I am seemingly one of the few artists (journalers) who is not in love with Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read it, I’ve got it on my bookshelf, complete with the bookmark exactly where I left off. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who isn’t telling everyone else what a great book this is, recommending it every time someone I know hits a block.

It’s not that I don’t get it or that I don’t think it’s a wonderful book, it simply didn’t resonate with me. Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m just not that into TAW. Someone once told me that to follow TAW was a commitment, and I have to agree. There are groups online to help you get into TAW as well as a workbook, and at some community colleges you can take a course in TAW.

Reading TAW or taking a course in TAW can be a transfomative experience for some people, at the end of the line, the real message behind TAW (and all it’s look alikes) is that you need to spend time making and thinking about art.

If you think this might be a good book, pick it up. Maybe I'll revisit it, or not.

The last time I was in AC Moore I noticed that Liquitex had released the Basics line of mediums again. This time in 200ml squeeze tubes. I’ve gone on record by saying that the Liquitex Basic Gel Medium is my favorite, and I can’t wait to take my 50% off coupon in and get another tube. This time around the tubes, all of them retail for $7.99, where the old versions retailed for $5.99. Higher gas prices= higher paint prices.

All of these mediums come in tubes. Which I like. I can squeeze a very tiny amount of paint out onto my palette and not waste a drop. They have  modeling paste, gloss gel medium, iridescent medium,coarse texture gel and one other I can't remember. I've purchased gloss gel, coarse texture gel and the modeling paste.

I’ve been obsessed with texture lately so I picked up a tube of coarse texture gel. (Next week I’ll review the Golden version.) Out of the tube it had a heavy body and held its shape well. I used an old credit card to scrape it around on my board. It was wet enough that it stuck down easily and I felt like once it was down it was staying down. The grittiness of it was about like 100 grit sandpaper. It looks like fine beach sand embedded on the page. It held every shape I introduced to the page with my old credit card. I’d shy away from putting this on with a good brush, I did mention that it looks like sandpaper right? This will wear the tips down on just about any brush, especially a good natural hair brush. Stick to your gesso brush or an older synthetic while using any coarse sand filled texture gel.

Clean up was easy, warm soap and water took the still damp gel off my hands with ease.

It’s been about 8 hours since I scraped a relatively heavy layer of the stuff onto my binder’s board and it’s still not completely dry. Granted we (the North East) are sitting in the midst of a incredibly high humidity cloud right now, but it has taken an incredibly long time for this to dry. It was dry to the touch with some hair drier action and I was able to gesso over the top of the gel in about an hour. If I wanted to sand or carve into the gel I’ll need to wait for it to be completely dry. Gessoing over the top of the gel is not necessary it’s ready to go as a base as is, but I wanted to add another layer of texture to the board. Like most gels this one should dry flexible, but I’ve not tested that yet.

This is a fun additive and I can see it having many applications both for an art journal but also for paintings on canvas and board. It’s got a coarse but not overly coarse texture, like fine beach sand. If you want additional texture you could add more sand. If you are looking for something that looks like cement right out of the tube you might want to look at Golden’s Coarse Pumice Gel, which I’ll be reviewing next week.

FYI: I purchased this product for review and was not compensated by any of the companies mentioned in this review.

A few weeks back I read a post on notebooklovespen about poppin.com a company that intends to sell color coordinated and stylish office supplies. A quick look at their product range shows a variety of cool looking and inexpensively priced items. They were offering a giveaway and I managed to snag 2 of their notebooks; one each of red and black. The packaging they arrived in was a nicely sized and colorful box with branded air bubbles and a cardboard piece that said “pleased to meet you” in a speech bubble above a staple remover. That packaging reminds me of the heyday of the dot com boom where a company would send you a giant package of branded product to try and get you to sign up for their particular product. Does anyone else remember AuctionRover?*

The notebooks measure 5×8.25 inches (129x210mm) and is filled with ivory lined paper. The cover is made of textured pleather and feels like a cross between the soft cover moleskine and an EcoSystem notebook. The elastic is a nice shade of gray and while snug stretches enough to allow for stuffing of the notebook. In the back is a roomy pocket and attached to the spine is a silvery gray place marker. The flyleaf has a series of boxes for you to put your name, address, title of the volume, and other assorted information.

Inside you find ivory colored pages with pale gray narrow ruling and some unusual margins. The for edge side of the paper has a very narrow margin, perfect for those of you in the GTD camp who like to check off your to do list as you move down it, or those of us who like to date our to do list. This would actually make a fantastic planner for someone who works off a task list. (Like the Pig Pog PDA) The header is ruled off with 3 boxes, one large and 2 small. It is an unusual and interesting ruling combination, and I like it.

The paper itself reminds me a lot of my old moleskines. It does feather with many FP inks and broader nibs will bleed and soak through like crazy. The ruling is ever so slightly raised and it does resist fountain pen ink. I do like the ruling because it’s so pale that it’s unobtrusive when a page is filled with text. Similar to the pale gray dots on a Rhodia Dot pad, these pale gray lines seem to disappear when the page is filled. The paper itself is smooth and really nice to write on, my other ink pens work just fine with this paper. In fact my broad nibbed lamy filled with Noodler’s Black didn’t soak through the page and only bleed through in places where I allowed my nib to rest for too long. My Platinum Preppy M nib did fine on this paper and did not show any bleed or show through.

I’ve been testing my toner transfer technique in this notebook and find the pages are taking to the technique very well. I’m getting crisp and clear transfers. I’m going to test out doodling and sketching in here to see how it responds. I suspect that like my fountain pen testing I’ll have to be careful with my selection of inks on this paper but I won’t let that stop me.

I’m not sure on the price point of these notebooks but I expect them to be in synch with the rest of their product line, ie a little higher than regular office supplies but not outrageous.

Take a look at some of the pics below:

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poppin.com goes live in June, so check their site out then.

 I've read that teh small version of these will be $5! If the large size is inline with that it will be a winner and trump, in my opionion, the Moleskine.

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