I've been trying to snap a picture a day with Hipstamatic on random. Here are a few from the last week.

I can't tell all the types of media. Pencil, ink, paint, stencils, OH MY! A stunning example of a well used and abused pocket notebook turned journal. That cover has stories to tell. It's plain but has a story. Love it. (NSFW, some boobies)

Here's another well loved journal. Again, lots of writing with collaged in bits of travel adn daily life. By far I love those daily bits of life more than anything else. Doodly bits and pieces. Dated writing. This guy will look back at this journal for the rest of his life with happiness.

Law requires that I notify you if I receive revenue for reviews or other compensations. Thus far in my reviews* I’ve listed if I’ve purchased the item, if it’s been sent to me for review, or simply sent to me for general use. In most cases when bloggers are sent items for free it is in the hopes that we’ll do a positive review. I don’t get a lot of stuff for free, and when I do I don’t always review it. I try to only post generally positive reviews, or reviews which list technical reasons why I don’t find a product of value.

That being said, I don’t review stuff only because I’ve received it. Generally, it’s because I like it. My reviews are honest, so if I generally like something but there is one little detail that I don’t like, I make that known.

I am an Amazon Associate, so any links to amazon are associate links. I get pennies if you make a purchase through one of my links.

I’ve been an associate of European Paper Company, though I’ve removed the link from the sidebar and don’t use the ID anymore. It seemed to be more trouble than it is worth.

I have been sent a free pencil from JetPens. I liked it so I reviewed it. I often link to JetPen, I’m a frequent customer and a happy one.

Anyway. My policy is to review only the things I like (or need to warn you away from) and link to a seller. Sometimes that seller is Amazon and I may make a small profit if you chose ot make a purchase via that link. Other times I link to a seller where I make no profit, mostly because I really like the product and it isn’t available via Amazon.

I also sell my art and books on etsy. I reap all the rewards of your purchases via my shop. As a poor Grad student I usually use the money to pay for books or a cup of coffee.

*As of this writing 2/4/14

Apparently library time is ALL the time.

I’ve been watching a bunch of things on Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix. It’s been too cold to do much outside. Anyway…

I watched Exit Through the Gift Shop which  you can find here:

I also watch Ghost Army, a nifty documentary about artists in WW2 in a special division of the US Army. My friend Greg had mentioned it to me and I was finally able to see the movie. Nifty.

I’ve watched a load of trash TV as well… I won’t mention them here.

Happy new year to all my friends!

I’ve been rewarding myself for reading articles for my January class by letting myself paint after I read. I’ve been working small lately so I decided to change things up and work big.

To do this I cut open a paper grocery bag, squared it up, then used my create-a-color leads in my E+M holder to work on some BIG automatic drawings.

After the auto drawing is completed I hit the paper with white paint plus one other color to create a scrubby textured background. I don’t try to fill every spot of the background, rather I brush until the brush is empty of paint. (I’m also listening to music while I do this, so each brush stroke works with the beat and sound of the music.

After I get a base color down I start to layer in colors onto the drawing itself. This image is far from finished, I’ll work a bunch more on it to get it to a point that I can call it done.

I was inspired by watching “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” a nifty little documentary supposedly about Banksy but really more about Mr. Brainwash. Neat stuff. i initially thought I might like to create these as a paste up but now realize that it would be a crazy amount of work to paste up on the free wall. So i’m still thinking of something I can put on the free wall, I think it’ll be something like this, likely on paper and not a stencil. Anyway, great movie and these are a lot of fun.

I made this book for my human development class. It's an accordnian fold book that measures 4×11 inches. the covers fold over on itself and the line continues throughout the book and the waves connect creating a loop.

The waves represent the varius stages of human development and the figures represent the physical development.

I decided to try a new binding for a class project. I've done a couple of Keith A. Smiths's complicated single sheet bindings, with good success, I might add. I decided that for this project I wanted to work on panels then bind the resulting art into a large 11×14 book with about 13 leaves. I decided to try a binding that I hadn't tried before, one with linked stitches. 

Holy crap this is probably the hardest binding I've ever attempted. I'm about half way throguh this book and it's taken me over 2 hours. I've made a ton of mistakes, backwards links and looks, and have broek threads. Man, tough stuff.

Also a learning lesson. Next time I have a complicated project, I'll use a binding I know.

Of  57 total entries we have a winner of the can lid art! yay Free Art Friday!

The winner (and confirmed, she answered the winning email right away!) was Jean M of Michigan! I'll be sending a bit of brightness her way!

If you'd like to get your own can lid art you can find mine on Etsy pretty inexpensively. 🙂 I priced them to move. I'd strongly encourage you to get a safety can opener, a little liquitex super thick gesso (goes on soooo smooth and not gritty), and a Sakura Pigma Micron and start doodling!

In addition to my free art friday post I have loaded up some of my can lids to my etsy shop. they are original works of my art done on can lids. They are a super fun thing to do because they reclaim something that would go into the waste stream and turns it into something fun. Anyway. I'm having a blast making them between paragraphs in my papers.

Here are some pics: