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[shelandsorcery]

the goddess

watercolour over printed pencils

I took a lot of process photos of this one:

I took a lot of process photos of this one, it turns out!

[shelandsorcery]

fitting in short but beautiful hikes here and there as the weather warms up

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[shelandsorcery]

ah fuck. thanks for the context; i thought the... patriotism currently visible in the brand was a bit intense, but wasn't around when this all went down.

guys i really, really like the noodler's Ahab flex pen

like, a lot

like, enough I'm recommending it even though i know half of you will hate the smell so so so much

(the baking soda soak recommendation i found really reduced the smell significantly, highly recommend)

it's juicy enough to use my driest ink, too! which is a relief.

makes me want to try their music nib next.

to be serious though, the things I like about this pen include but are not limited to:

it feels nice to hold - the resin is warm and it feels like it's just a tiny bit soft while being really really sturdy in the hand, and it's a nice big pen for me without being heavy

the nib writes really smooth at the thinnest and it's not too bad at it's thickest either, tho I admit that that takes a lot more force than my hand is good for right now in any sustained way

even though I'm not able to exert enough pressure to get the full Flex without a fair amount of strain on my part, a) remember that I have a half paralyzed hand doing all of this, so your mileage may vary, and b) just the light line variation I get with natural writing with it is so appealing to me, I can't overstate it

and it's just so juicy, it lays down a lot of ink, and I know that that can be actually a problem in a lot of people's experience, but I adore it

and the clip looks like a whale! how incredibly nerdy! I love it when my pens are nerdy.

have you tried one? do you have a fave Flex pen? should I go for one of the zebra nib adapted pens next, or should I try out an architect or blade nib instead?

[shelandsorcery]

guys i really, really like the noodler's Ahab flex pen

like, a lot

like, enough I'm recommending it even though i know half of you will hate the smell so so so much

(the baking soda soak recommendation i found really reduced the smell significantly, highly recommend)

it's juicy enough to use my driest ink, too! which is a relief.

makes me want to try their music nib next.

to be serious though, the things I like about this pen include but are not limited to:

it feels nice to hold - the resin is warm and it feels like it's just a tiny bit soft while being really really sturdy in the hand, and it's a nice big pen for me without being heavy

the nib writes really smooth at the thinnest and it's not too bad at it's thickest either, tho I admit that that takes a lot more force than my hand is good for right now in any sustained way

even though I'm not able to exert enough pressure to get the full Flex without a fair amount of strain on my part, a) remember that I have a half paralyzed hand doing all of this, so your mileage may vary, and b) just the light line variation I get with natural writing with it is so appealing to me, I can't overstate it

and it's just so juicy, it lays down a lot of ink, and I know that that can be actually a problem in a lot of people's experience, but I adore it

and the clip looks like a whale! how incredibly nerdy! I love it when my pens are nerdy.

have you tried one? do you have a fave Flex pen? should I go for one of the zebra nib adapted pens next, or should I try out an architect or blade nib instead?

[shelandsorcery]

had a blast doing sketchbook gestures from this amazing model:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXad-Iauzw

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[shelandsorcery]

nap wizards

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and done!

I got this set of Kuretake Gansai Tambi in the fall and day down to play with them in my etchr sketchbook this week. The 100% cotton paper that usually is my best friend, however, felt less useful with these than with my usual watercolours.

which isn't to say i didn't have fun! the colour range of the set is great and the vibrancy is *amazing*.

but i realized i really don't know much about these paints besides the fact that they're at least a little different from Western style watercolours; so i did some googling, and i thought I'd share some highlights:

a great breakdown of the actual chemical differences:

a great demo of how they can be pushed far beyond what you think in terms of layering and vibrancy:

They sound like a product related to traditional paint prep methods for nihonga, which is painted on washi paper :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonga

this playlist is a very clear overview of nihonga materials:

these days they seem very strongly associated with etagami, which I'm just starting to research:

In summary, no, they definitely don't work like my Daniel Smith or Mijello or Holbein watercolours, but that's because they're very definitely not the same thing. I'm excited to play around with the paints in combo with different materials and see what they unlock for me!

Also, god, I'm already tempted to get more; they really do have a jewel-like quality, shining in those big flat pans....

(i did rearrange them into this colour wheel order to help me learn the palette, if you noticed the labels in the box no longer line up with the colours)

[shelandsorcery]

I am mad about cellphone cameras hiding the processing they do, and I am glad about software that lets me control it and opt in and out, and I dictated this rant on insta so I am resharing the images here and will attempt to turn this into a useful text post on my blog in future, when my hand is working better 🤘👍

[shelandsorcery]

i bought some sized washi paper and mounted it and the COLOUR VIBRANCY oh my GOD

definitely a really different experience than painting on watercolour paper, right now I feel like I have way less control, but I'm learning more about what it needs as I go and I am definitely having a good time.

