Author Archives: leslie

Shelterwood Backpocket Stress Test Part 3

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I’ve been carrying around my Shelterwood in my back pocket for 40 days. This is much longer than I normally carry a Field Notes. More than twice my typical carry time.  In my opinion, it has fared just as well as any other Field Notes. Any FN carried naked in a back pocket while walking on hot subway lines, through Cambridge, and while gardening would be battered and damaged.

The damage is mostly contained to where the creases initially occurred. Those creases at the spine have developed into moderately sized chips of the cherry veneer.  There area few splinters of wood at the spine and corners. The spine shows the most wear and the largest splinters. There is a lot of transfer of indigo from my jeans.

Over the last 9 days I’ve been working in my garden occasionally. I’ve been shoving various stuff in and out of my pocket. One of the things that has gone in and out of my pocket is a knife and a spool of cord.

With all of this going on you might think that this notebook isn’t durable, but the fact is that it’s been in my pocket for 40 days. I’d be surprised if other notebooks lasted this well. You can take a look at the pictures and decide for yourself.

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Future Reviews and the Summer of Pencils

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I placed an order with JetPens and it contained 5 different types of pencils. Part of the order was my first full box of a Palomino Blackwings. The Pearl stole my heart and it’s the first Blackwing that I’ve wanted to write, draw, and doodle on everything. It’s an awesome pencil. I have a full review of that coming up soon.

I picked up the following:

  • Rhodia Pencil
  • MitsuBishi Hi-Uni in B and HB
  • MisuBishi Matured 9800 For General Writing HB
  • MitsuBishi NanoDia in B

All were nice. But one was meh and one is a  pencil I reach for over and over as I write, sketch, and doodle. The Group of Pencils

Review: Palomino HB Pencil

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In my next to last review of the individual pencils in the Palomino mixed pencil pack from pencils.com  I’m looking at the Palomino premium HB eraser topped pencil. It’s features a perfect bright orange finish with a gold imprint. The ferrule is a matching gold colored ferrule holding a white eraser. The ferrule is well fitted to the pencil and stays strong even after repeated use. The eraser is, like most Palomino erasers, disappointing. For writing and general use it cleans most of the pencil off the page but to really clean the page you’ll need a stick or block eraser.IMAG1733

The pencil is made of incense cedar, smells great, and sharpens easily. The core holds a point really well from any of the sharpeners I’ve used. It is especially good with the KUM long point sharpener. The Palomino HB rating is similar to a 2B in most other brands of pencils. That makes this pencil super smooth in use. The point also wears down pretty quickly for class notes. But for drawing, this is a great pencil. It gives a nice gradation of shades, and decent darks.IMAG1734

These are not extreme value pencils. A 12-pack will cost around $13. Compared to other art pencils this isn’t a bad deal. Palomino sells the HB pencil in 12-packs. It’s unfortunately that Palomino doesn’t sell the 2B- 6B pencils in mixed drawing pencil pack in individual packages of 6 or 12. It’s a fantastic pencil for writing or drawing.IMAG1735

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Complete!

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I’m very happy to report that I’ve finally been able to migrate my writing and images from Typepad to a self-hosted WordPress site. There are drawbacks to this, but so far so good. I’ll be updating the “look” of the site over the next few weeks. I need to make a new banner and determine color choices and what not.

The good thing about all of this is that all of you who read or subscribe shouldn’t need to update your links or anything, it’s still just ComfortableShoesStudio.com 🙂

I could go on  and on about what a pain in the arse this transfer has been, but I’ll digress for now.  I have many opinions on typepad. I’m saddened to leave what was once a great platform, but the new ownership has not made any great strides and has, in my opinion, driven a once great company into the ground.

If you want to take a look at some of my older posts, they are available arranged by month and year to your left, for now. The archives may move. I’m not sure how all of this will be set up when I finally decide on a look.

Technique Today: Ink

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I love ink. It's a great thing to fiddle around within art journals. It also goes well with last weekk's topic, lettering.

If you have issues viewing the videos here on my blog please click the title of the video on the upper left of the video and it will open up in YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

 

 

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Back up

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I’m in the process of moving everything from typepad to WordPress. This has been a pretty easy transition, except for the images, which have been a bit of a pain in the arse.

I’m happy to report that WordPress has a few of the features I’ve been looking for in Typepad- first, I can use my browser’s spell check. Secondly, Android apps for photo sharing AND posting! I’m still able to use Disqus for comments (thought it lost a few of the more recent comments in the transfer.) Images are looking to be a problem. I might lose a great deal of them. I’ve got over 1600 posts, most WITH multiple hi-res images and, as of right now, all those images are linked to Typepad and didn’t import over.  So, I’m looking for a way to import all those images before I cancel my Typepad pro account. My blog will remain on Typepad’s mini format, but I’m unclear how that will look and work.  Right now Typepad mini looks like they have ripped off the code for Tumblr, so it might not work well.

Anyway,

Outages and Apologies

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I've been with Typepad for nearly 7 years. In those 7years I've rarely had any extended service outages. In the last 30 days I've had 2. Yesterday's lasted for roughly 18 hours and the previous lasted 2 days. Before that I had a few hour long outages, and maybe the longest lasted 3 or 4 hours. Really nothing.

Anyway, my blog was down because Typepad was attacked by a DDOS attack. Very annoying but the reality is that the site shouldn't have been down for hours from a DDOS attack. in addition to the recent outages, I'm annoyed with other issues with Typepad. They've promised an app for android, for over a year, with no satisfaction. The photo uploading is annoying. I can't use my browser's default spell check (which is much easier to use, especially since I've added specialty words) rather I'm forced to use their un-adaptable and clunky spell check.

There have been few updates and changes to the site to make me want to stay with it any longer. In short I'm breaking up with my blogging platform. Consider us separated while I look at other options.

I'm looking closely at other blogging platforms to find one that works best for me. IF you have one that you use, and like, leave  a comment so I can check it out. (If you have a referral code, leave that too, so if I do go with that option I can get you whatever bonuses you get for referring people.)

Fauxdori Traveler’s Notebook System, Fiscally Responsible?

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A classmate took note of my fauxdori a week or so ago in class. After some discussion, she brought up something that I’m really surprised I didn’t think of, or consider about these things, she asked me if I saved money with the fauxdori over new notebooks/journals/sketchbooks. I had never thought of it that way.

I considered my sketching and journaling method previous to using the fauxdori. I either made or bought a Moleskine pocket sized sketchbook. These have 60 pages and around here cost about $10. As for written journaling I usually did that within the moleskine or in a separate moleskine Volant ($4.50 each) or Cahier ($3.30). * The Volant has 56 pages and the cahier 64. My daily carry cost was between $12 to $15.

 My current sketchbooks are BanditApple Carnet (BAC) PeeWee. These have 64 pages each. These cost between $3- $3.50 each depending on where I purchase them. For writing I use a Field Notes book and these run about $3.30 each. So I’m spending about $7 on inserts. Clearly there is a savings in just one bundle of inserts. fauxdori

My current rate for filling a BAC is 1 a month. Considering that they have a few more pages than a Moleskine Sketchbook. I’m already saving. If I were purchasing one Moleskine or HB a month  I’d be spending $120 to $144 on sketchbooks alone in a year. I’m filling a Field Notes every 16 to 20 days, depending on to do lists, journaling, and assorted school type stuff. A Field Notes is only 48 pages compared to the volant’s 56 or the cahier’s 64. that being said I always had issues with the last pages of my cahiers falling out and the spine of the my volants tearing and needing repair. I’ve yet to damage a Field Notes to that degree. Part of that is I’m not carrying them around outside of a cover but also, they spend less time in my pocket due to the fewer pages. I’d call this aspect even.

The answer to my classmate’s question of a fauxdori being fiscally responsible is, yes, it is. I save about $80 by not buying a moleskine/handbook every month. I also save myself a lot of aggravation. The cover allows the books to really be treated quite roughly. I’m able to carry both books in my back pocket, sit on them and generally abuse them more than I would be able to otherwise. So I’m saved from gluing up spines, falling out pages, and other nuisances.

It’s probably humorous that I turn around and spend that saved scratch on other things, like sketching pencils and pens… Right?

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Review: Kum Ellipse Pencil Sharpener

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KUM Ellipse       I am excited to report that AC Moore stores are carrying KUM brand sharpeners and the prices are fantastic. I spotted my favorite KUM Automatic Long Point for about $6. Even though the long point is $6 on Jetpens, getting it locally for $6 is worth it because there isn’t any shipping. The other thing about AC Moore is that they offer monthly coupons. These coupons can be for 40%, 50%, and even 55% off. Taking any of those percentages off means that the price of the sharpener is even lower. They carry other KUM sharpeners. I snagged an Ellipse in orange. They are available in pink, yellow orange, green, and blue.

The Ellipse is a small smooth sharpener. The caps fit onto the sharpener securely on each end. inside is a small KUM wedge sharpener. The sharpener is plastic with a quality KUM blade secured with a screw, which makes it replaceable. (You can get replacement blades here.)KUM Ellipse

KUM Ellipse

The sharpener gives a medium sized point, somewhere between a small blunt point and the KUM long point. The point is good for writing and drawing. But it does leave the point with a long needle point that breaks off, so you have to keep a close eye on the point to prevent over sharpening. It sharpens quickly and easily. A few twists in this sharpener and the point is sharp and ready for action.

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The long smooth curves of this sharpener along with the secure caps make it ideal for pocket carry. It won’t poke or gouge into your thigh when carried in a pocket. For that matter it’ll be really great to carry in the pocket of a backpack or bag. It’s a terrific compact pencil sharpener.

KUM Ellipse

Mine was purchased with a 55% off coupon for $1.70, which is a great deal on a good pocket sharpener. While this isn’t the best KUM sharpener (that would be the KUM Long point) it’s a good one for daily carry.

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