some new toys for a fresh new year. barbara, a DFLA reader, sent me this little travel palette of mostly daniel smith watercolors along with a booklet she uses with her students. she teaches watercolor in tuscany, among other places. i'm an eager watercolor learner so this was all quite fun to receive.
i ordered some waterbrushes from jet pens. some refills for pentel brush pens i already had and a couple of new gizmos. i have some samples of ink in tubes and thought i might put some in my new aquash waterbrush with a thin tip. teesha moore gave me this idea via a video over at the artstronauts site. she has tons of waterbrushes that she fills with ink. great idea huh?
i signed up for a modern calligraphy (calligraphy I) class over on skillshare. having fun practicing with my pentel color brush pen. the class was short and by no means an in depth exploration of calligraphy, but THIS book was highly recommended as a supplement by a friend so i ordered it too. and then since i had credit for referring someone to skillshare i signed up for the class below taught by that book's author. still with me?
Digitizing Calligraphy: From Sketch to Vector (Calligraphy II). If you enroll for any skillshare class with THIS link, you'll also save $10 on your first class! and then you can share your link with someone and earn credit towards registering for more classes. which is what i did.
also… i watched THIS lettering video which i thought was a good companion to the first calligraphy mini-class mentioned above.
Just got back from Castle in the Air on Fourth Street in Berkeley where they have the ink in the square bottle that Teesha mentions. It is red and feathers to gold on its edges. Could not bring myself to also buy the blue that feathers to silver because it is way expensive, but anxious to have a little fun on this grey day in Northern California….Thanks for that link to Artstronauts!
Oh yeah ink in the water pens… seems so obvious NOW…. (scrambling to find my water pens)…
Love Jet Pens! That is where I get my Fudeball and white Signo pens.
Good luck back at school Mary Ann. Hope you can bring some of all this creative energy to it this year!
How do you keep so inspired? Don’t you ever have those ennui days of blaaaah? What is your secret? I am stuck in the mid-tones and everything ends up gray. Hmmmm, are you thinking of doing a new class? Just the thought gets my engines going.
Hey, Mary Ann, see you in class at Modern Calligraphy!! After buying myself a Christmas present of the Modern Calligraphy book, I searched around and then found the Skillshare class. I signed up before Christmas and have been reallllllly enjoying the class! Molly J seems so practical. I bought exactly what she recommended and have been happy with the results. It appears to take lots of practice – but the practice is such a peaceful activity. Sometime we need this kind of time. I posted a noel to all on the class site. I will be checking for your projects.
Best to you, Nancy
I could tell from the first photo with all the Japanese packaging that you had discovered Jet Pens! Such incredible temptations!
I took a calligraphy class from the department head of calligraphy at Hallmark (they’re headquartered here) and I was not a natural. Huge understatement!!! You will do better! I did get lots of book recommendations. You might like this one:
Modern Mark Making by Lisa Engelbrecht.
Finally, if you have any liquid watercolors like Dr. P.H. Martin, they can go into pens, too. I have the watercolors and have not gotten enough pens yet.
Well, d’uoh. Ink in the waterbrush. I put tea it in one day. That worked really nicely, but never thought of ink. Just have to be sure it’s nice and watery.
That’s interesting I was just watching the BBC news the other day when they talked about the famous french calligrapher Nicolas Ouchenir. Some years ago a friend of mine and I signed up and took a Calligraphy class at Piece College it was so much fun!
I read that you can glue magnets on bottom of half pans to keep them secure in travel tin.
New toys are fun fun fun!!
Your new students would get a kick out of the tiny watercolor tin. One year I gave my kindies a gift of tiny watercolor sets which came in packs of 10 (I think) as party favors. They worked fine for what they were and the kids were thrilled. If you are a traveling sub, maybe a class size set as special activity to work along with you would be a rush for all*. I don’t know if the sets are still available (I may have found mine at WalMart) It was a while back.
*CCSS connection w author, illustrator etc…
Like your new toys. I’m also a Jet Pens addict.
happily oogling your new toys; as in getting as close as possible to the screen so I can see every tiny detail and taking notes. Very cool and love how you are sharing the link love. Cool beans indeed. You’ve always got new tricks up your sleeves. The magic you spin just keeps on comin’ and I love that.
maureen those are called half-pans. you can get them empty and fill them with tube watercolors. they also have full pans. when you buy pan watercolors from winsor newton (lots of others too) that is what they come in.
hahaha, meant love YOUR letters!
love our letters! feel like art retreat just turn a turn toward lettering love…i am so easily swayed in any direction! love the letters on the last video too, thanks for finding/linking!
i’m wondering what the little square holders are in the tin of watercolors? Is that an altoids type tin? New toys are as good for the new year as new pajamas.
(btw, being in LA this week I can see your posts early! woo hoo)