling- the new videos. Piece of cake.
Add to that I have the boom mic stand set up in the office where I do most of my art journaling, it makes it super easy to stick the camera on the mount and start making art.
If you haven’t made it over to artjournaling.ning.com yet for the “New to Art Journaling” group you should certainly head over and check it out. I’ve added some exclusive content to the group that won’t be shown anywhere else. I’ll be putting out more content that is exclusive to the NAJ group. Head over, ask questions and we’ll see if I can answer them, or find you answer.
I saw these over on the jetpens blog and I thought to myself, "I bet I can make those out of leather." Here are my results:
It's a simple project. Cut a strip of leather .75 inches wide (15mm or so) and 3 inches long (7.5cm). Get some no sew snaps- I used 7/16th's size because it was all Michael's carried and I was too lazy to stop someplace else. Use the tools to hammer on the snaps, the snapping together bits must be on the same side of the leather to make these.I left just enough leather on each end so I could grab it and pull the snaps apart.
They work AWESOME.
These could be made with canvas or fabric as well. I could see these made out of vinyl too. So many possibilities with sucha simple project!
During my period of less tweeting and more action I went through my blog reader and culled out the following:
I focused on blogs that I go back to and read again and again. Blogs with good instructional content. Blogs with great photos and discussion. Blogs about the messy part of art. Blogs about the hard parts of art. Blogs about exploration; of the world and mind.
I was left with a handful of good blogs, blogs I read every time they post, blogs that if they don’t post I wonder where they’ve been, and when they do post I think, “YES!”
There’s a ton of info out there to filter through and sometimes it’s overload.
I’m trying to filter it the easy way- using the tools I’ve got.
What do you do to filter the cacophony of info?
This video is a little slow and lack music but the art is really wonderful.
Sketchbook #4 from Bryan Michael Meador on Vimeo.