I
have a massive clearance sale of old stock items currently up on my
etsy page. (That was worded awkwardly, but you get my drift.) I’ve got
old stock jotters from my old Artfire account, around 25 or so 6-packs,
but the deal is, I get to pick the covers. I didn’t want to spend a lot
of time shooting 100’s of pics so you get what you get for covers. You
can send me a message telling me, “OMG I hate pink.” I’ll avoid pink for
you. I’ve got white paper and not white paper as well as a few packs of
lined, graph and vintage rad IBM paper. $6 a 6-pack, several $ off from
my usual price. I won’t be stitching up any more of this style of
jotter, the machine I used to stitch them died so all my future jotters
will be hand stitched. So, the time to stock up is NOW!

I
also have a bunch of art journaling and sketching supplies that I’ve
been hoarding. Several packages each of Palomino writing and sketching
pencils and some of their colored pencils. Selling WAY below list price.
I also have what I call the “Art Journaling Basic Kit.” It’s got an
assortment of pencils, colored pencils and a KUM brass wedge sharpener.
All materials I like a lot. Also selling way below lists price on these
items. These items ship free if purchased in combination with a journal
or jotter set.

I
also have a bunch of what I’m calling the Behemoth journals, 300 pages
of great paper all stitched into one of my recycled sign vinyl covers.
Why 300 pages? I miss counted when I did my paper folding and put more
sheets than usual into the journals, my mistake is your bonus. These fat
journals are just begging to be filled with your thoughts, gratitudes,
EDM sketches, doodles and art journaling. Also did I mention that they
are awesomely thick? Also, heavy.

Holy Crap! I totally forgot to post this last night.

I did a sketch in pencil of a tootsie roll pop. I as thinking out some ideas in a notebook for a bike trailer. I tore out part of a design that I decided wouldn't work and glued that to the page, partially over the sketch of the tootsie roll pop. I then flooded just the background of the tootsie roll pop with magenta watercolor.

I apologize for not including step-by-step images as I have the for the rest of the 30 in June, I got distracted.

Here's a nifty blog called "The Letter is M."

This blog has a post detailing her early journals. Awesome.

A tumblr with collages, lovely brightly colored collages. I could look at this for hours.

A contest where you nomiate the winner.. Ahem… err, yeah.

The Fountain Pen Netowrk has taken a dive recently and I'm now hooked on the Fountain Pen Geeks forum for all my foutnain pen enabling.

Art is what you make it. 🙂 Love it.

Take a look at some of my journals on etsy.

Or take a look at my art on etsy.

Have a listen to Kim Deal, formerly of the Pixies and the Breeders: (LONG LIVE THE 90's!)

So I cheaped out on you yesterday. And I was going to again today. But I got inspired, deiced to work within the boundaries set, but not.

I started with this, and it was going to be all I did. It takes a long time to write that big, it's a 9×12 sheet of paper covered in my chicken scratch flex writing. Sorry it's hard to read.

Then I decided to cut a chunk of it out and glue it to my 5×7 area.
Then I grabbed some junk mail, and cut part of a logo out. Guess I'm in good hands? then I added a print off of my brain drawing. I then went around those 2 pieces with light blue colored pencil. Coloring hard.
Then I added some magenta watercolor around the whole thing. 🙂 AJ Happiness even at 5×7 inches.

****After reading this review please go read my update!****

Made by Scribal Work Shop, Siren
is a lovely shade of blue black. It leans toward teal or turquoise but
a very dark shade. Frankly, I’m in love with the color. After the
disappointment of my last ink purchase I’m super pleased with this color.
It’s the least boring blue black color I’ve ever used. My previous
favorite blue black was Private Reserve Sonic Blue. Siren is a shade or
two lighter and brighter. The ink shades wonderfully in my TWSBI 530
medium nib.
It
dries in a standard amount of time, meaning that larger pools of ink
dry a little slower than the thinner areas. I had no problems with
smudging of ink after a few seconds of dry time. I found the ink to be a
hard starter after sitting out for a few minutes and even after having
the pen capped for a few minutes. That being said, I did have an epic pen
failure. (My TWSBI cap sheared off just above the cap band, so I may
have had some cracks that were allowing the nib to dry out.) After
leaving the pen capped for a few hours with my 540 cap on it, it starts
just fine. (Note: I've now been using this ink for about a week and I'm finding that it IS a hard starter in the AM. I added 2 drops of water to a full TWSBI and am now finding that the additional water solved the issue.)

