Evicting The Belly Bees - Journal Page

Hello lovelies!

I hope you're all sparkly and fine? We've had hailstones - HAIL - here today! The Colonel has taken to his blanky in disgust -

That's his "Oh my, aren't I just adorable" face!

I've been alternately rather busy or having a brain wobble for a few days now...kind of oscillating between the two ...so I'm going to take a tiny break for a couple of days so that I can get my brain-imps settled back down, finish things nicely and reboot (hopefully!) I've not had much workable spare arty time but I did manage a little mixed media page in my "emotional crap" art journal....Camera's being its 'own little individual' so I apologise that the pics are a bit below par!

I promise I'll try for better pics, for what it's worth and replace these dodgy ones as soon as my camera agrees a wage rise with its union, or whatever its problem is! SO yes - I need to get rid of my scratchy, crawly belly bees and settle myself a bit and be back before the end of the week. Setting myself a goal there! Wish me luck! For the moment I bid you a temporary but fond farewell and I'll see you soon - hugs and a big bucket of hailstones from Shroo :) xxx

Mini Art Tile/ACEO Catch-Up Time!

Hello Gorgeous!

IT'S NEARLY FRIDAY!!! Which in turn means IT'S NEARLY SATURDAY! I say we all start celebrating now.... crack open a nice bottle of wine, switch off the phone and mellow! Aaaaah....  Yeah, I know it doesn't work like that but I can dream!!!

Can I just jolly well say a great big THANK YOU for your response to yesterday's post and the GIVEAWAY contained therein? Oh you ARE just comPLETEly lovely! I'm very excited about the whole giveaway thing and if this all goes well I shall be doing more of them. Really quite giddy!

I've been meaning to post more of the little ACEO/art tile thingies that I've been playing with. It's a lot of pressure-free fun just doodling about randomly on eeny-weeny little cards! So yes, the first set are birdie-based and there's a LOT of shimmer in there, not that the camera picks it up hugely well...but here they are:

These are roughly 2.5" x 2" ish so only diddy-widdy! They're mixed media - Neocolor IIs, Inktense pencils and Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paints, with black indian ink and gel pen. I don't know what's going on with my camera - it's definitely got some focus and contrast issues! *sigh*....I'll figure it out! My camera and I will have a 'convesation'!

Anyhoo - the next ones are a teeny bit bigger (about 3.5" x 2.75") and part of an unfinished little set which I did just on a whim, as one so very does, and are a bit of a tangent from the usual thing:

And one last one, a little 'Vampirella' card, again a bit of a whim:

These are SUCH fun to do - I don't know what took me so long to actually have a go... I have few more ready inked but haven't had a chance to do the painty bit yet so they'll just have to wait for a while.

I'm interested to know whether any of you wondrous arty lovely people have played with ATCs and ACEOs and such like? Do you sell them? Do you make prints of them to sell or do you only sell originals? I've been watching some Youtube videos by artists who make a living selling sketch cards and art cards this sort of size but it seems like quite a large and intimidating market to break into. Hmmm....I'm just having a ponderous brain waffle!

Ok - I'm off to finish the day's work so that I can relax with The Colonel, who's a bit fed up as he has a rumbly tummy, poor chap. Don't forget to check out my GIVEAWAY post and leave a comment there if you want to enter, ok? Sending out some love and hugs to all of you - see you soon! Shroo :) xxx

Secretary Bird Catch-Up

Hello!

I know, I know, I missed a day. Sorry 'bout that - I was utterly shattered last night having had a stressful day sorting money and all that necessary stuff and just fell fast asleep. Yes, me, sleep! It was AWESOME as I've had not a lot of the whole 'land of nod' thing this week, so I'm not complaining. However, I have a catch-up post now, another page in the birdie book (which is what that black-paged artbook of mum's has become, or so it seems). This is a Secretary Bird - and they're GORGEOUS! They're incredible creatures, coming from the sub-Saharan regions of Africa, and they have great big long legs and fabulous eyelashes! Google 'em. I just wanted to have a play and try painting one, so I did. I have to admit that I'm quite enjoying these messy, textured mess-abouts so I'm guessing they'll continue!

The background has layers of washi tape and tissue paper underneath for texture, covered with warm colours of acrylic paints scraped on with a palette knife and an old plastic gift card which has a lenticular side, leaving a cool ridged pattern. The bird's drawn with black indian ink, then coloured with mixture of Neocolor II crayons, white acrylic paint, some Prussian Blue Hue Golden fluid acrylic (just an itsy bit), and white Uni Ball gel pen, with ink splatters from Derwent Graphik Paint Liners to represent the rich colours of African grasslands and Treasure Gold 'Brass' gilding wax to add some hints of African Sun.  Here are some close ups of textureness (which is now a word, I thank you) -

And some more birdie -

And a full page view -

These are wonderful birds and one of my favourite species - although it's a BIG list of favourites - so I enjoyed this page. Dunno what the next one will be.... Ah well!   Hope you like this even though the camera doesn't pick up the vivid colours - I'd recommend HUGELY adding a bit of layering and texture to backgrounds if you've not tried that yet - it creates such fun effects. If you have questionyness just comment below or just stop by and say hello as it's always fantastic to hear from you. Sending you some hugs and a little of the blue sky that's poking through the cloud layer today - spread some sunshine!  xxxx

A Soggy Sea Gull For A Soggy Day!

Hello lovely!

It's been a day of weather weirdness today, with the heavens shining forth bright sunshine interrupted by torrential downpours and random bouts of gusting winds. All very haphazard and typical for this part of the world.  The roof's leaking and there's a funky damp smell hovering which is only going to stop when the landlord fixes the dodgy flashing on the chimney stack, and clears the gutters. Aaaaah...welcome the dawn of the British summer!

As there's water, water everywhere it seemed appropriate to mark the day with something appropriately water related - it's tenuous, but work with me here - so today's arty farty episode is a cocky lookin' sea gull, ankle deep in web-soothing sea water:

Fun with layers and some more layers and texture and splooshy stuff (acrylic paints, Neocolor IIs, Derwent Graphik Paint pens, indian ink, Treasure Gold gilding wax, white Uni Ball gel pen and a black Gelato round the edges). I'm adding it as a link to the wonderful 'sea theme' post on the magnificent 'Art Journal Journey' blog - make sure you visit them and browse the work of the talented people who link there, ok?  

That's it for today ... just a little 'un. Hope you like Mr S. Gull and his smiley beaky cheeky attitude! Sending out oodles of hugs from Water World! See you soon - Shroo :) xxx

Product Review: Derwent Graphik Line Painters

HAPPY SATURDAY, PEOPLE!!

Have we all had an epic weekend so far? Hopefully we're all looking forward to either a fun night out or an equally enjoyable relaxing night in. For today's post I have a product review for you. It's been a while - I've been neglectful! The product under scrutiny is the Derwent Graphik Line Painter range of watercolour medium pens -

This range is a fairly new release from one of my favourite manufacturers so it was fairy inevitable that I'd buy some. The pens ship in sets of five pens tucked into a fancy wallet.

I got quite excited and bid on four sets on ebay - and won two of them, which was cool.

 

 I only bid low and teeny amounts - money's not exactly an abundant commodity - so I was very lucky to pick these up for less than a quarter of the suggested retail price. They seem to sell between £12.95 and £15.95 per set here in the UK, which is pricey, but I think they've used the gimmicky nature of the design to pile on the £££s.

Before I do the pros and cons, you might find it useful to watch the promo video on Youtube -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EONlnE-kOgk

 ...and here's a link to the Derwent site and the relevant product information :

http://www.pencils.co.uk/en/gb/6130/graphik-line-painter-pens

So.... Firstly, although these are called 'paint pens' they contain a water soluble acrylic type ink, VERY similar to the Magic Color acrylic inks.

They're fairly quick drying, and once they're completely dry, they won't dissolve if you then add water or another wet medium, so you can layer them easily and with a good result, given that the ink is quite sticky and thick and holds its colour well.

The pigment also stays true when diluted - however it does dry slightly darker than the initial brighter application  in common with many other acrylic or watercolour products. When water is added, the ink changes from opaque to translucent to virtually transparent depending on how much it's diluted. The colours stay true even when applied in layers (as long as you allow the ink to dry between colour applications) and when used as a blendable wet medium, the colours also mix as well as any other acrylic ink.

Like I said, these are marketed in a very gimmicky way....they're cool 'trick' pens. They're designed to produce a good number of impressive effects - and they do. HOWEVER - for the first time EVER, I'm not 100% happy with a Derwent product! Sorry, Derwent! These pens collect a number of excellent ideas, attractive to really any artist, but I feel like, somewhere along the line, quality has almost taken a back seat in order to push the product out before the niggly problems have been effectively ironed out. And I'm not even being picky here... it's just practicality.

Firstly, in order to get the ink to pool around the nib in order to achieve the blobby and spattery effects it's essential to press down on the nib and hold it until the ink collects. This DOES work, BUT it seems that some pens need to be angled very slightly to achieve the desired pooling and the nibs, though sturdy, WILL bend as a result. Once bent, they can't be fixed and it affects the ink flow and control and puts paid to using them as advertised. This doesn't happen to EVERY pen, but two out of ten of mine have done this and I know I'm a careful person with things like this. Not awesome.

Nextlyness, once the ink is flowing well, some pens seem to lose the facility to moderate the flow which means that those pens can no longer be used for fine lines or small designs as the ink will basically just 'blob' randomly onto the page. That really shouldn't happen. Four out of my ten pens have been like this right from the first use and two others are following suit. That's not good odds.

Lastly, there's not a massive amount of ink in the pen and SO far there's no indication of whether they can be refilled. This would not be an issue if the pens were cheaper BUT the price to content ratio seems disproportionate in my opinion. I can pick up a bottle of Magic Color ink for between £3 and £4....and there's a LOT of ink in those things. They go a looooong way. If Derwent brought out similarly priced refill bottles then THAT would make the pens a better investment, so long as they sort out the nib glitches and flow control.

