Category Archives: Inspiration

Review: Exacompta Plain Journal

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I was given the Exacompta plain (unruled) journal to review by Karen and Stephanie of Exaclaire,the US distributor for Clairfontaine and a variety of other French stationary products. I like to put journals through a few paces before I do a review and since it took me a full year to get through my last journal, it’s been awhile.

The paper is off white, a very nice cream color that I really like a lot. The paper is laid textured on one side and much smoother on the other side. For some this would be a detraction, personally I like it very much and feel it opens the journal up for a variety of media I wouldn’t normally consider. Dry media does much better than expected- things like charcoal and soft pencil really like that laid texture. Though it is textured fountain pens love it’s surface.

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Wet media also does admirably on this paper. I was pleasantly surprised when I soaked the paper down with water and color that it held up. It didn’t just hold up, it out performed the luxury of the Rhodia Webnotebook. When it dried the wrinkles (cockles) relaxed. While the paper is not perfectly smooth it’s less cockled than I’d have expected. I was able to lay down a nice wash of watercolor on BOTH sides of the page and have not one drop show through or soak through to the reverse side. That is pretty amazing.

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Even my wettest writing pens don’t soak through. Occasionally you can see dark colors through the pages, but that is the case with most any journal. I’ve painted pages with ink and it doesn’t soak through to the reverse side, which again, is pretty amazing. I haven’t been interested in doing any collage in this but I’m sure it would take to it well.

In summary:
100 Laid Textured Ivory pages 100gsm
5.5×8.5 inches
Ribbon Marker
Soft Covers with a fabric spine, meant to go inside a leather cover, many companies make them
Price $15.50 at gouletpens.com

It handles wet media like a champ and is wonderful for a fountain pen. Pencil does amazing textural things on the textured side but doesn’t smudge as much as would be expected on the smooth side.

Exacompta 1
Exacompta 2

It’s not cheap but it’s a better value than the moleskine sketchbook, it’s got more papges that behave better and respond better. I’d rate this 2 happy thumbs up and would recomend it to anyone looking to get a nice journal that they can write in, sketch ink, test watercolors in, and abuse.

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Art Experiments: In Search of a Gray Ink

 I've been workingon the automatic drawings, and one of the directions I've wanted to take them is to use a very fine pen with a nice gray ink as the first layer of the drawing. I considered using pencil but really don't want to be able to erase the lines. Part of the automatic process is that the lines stay from start to finish. I wanted to use the gray ink with my extra fine RapidoCraft pen to get a fine hairline that fades into the background when a darker color is put of the top.

I searched the network's archives to see if I could find a gray ink that fulfilled my needs. I found a few reviews, but gray inks don't seem to be too popular. I then went to Gouletpens.com and checked out their swab shop tool to see the colors of the grays they had in stock. Still nothing definitive. Instead I ordered 5 samples of gray colors. Each was from a different brand and most I'd seen mentioned at some point on the network.

The 5 colors I ordered were:

    Omas New Gray
    Private Reserve Gray Flannel
    Diamine Grey
    Noodler's Lexinton Grey
    Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun

And my 4 needs are:

    That it survive being wet and not bleed too profusely. A distinct line must remain.
    It not foul pale watercolors like yellow.
    It not foul shades of blue, turning them muddy or green
    It recede to the background when black is put over the top in a drawing.

I performed a test on each of these criteria with each ink on 3 types of paper:

    Clairefontaine Graf It
    Canson Universal Sketch 65lb
    Exacompta Plain Journal

The results were the same across all papers, though with the Graf It there was additional lifting across the inks when lifting was noted.

Diamine Grey was too dark to be a grey I would use for my drawings and it lifted the worst of all the inks.

Private Reserve Gray Flannel was also too dark for my use. I can't say that I actually like this color either. It has a green cast to it that I do not enjoy. It was also the second worst for fouling the pale watercolors. It was also barely discernible from black.

Noodler's Grey was the only ink that did not lift at all. Thus colors floated over it's surface and were not fouled nor muddied. However, it is very dark when in a pen running wet. It might be a contender if it were in a dry pen. I will be loading this into my  freshly cleaned RapidoCraft XF to see if it will work. I'm not convinced. It does hands down win on every other test.

Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun was a good shade that is easily discernible from an overlay of black. It did lift, though not badly. It slightly muddied the pale colors, though not too badly. I really like the color. It does not fit the bill because it is too blue. It's also REALLY expensive.

The perfect shade of gray is the Omas New Gray. It perfectly matches the pale silvery line of pencil. It's clearly gray without a green tinge or looking like I added a bunch of water to my black ink. It's just a cool clear gray. It's pale on the page and black ink pops on top of it. It does however lift. It muddies the pale yellow but mixes well with the pale blue. Even when it does lift it leaves behind a discernible line.

I have one last test. It will require me to leave the inks on the page over night to see if time will allow them to bond with the paper more. Given how I work the more immediate test is the better indicator of how the ink will respond to me and my methods of working but the additional information will be useful. Click any of the images to see these tests in hi-res glory.

IMG_4304The above images is the Canson Universal Sketch paper.

IMG_4304This is the Clairefontaine Graft It pad.

IMG_4304This is the Exactompta plain journal.(review on this to come.)

 

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Die cuts, tea and friends

My friend Jane and I go on what I term "Art Adventures" every other weekend. This weekend she wanted to see my set up for shooting videos and so she did. She'd also been itching to see the cricut machine in action. We drank tea, talked and drew together. I shot a automatic drawing video with her present (that was a first) and told her what I was doing with the set up, start to finish.

After that we got on the computer and I did a little video editing- sandwich method style (aka using my own template) and we dug out the cricut.

While she was here we talked about the endless possibilities that Makes the Cut gives to the cricut (Don't worry I gave her a primer on the evils of the litigious overlord ProvoCrap) and stuck a RapidoCraft in there. From there it snowballed, more ideas, and more. I'm telling you, it was great, I looked at the cricut and MTC with new ideas.

After that I cut these- gears of my own design, 100%, not Tim Holtz's but mine. Using MTC  I combined basic shapes to get these.

Die cuts, tea and friends

Die cuts, tea and friends

Die cuts, tea and friends

YouTube Find: hyperion311

I'm really digging the style in these art journals. Sketches, doodles, experiements, personal ephemera; all the stuff I think belongs in an art journal are there. Check it out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The price of good customer service

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