Lubrication
is a spot where I would rank this ink lower than others. I tested
it across a variety of papers and it’s not as lubricating as many other
inks, even though my 530 is on the wet side. While an ink like
Iroshizuku Asa Gao could be described as ice skating across paper and
Noodler’s Heart of Darkness is akin to gliding, Siren is more like walking through mud. While it’s nice, it’s certainly not a highly
lubricated ink, it’s still not as dry as J Herbin Bleu Nuit.
I
can’t comment on it’s staining but it did clean off my hands with ease.
It doesn’t look to be particularly water resistant either. A few brush
strokes nearly removed it completely from the HP 24lb LaserJet. In the
significantly more absorbent Canson XL some of the ink moved around but
the writing was still legible and the color was retained.
I tested it on a variety of papers with my TWSBI 530 M nib:

• HP Laserjet 24lb- No feathering, no bleed through, some show through
• Field Notes Red Blooded Gridded- No feathering, little to no bleed through, some show through
• Field Notes Standard Plain- No feathering, little bleed through, some show through
• Picadilly Pocket Lined- No feathering, little bleed through, some show through
• Moleskine lined, old- No feathering, little to no bleed through, some show through
• Bandit Apple Carnet PeeWee- No feathering, no bleed through, no show through
• Canson XL Pocket Blue Book- No feathering, no bleed through, no show through
• Tops Composition Book- No feathering, some bleed through, show through
• NEW Staples Sustainable Earth Comp Book- No feathering, bleed through, show through
• OLD Staples Sustainable Earth Legal Pad- No feathering, no bleed through, some show through

I
found it to tbe surprisingly well behaved on dirt cheap paper and even
Moleskine paper. This makes it ideal for some of my uses- note taking in
my upcoming graduate classes and writing out ideas for papers.
It comes in a bottle that reminds me of 1980’s era cough syrup. It’s
brown glass with a white cap that tightens solidly. The label is an
address label that is clearly printed off as needed, lending to the
feeling that these inks are brewed in small batches. The design work is
simple and easily read.

Pricing
is great too, it’s $8 for 60ml of ink or 13 cents per ml; which is the
about the same as Noodler’s ink. Compared to Iroshizuklu at 56 cents per
ml. I purchased mine from Goulet Pens but it’s also available from
Zeller Writing Company and as of this writing (6/20/13) it’s on sale for
50 cents off the regular price.

****After reading this review please go read my update!****

Continue reading →

I'm working in my art journal but I'm done with 5×7 inch pages unless I feel like working small. Thisis a corner of an 11×14 art journal page. It's ball point pen and a Noodler's Ahab flex pen with some generic black ink in it.

The ballpoint pen was used for the automatic drawing and the Ahab for the writing.

And, yes, I have a guide under the page so my writing is straight.

Also, I had breakfast at the cafe where I'll be hanging my show in September. Here's a pic of the wall.

I am definately paying for spending all day outside yesterday and this AM, my allergies are beating me up. Had to take an allergy pill for the first time in a long time. I've been exposing myself to the various allergens in my area a little bit at a time over the last few months, and it seems to have made a huge difference in the severity of my symptoms. Especially, as I usually go all or nothing in yard work and outdoor activity. Yay!

Today's page is a little different. I used just these following tools:

Mechanical Pencil

Zebra Sarasa 0.7 in black

Ruler

Eraser

Because I think that an art journal isn't only pretty page but also ideas and thoughts, this is today's page:

If you get 3 or 3 pallets it will lead you to build something like this:

It's my recycled pallet tomato planter. It holds 3 tomatoes that produce big fruit. It would probably hold 4 to 6 cherry tomatoes, if one wanted to fertilize super heavy.

