I spend a lot of time working on my garden and talking about my garden but I hadn't yet drawn any part of my garden. I'm going to do a series of drawings from items in my garden. You get a sneak peak of the drawings here, 'cause I'll have them in my next issue of Evidence.
I like composition books. A throw back to simplier rtimes I hated them as a kid becuase I could only find wide rule and I prefer college rule. As an adult I'm more likely to ignore the lines and just write where I feel like. I like to have one in the garage for my bike notes and to do lists. I keep them all over the house. (Not sure how C feels about this.) They have many uses doodles, sketching and writing. They are also dirt cheap. This time of year you can get them in Staples for $1 each and Walmart has some for 50 cents. The real question for me is , "How do all these comp books stack up against one another?"
A few weeks back I reviewed to much dismay the Staples Sustainable Earth comp book. It was a bummer because I really enjnoy the brown lines, the feel of the paper, and overall the quality of the book, but not being able ot use fountain pens with it makes it a deal killer. I won't buy another one.
So I'm searching out compbooks that work with my fountain pens. I've done a lot of reading that you need to keep an eye on where they are made, with Brazil as the best country of origin.
Let's start out with the rank and horrible.
Mead Five Star College Ruled with the plastic covers.
The paper feels nice, pens glide but feather and bleed like writing on TP. No country of origin listed. Was more expensive than the rest.
Mead Wide Ruled Fasion Pattern Covers Made in Vietnam
nice stiff covers in a variety of funky patterns, also available college ruled. Some inks did horribly on this paper others did well. Bleed through was intolerable but feathering was okay.
Norcom Fashion Pattern Covers Wide Rule Made in USA Walmart
Covers are flimsy but nice patterns. Paper feels smooth and nice but feathers and bleeds like crazy. even well bahaved inks don't do well on it. It's too bad I'd like to buy made in the US paper. These were on sale at Walmart for 50 cents.
Norcom Original Covers College Rule Made in USA Walmart
Covers are flimsy. Paper feels smooth and nice but
feathers and bleeds like crazy. even well bahaved inks don't do well on
it. It's too bad I'd like to buy made in the US paper. These were on sale at Walmart for 50 cents.
Now let's talk about the acceptable and good.
Staples Quad Comp Graph Rule Made in Egypt
Okay covers. Paper feels nice. Pens like it. Slight feathering with some inks but most fair better than average. Plenty of bleed through, making only one side of the paper usable. On sale at Staples for $1.
Tops Brand Standard Marble Cover Wide Rule Made in Vietnam
Flimsy cover. Paper is smooth and feels great under the pen. No feathering, no bleed through. Both side usable with right pen. Regularly priced at 97 cents at Target. (For what it's worth, I've been told I totally lucked out on the Made in Vietnam book being good, usually it's the Made in Brazil Tops that is good. So your mileage may vary on this one.)
Staples "Fashion" Cover Wide Rule Made in Brazil (Item number 19187)
Okay covers, not the most sturdy. Patterns are neat. Paper feels smooth and pens like it. No feathering even with my Ahab. Bleed through is acceptable. On sale for $1.
Staples "Marble" Cover College Rule Made in Brazil (Item number 40451)
Sturdy covers. Paper feels smooth and
pens like it. No feathering even with my Ahab. Bleed through is
acceptable. On sale for $1.
Have you used a composition notebook that you particularly loved? Let me know about it in the comments.
Some of the stuff I've been doing this summerisn't art related. Instead I've been doing a lot of gardening and working on my bike. Since I didn't want that stuff on the blog here I started a secondary blog called, "Other Stuff" that houses all my writing and photos about my other stuff. You can read all about that other stuff here.
All of this inspires me to keep creating, even if it seems like a distraction from my regular posts, I find it energizes and rejuvinates me. Sometimes you HAVE to shift gears into other things. It keeps me sane.
I thought that when I left my job that the summer would be all fluffy kittens and unicorns farting rainbows. Well, my luck doesn't work that way, instead, my car's engine and muffler decided to separate pending divorce and right now we have them on amicable terms but that won't last. Then the washing machine's pump decided it had enough of washing my dirty clothes and died, then well, yeah, you get the point. There were no unicorns farting rainbows. I had to spend a weekend with trolls at the laundromat sweating in places no human being should sweat. The savings ended up being spent on repairs just so we could live life.
Oh also, one of the cars wouldn't start for a month, then miraculously started and runs okay now. Go figure.
Enough bitching. Through all of this I decided I wante dto use up some of my sketchbooks that have been gathering dust, you know since I can't afford to buy another new sketchbook. So I grabbed my Canson XL Recycled Drawing sketchbook, spiral bound 9×12 inches and a handful of pens and started to sketch, doodle, and write in it, art journal style. Back to basics baby. I felt more free than I had in a long long time while art journaling. I have been so constricted by what I THOUGHT this summer should be like and when life handed me a bag of lemons all I did was suck on them instead of figuring out how to make a great lemon pepper chicken.
So after a few pages of the journal I realized I REALLY liked working in this simple illustrative doodle filled manner. I also like writing in my journal. I have no big secrets. My thoughts and doodles meshed to make neat-o pages.
Then I thought, why don't i PUBLISH this ina quick and dirty way. Like the zines I used to make back in the late 90's and early 2000's? Black and white photocopies? Nah, go high tech with it, PDF. The idea of scanning 18 pages of B+W images hi-res bummed me out, instead I downloaded a free app called CamScanner that allows me to use my ScanBox well and make a PDF that I load to my DropBox account and then to Etsy. I'm hooked.
