Author Archives: leslie

Review: Faber Castell Gelato

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I’d
heard  a lot about Faber Castell’s Gelatos. I’d heard they were like a
tube of smooshy rich watercolor. So I had to try them out. I went small
and bought a 2 pack. The only packs the local Michael’s had were either 8
packs or 2 packs. The 8 packs are all matching tones in one shade or
another, the 2 packs were the blending shades to mix with the colors. I
didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the 8 packs and the 2 pack was
only $3.50 and I had a coupon.

The
tubes are hard plastic and hold a water soluble substance that feels a
lot like chapstick, which makes sense that it’s in a chapstick-like
tube. No holds barred, I went straight into my art journal and slopped
some white onto a spot that I wanted to bring the neighboring area into
prominence while blending the color back.
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Once
on the page I found the white was nicely opaque, thought it took a
decent amount of product to get that result. I really liked the look of
the product straight out of the tube, but found that without adding
water it smudged with ease. Adding some water kept a lot of the
opaqueness of the product but cut it’s greasy slick texture.
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For
those of you who like to stick your fingers into paint, these are
nontoxic. I have not had a chance to test them for lightfastness, but
will do so soon.
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They
lay down in a greasy thick and smooth feeling, not unlike writing on a
wall with high quality lipstick… I’ll be honest after so many rave
reviews I was expecting… MORE. Instead I was left feeling
underwhelmed. The plastic tube is brilliant marketing for adults who
don’t want to get their fingers dirty with Portfolio Water Soluble Oil
Pastels. They also have a more adult appearance than Portfolios, a
certain je ne sais quoi, if you will. They are also packaged in a way
that will appeal to adults.
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Underwhelmed
is a good way to express how I feel about these. I’m not a fan of
Portfolios. They are close enough to watersoluble crayons that I don’t
see a reason to add them to my art arsenal. Instead I’ll stock up on
more watersoluble crayons. I do like the white though for it’s
opaqueness.

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Mess of Images

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Tha tlast few weeks have felt like a jumbles mass of images. I'm working hard on the Chipin campaign images, which is way more work than I imagined, but the good kind of work that I love. Witht he Chipin campaign images I'm thinking more carefully about the faces themselves and really only drawing faces I love. It's taken more time to find those face than expected.

In the midst of all this my maternal grandmother had a massive stroke and a week later passed away. I'm just now starting to form the words and being able to address the feelings I have on this subject, but for now, that's private and I won't be sharing that here. Eventually I'll post some art journal pages about it, but not for now.

I'll be heading to Maine for a rememberance later this month.

 
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Toner Transfer Journal Junky Style

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The Journal Junkies use toner transfers in their journals. I'm always jealous of well done toner transfers, as mine have almost always failed. Goof off is the first product I've used that gives great results. Watch the video, and work in a well ventilated area away from flames.

 

Dark Days

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I notice that a lot of art journals only seem to cover the happy parts of life, as if only the pretty parts are deserving of a page.

Dark Days

Ignoring the crappy hard parts of life isn't the best way to deal with the garbage. Disappointment, sadness, death, and our distress all deserve to be explored and figured out in the pages of our art journals.Dark Days

My art journal is a place for me to work out my thoughts and ideas, exorcise the demons if I need them gone. It's a place to explore and even fail.

I've got some dark not so happy stuff in my journals, and that's just the place to shut it away.

Dark Days

Lightfast Test #2

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Pens tested:

  • Sharpie Brush Pens- Green, Purple, Blue
  • Copic Cad Yellow Brush Pen
  • Zig Clean Color Brush Pen: Bright Yellow, Prussian Blue, Green
  • Uniball Signo DX .28 Bright Blue, Black .18, .28, .38
  • Several Create-a-color 5.5mm Leads

 

Method:
I drew lines, scribbles, and a block of color on acid free archival
paper. The page was cut in half. the loose page was placed in a south
facing window that gets full sun for the majority of the day.I placed
the sheet in the window on August 30th, 2012. I took it down on
September 13th, 2012.
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Let’s
start with the good. There was no color shift in any of the
Create-a-color leads. No worries there. The Uni-ball pens also had no
color shift, not even the bright blue color. The gris Nuage ink by J
Herbin also showed no signs of color shifting. This is a second test for
this ink. I like to affirm my previous tests, just in case.

The
bad. Let’s start with the Sharpies. Sharpie makes no lightfastness
claims. They don’t even bother with claiming their markers are archival.
No claims, no surprises. The green had major color loss. The purple was
mostly magenta after 2 weeks. The blue showed off some major color loss
and change. This was all expected. These are not lightfast. Do not
consider it archival and do not use it in finished art.

The
next on my list of bad is the Copic Cad Yellow marker. In the art world
Cad Yellow is not considered a fugitive color. In fact if you find a
painting with cad yellow in it from 200 years ago, that color is likely
to be still true to the day it was placed, depending on where it was
stored yada yada yada. The copic yellow marker had a major color shift
in 2 weeks and lost much of it brightness. What was left was a pale
yellow ghost. In some areas, where I’d had a light touch the color was
completely gone. The layered areas also showed color change and loss.
The Copic marker is not lightfast. Do not consider it archival, do not
use it in finished art.
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The
next series of markers that are in the bad category were the Zig Clean
Color Brush markers. Zig makes a great deal of archival markers for the
scrapping market. I had to test them. In 2 weeks the color of the bright
yellow was completely gone. As in a shadow remained, as in you couldn’t
 tell a color had been there, unless you already knew. The Prussian
blue and the green showed a great deal of color shift and loss. The
black, perhaps the most disappointing of all, turned purple and was well
on it’s way to disappearing. Zig does not advertise the Clean Color
markers as archival, light fast or even acid free; simply watebased. As
such I’m sure I can say with confidence that you shouldn’t consider them
any of the above either. Again, don’t use these in finished art pieces.

What
does this all mean? You can go ahead and use these in your art journal
and sketchbook- any place that will be kept out of sunlight, but be
aware that these could shift color if exposed to any strong sunlight,
really for any period of time. Let’s face it, even in the summer
Massachusetts  sun is not considered all that tough and tougher pigments
and dyes often outlast it. I’d also caution you to be aware of buying
art from people who use Copics in their finished pieces, they were
initially made for the marketing world, where finished art is often
tossed after it’s been photographed. The markers did not need to be
lightfast. Now that people are using them for other art, Copic should
really consider making their markers lightfast.