Today’s
page started with me trying out the pencil then erase method I tried a
few days back. I really liked the destructive nature of the technique
and how it kind of wipes out the writing, this can be effective
mentally.  if you’re looking for that sort of thing. It was just the
thing for today’s writing.

After
erasing much of the pencil leaving behind just a trace of texture I
transferred a print of my brain drawing. I then layered turquoise
watercolor and while it was still wet used magenta on the underside of
the brain. This moved and blended with the turquoise and created a
vibrant purple.


I
don’t know why I hadn’t thought to create automatic drawings and then
collage them onto a page. I love it. New favorite thing ever! In this
case I wanted to show a disconnect between the slightly confused looking
face and the brain. Yet it’s connected through the stormy
jellyfish-like tentacles.

This
page makes me really happy because it perfectly encompasses my thoughts
and feelings on this day. Our dishwasher is on the fritz, the washing
machine decided to fill, but not drain or agitate and it makes a nasty
electrical smell when it tries to agitate. The dishwasher I can
(probably) fix but sadly  the washing machine is beyond my capabilities.
With that negative there comes positive, my upside down tomatoes are
awesome and the slow drip fertilizer system I created works perfectly. I
turn it on for 5 minutes every day and the tomatoes each get just the
right amount of organic liquid fertilizer and none of it drips out and
is wasted. The plants have doubled in size over the last 2 weeks and are
looking strong. My hardy kiwi plants are covered in blossoms and are
gorgeous plants. Due to our cold and wet weather my pink lilies are a
few weeks behind their usual point but this means the blossoms will be
bigger and more amazing. See, lots of good stuff… Also I’ve been
making books like a mad woman, after all, washing machine repair bills
aren’t cheap, hell, a used washing machine on Craigslist isn’t cheap.

The finished image is 5×7 inches and is available matted and ready for framing on etsy here.

I
started this page by writing with a watercolor pencil. I then traced
circles  in 3 colors and a pattern on the page. I scribbled in each
circle to fill it with color. I then wet the circles with a brush. I
sprayed over the whole page when the circles were still damp.

I
wanted to integrate another automatic drawing into the page, so I
grabbed another sheet of paper and started to draw. I then cut that out
of the page and adhered it with a glue stick.

After
that I wanted to do a transfer of a brain on the page, so I grabbed my
chartpak ad marker and transferred the brain image. It transfered well
enough over the watercolor pencil. I wanted it to pop a bit so I added
magenta watercolor to the brain.

I’m really enjoying making the automatic drawings and then sticking them on a page, I really like how they look.

The finished image is 5×7 inches and is available matted and ready for framing on etsy here.

I
made a few hand stitched jotters. This is notable mainly because I usually use a machine to stitch my jotters. Since I've adjusted my machine for use on fabric and can't take a chance of messing it up with paper right now, I stitched these by hand.. All are hand stitched with sturdy hemp
cord. I omitted the beeswax so they are vegan. The covers are my usual
recycled advertising posters, these are made of heavy cardstock that has
been printed with various advertising images. I filled them up with 48
unlined pages of fountain pen friendly HP laserjet 24lb paper in bright
white. I’m totally digging this paper for all my pens, the ink and pens
do so well on it. (Review here.)

They
are sized like Field Notes, Moleskine Cahiers, or BanditApple Carnet
Peewee notebooks. They fit perfectly in GoodKarma*, Davis Leatherworks or
Pelle covers. Even without a cover these covers will wear perfectly and
look great throughout their lifetime of use.

I’ve got a couple of sets up as well as offering random singles on etsy.

*I supply GoodKarma with notebooks for her fabulous covers. Her's are fabric and handstiched. She encorporates lovely textures and colors into her work. I have one of her covers that doubles as a wallet, and it's perfectly lovely.