So I call the zine "Evidence" it's 18 pages of pure art journaling in black, white and gray. It's scanned in with the camera on my smart phone and made into a PDF with an app. It's printable and you can share it so long as you give me credit.
Get it on my Etsy account here. It's $5.
Some sneak peaks inside the zine:
Check out Imperfet Impulses, he's got a bunch of AJ prompts and some great ideas.
Danny Gregory writes about the voice in his head.
I've been thinking about independence. Check out these videos about tiny houses.
I’ve been doing a lot of doodling. One of my all time favorite cheap-o pens for doodling is the Uni-ball Vision Fine Point
C likes to use a medium point pen versus my needle point pens. She likes a nice smooth point so I usually stick with the Uniball pens, but I happened into Staples and found they had the Zebra Sarasa retractable pens in 0.7 black ink
Why do I like these pens? First off they are dirt cheap in the arena of waterproof/resistant pens. The ink is dark and doesn’t erase off the page when cleaning up pencil. The pen itself is as comfortable to use as any other clicky ball point, the build and construction is similar to
the Pilot G2, but I find that I get skipping with the G2 but none with the Sarasa. In other words the ink is smooth, dark and flows well when compared to other gel ink pens. Also one of the issues I have with the G2 is that it develops bubbles in the ink and then doesn’t work. The
Sarasa doesn’t seem to suffer from this effect, which is good.
In short a fantastic pen for art purposes, especially given the price.
Love these black and white images.
Kelly Kilmer thinks about art and Profit.
Tracy Moore writes about no rules journaling, lot's of pictures too!
I love to read about pencils, this blog goes in depth on the… Bic Matic!
This post on the Fountain Pen Geek forum has me thinking about drawings-a-day.
Have you ever thought of making your own gelli plates? You can from gelatin. It's great stuff.
Take a look at some of my journals on etsy.
Or take a look at my art on etsy.
I’ve
been debating whether or not I should make my own notebooks for school
or if I should just buy them. I decided to pick up a few composition
notebooks to see how the various brands fared with fountain pens. I’ve
been a fan and have used the Staples Sustainable Earth composition
notebooks for around the garage and workbench thinking notebooks for
hacking out designs on my bike builds and other things. I’ve been a big
fan of them for awhile. While out picking up some supplies I grabbed a
new one figuring it was a safe bet for school. It seems that Staples has
changed the composition of the paper just a tad. It’s now 80% bagasse,
or sugarcane. I’m not sure what it was before but this paper has some
major differences. I compared it to a page from an old Sustainable Earth
legal pad.
The
old paper wasn’t super smooth but it was nice and performance with a
fountain pen was awesome. Line width was true to the nib, no feathering,
no soak through but there was show through. It was a great inexpensive
paper that was easy to find anywhere. 100 sheets was $2.49 anywhere in
the US. It was available in legal pads too, which were a favorite of
mine for taking notes while on the phone at work, and now for working on
ideas for classes and my writing. This paper was awesome.
The
new paper is not as smooth as the old paper. I tested both sides of the
page and while one side is slightly smoother than the other, it’s not
as smooth as the old. Line width is not true to the nib size. My medium
pen looks like a bold and my EF a medium. Feathering was rampant with
many inks. Noodler’s Eternal Brown feathered badly. Diamine Chocolate
feathered so much as to be unusable. Private reserve Sonic Blue was a
mess. Soak through was awful, many inks, normally well behaved inks,
soaked through to the page behind, leaving spots on the unused page.
Soak through was as bad as if I had used Sharpies to write. Given my
enjoyment of ink variety this is a deal killer for me.
I
decided to test the paper would with a variety of pencils and pens.
Pencil was great on the paper, it was rough enough to take a nice dark
line with mechanical pencils as well as regular wooden pencils. I tested
out a Zebra Sarasa 0.7 in black ink. It soaked through. Yes, gel ink
soaked through in some spots.
I
deem the new Staples Sustainable Earth Composition Notebook to be the
most useless notebook of the year, unless you use only pencil. Well, I might see if I can cut pages out to use as thin blotter paper, it might be useful like that, but I doubt it would do a good job at that either.
At
first it starts out that I forget to post the thing to Etsy. Then I
just decided to stop doing that altogether because well, just because.
Then I forget to post my page for the day, and I get that up first thing
the next day, then I do a half assed page the following day because I’m
stressed that I forgot the previous day. Then my washing machine dies.
Then the car’s muffler decides to go on walkabout. And I’m stuck driving
my loud car to the laundromat to wash my underwear and because I chose
to go on Saturday afternoon at an out of the way place so as to avoid
the cops on Main st, it’s me and the woman with some sort of rash and
some of the worst nail fungus I’ve ever seen doing laundry while C
returns the redbox, picks up something for dinner, and then returns to
pick up me and the wet clothing, since our drier and clothes line still
work. By the time I get home I’m tired and stressed and I forget to do a
page let alone post it.
So screw it.
Then
the 30 day challenge become a spiral of shame that I can’t stick to a
30 day Challenge, after all, it’s ONLY 30 days, wtf can’t I stick to it?
What’s wrong with me? Then i’m all, if so and so can do it, why can’t
I? (Imagine that last part in a plaintive wail.)
The
thing is, I’m being creative, I’m drawing, I’m sketching and I’m
doodling, just not in my prescribed 5×7 book. So here’s a picture of
what I drew while I was waiting for the wash to finish.
And an idea for a bag for my bike.
Ever since Gelli plates came out, people have been gaga with excitement over gelatin printmaking. Well, I was waiting for someone to figure out how to make their own plates and here it is: