Art Supply Haul and Progress – March 2020
We’re on lock down, which means instead of panic buying toilet paper and nonperishables, I made the smart choice and panic bought art supplies. Most of these new goodies came from Sam Flax here in Orlando, as I try to shop small as often as I can, but a couple of these items were bought incredibly last minute at Michael’s.
First up, a couple new pens! I’ve been needing a gold gel pen and after testing out a few at Michael’s, picked up this Pilot G-2 07 gold pen. I absolutely love it and it’s been beautiful over black acrylic or india ink. I also finally bought myself a Faber-Castell Pitt Brush Pen. I’ve used other Pitt Pens before, but this was so fun to make quick sketches with and practice lettering. Since buying this brush pen I’ve loved outlining and blocking out small shapes in my sketchbook, which has made regret not also picking up the soft brush pen. I’ll be going back for that soon.
Next, a few new Sakura Pigma Microns in different sizes. I’ve been working a lot with ink lately so I’ve been going through the ones I have pretty quickly. To be fair, I’ve had them for years and they’ve served me well.
The embroidery flosses were a necessary purchase for a commission I’m working on and hoping to send out in the next week or so, but the FolkArt Glitterific paints and Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star Matte India Ink were most definitely impulse buys. During my internship this semester one of my AP Studio students was using some of these Glitterific paints in some of her pieces and I absolutely fell in love with them before I could figure out what I wanted to use them for. My initial thought was for a graduation cap but it looks like I need to come up with another plan now that our ceremony is “postponed”. (I’m not crying, you’re crying.) I’ve yet to try out this new ink but I’m curious how it compares to my (much more affordable) Daler-Rowney Simply India Ink.
Because I’m so close to reaching my goal of filling a complete a complete sketchbook, I decided to set a couple new ones: to work more on canvas and to create more mixed media spreads. I chose canvas paper over boards or actual canvas to save some space in my “studio” and make the finished pieces easier to transport when I move. The matte gel I’ll be mostly using as an adhesive in some mixed media projects I have in mind and in ByBun’s Lyrical online class, who, if you don’t already know, is one of my favorite artists.
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, my new A4 Moleskine Art Sketchook! This sketchbook has been annoyingly difficult to find and it wasn’t even the watercolor one I really had my heart set on (the papers are 111lb and 135 respectively), but luckily Sam Flax had it and I was able to use my student discount on it to save a few bucks. If you read/watched my mini watercolor sketchbook tour, you’ll know I love these and at this point I owed it to myself to get a bigger size. I haven’t decided if I’ll be using this for art journal/mixed media spreads or for larger urban sketching. I’m leaning towards the former.
Fingers crossed I can burn through all these new supplies in the next couple of months and have lots of new work to share!