To sum up, I do like these pens AND the ink. The colours are vibrant and they do produce cool effects. BUT - they're VERY expensive for a flawed product, and the number of glitches make the price even more unrealistic. I picked my sets up cheaply - and if I had a few pennies spare and won a cheap auction I'd probably take a punt and pick them up again, just for fun, but as an investment at full price they're simply not worth it as the design stands.

I have loved using inks for years and the idea of having them in convenient pen form is still tempting, but in all honesty there's nothing I can do with these pens that I can't do equally well - or better - using my bottled inks, brushes and nib pens.....more reliable and more cost effective. Actually - probably more versatile if I think about it.

I like to end a review on a positive note, so what I WILL say is that this particular ink formula is super when creating attractive layered backgrounds. There's a distinct difference in the dried surface of undiluted ink and the diluted. One is slightly shiny and looks almost dimensional and the watery effect produces a more matte finish. The combinatiom does give the illusion of depth and is a definite plus! The fact that the ink dries permanently means that it accepts the application of other layers exceptionally well, and the bright colours can be a boon when working with translucent media.

I had a play - I couldn't do a review without having a play now, could I? Huh? VOILA!

The background is entirely done using the Graphik pens - with a few black indian ink splatters. The birds are drawn with my Deleter nib pen -

and Jacksons indian ink -

The birds are coloured with my Caran D'Ache Neocolor II crayons -

It was fun just to play with the colours. I did a couple of these sketchy colourful testers in my sketchbook and thoroughly enjoyed it despite the pens being a little unreliable. The translucent effect of both the inks and the Neocolor IIs is more apparent in the next one -

 I did make use of my Uni Ball gel pen here but again the background is all Graphik pen and the bird is Neocolor IIs. Watering both mediums down allowed the text to peek through, which I like lots!

This is my third and final play with these colourful things of loveliness -

Same combination again, but I used my white Magic Color acrylic ink to add the highlights and featheryness. ( I do apologise for the iffy balance on some of the scans - tech issues persist!)

I think that the effects the pens produce are excellent - as long as the pens work properly - but I stick to my statement that these are a great product IF you can pick them up at a BARGAIN price and IF you can work WITH the flaws. Keep an eye out on ebay or Amazon and hopefully the art fairies will work their magic.

I hope that was helpful? I've added links to the pics where relevant so that you can possibly source some of the listed products. If you have any questions just leave them in the comment section and I'll reply asap - or just stop by to say 'hi!'  Thank you for visiting and being awesomely YOU! Sending love and hugs from Shroo :) xxx

My Heart Goes 'BOOM!' - A Scrappy Journal Page

It's FRIDAY!!! WOO!

I like a Friday...it leads to weekendy time and I do like a weekend. Are you well? Have you had a good week? I hope so - I hope it's been FABULOUS!

Sooooo, it had been my plan to scan in some of my mum's pics for you to enjoy, but I'm having a few tech issues so I think that might have to wait 'til next week. Hey-ho. Instead, I have a little journal page process again, using some hand-painted backing papers.

I love making my own patterned sheets. Most of them are the result of cleaning brushes and stencils or using up excess paint from a project. The addition of a bit of doodling over a page filled with colour turns a sheet of scrappy mess into something fun and very useable. 

For this page I chose the scrappiest of the stack I had - ta-daaah!

Scrappy. I want to prove that you can make something arty from something scruffy you might be tempted to otherwise throw away.  I also used the cheapest paints I had, some craft acrylics and some paint testers from the local hardware store.

I prepared a page in my journal, gessoed the surface (just a thin layer) and then added a warmer colour of acrylic paint as a more even base coat. I cut some rough heart shapes out of the backing paper, choosing sections which would look arty and interesting. Once the hearts were cut out, I was left with a lot of scraps which I tore up (torn edges collage better that cut ones) and stuck down to make a colourful background -

I blended the elements into the background by finger-painting some bright colours around them. To make the hearts 'pop' I used a black Inktense pencil and a litte water to add an outline, then used matte medium gel to adhere them to the page in a way that kind of makes them look like they're exploding out from a centre point -

I also added some of the offcut strips to make it look a bit more animated, then some more pencil around the elements to define them and make them stand out. I used a black gelato crayon to add a border to the page - it smudges beautifully!

I wanted to add a quote...something....but nothing comes to mind at the moment. The good thing about art journal pages is that there's no pressure, and as I like the way the page turned out I've left it for now..I can add text any time I like.

 This is only a small journal and it's not full BUT it's amazing how easy it is to fill one like this with your art. I know that art journaling can seem daunting, but it's really cool when you can flip through a book that YOU have filled with YOUR art, I promise. I use this journal when I want to do a 'process page' so you may have seen some of the pages in earlier posts but I'll collect them all in one place for an easy browse! Here they be:

There are a couple of pages not included above as I can't scan them tonight and have filed the originals....SOMEwhere.....told you I'm having tech issues! I just wanted to prove that it doesn't take much to make a few pages look like a book that will be something REALLY special for you and the people with whom you share it.

I hope you have some fun making your own papers and collage elements - it's so easy and a LOT of fun! And I hope this has been helpful. Thank you for visiting - thank you to everyone who leaves a comment! It's such a motivation and I send you all loads of love and big hugs from Shroo :) xxx