I got this set of Kuretake Gansai Tambi in the fall and day down to play with them in my etchr sketchbook this week. The 100% cotton paper that usually is my best friend, however, felt less useful with these than with my usual watercolours.

which isn't to say i didn't have fun! the colour range of the set is great and the vibrancy is *amazing*.

but i realized i really don't know much about these paints besides the fact that they're at least a little different from Western style watercolours; so i did some googling, and i thought I'd share some highlights:

a great breakdown of the actual chemical differences:

a great demo of how they can be pushed far beyond what you think in terms of layering and vibrancy:

They sound like a product related to traditional paint prep methods for nihonga, which is painted on washi paper :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonga

this playlist is a very clear overview of nihonga materials:

these days they seem very strongly associated with etagami, which I'm just starting to research:

In summary, no, they definitely don't work like my Daniel Smith or Mijello or Holbein watercolours, but that's because they're very definitely not the same thing. I'm excited to play around with the paints in combo with different materials and see what they unlock for me!

Also, god, I'm already tempted to get more; they really do have a jewel-like quality, shining in those big flat pans....

(i did rearrange them into this colour wheel order to help me learn the palette, if you noticed the labels in the box no longer line up with the colours)

[shelandsorcery]

help finding a particular text post

so there was a post going around, I think I saw it end of 2023/early 2024. that I would desperately like to track down, but I'm having trouble turning it up.

It described how sometimes when it comes to understanding a problem, you might first notice it as, say, a cosmetic problem with a house - a crack in the plaster or rotten floorboard or something; but the more you investigate, the deeper the problem seems to go, until it's escalated to a sinkhole to hell in the basement.

But then you meet someone new who just noticed the cosmetic problem, and you have to figure out how to talk to them about that when you are aware of the sinkhole to hell in the basement.

it lives in my mind rent-free these days and I'd really like to reread it for concrete details and to reference and credit properly.

i appreciate any help tracking it down!

[shelandsorcery]

Want to see more of this crystal island?

I gotchu

I took another pottery class and relearned to throw on the wheel with my newly limited hand function and got to use all sorts of beautiful glazes and overall had a magical time!

[shelandsorcery]

I'm going to start teaching my nephews some basic colour theory; they're 9 and 10 and really passionate artists, and I think a little knowledge now will help them push themselves a lot further.

I'm going to start with colour mixing. I really think that color mixing using paint is a valuable metaphor even if you are working digitally 99% of the time. who knows what my nephews will end up focusing on as they get older, but having the metaphor of mixing paint to achieve different colors and understand how colors relate to each other visually should be a really useful ground level structure in any ongoing learning they do with color theory.

so I've put together a watercolor palette using student grade non-toxic paints. we've got two reds, two yellows, two blues, and burnt sienna.

I'm going to include white gouache as well, so we can talk about tinting colors, and how colors appear different when they are diluted versus tinted. also, honestly when I was their age I think watercolor was really punishing, and just bringing in some white gouache gives them a chance to rework areas if they want to. I'm hoping this makes stuff a little less frustrating and helps them feel more empowered to keep fixing and pushing their work instead of just giving up.

I don't currently have a plan to have black paint in there right now, because I want us to focus on color mixing, but I wouldn't on principal prevent them from having a pan of black paint in future for their own time with the paint. I just think it might be distracting or confusing when I'd rather we focus on mixing neutrals with these colorful pigments.

I've got five Windsor and Newton Cotman brand pans - phthalo blue, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow hue, cadmium red medium hue, and burnt sienna; and the other two pans i filled with van Gogh brand tube paint - ultramarine deep and madder lake deep.

This gets me a decent spread of secondaries without confusing anything by introducing the CMY approach.

I think learning the CMY palette will be valuable too! but it made sense to me to start with palette that most resembled what they are likely to be learning in school in terms of subtractive color mixing. if they do learn about additive color mixing, they'll be working with the cmy palette with light, so I figure I'll let this be different at the moment.

I've included burnt sienna after weighing my options, because I think it's important for them to learn how to neutralize colors in a few different ways. burnt sienna and ultramarine blue are such a classic neutral formula, and such a great way to mix something that's nearly black, that it felt important to include. the fact that when you mix it with the phthalo blue you get a green instead of a neutral, I think that's a really great example of how color mixing can be surprising as well.

I'm working on a couple little example paintings to help them see the range that is possible with this palette, so here's one with greens and purples; I'll do one in neutrals overall and another maybe in oranges and teals.

I think for exercises we might want to work up to the colour wheel - maybe starting first with the basics of mxing using different rations to get different colours, and go from there.

If anyone has any advice on teaching this to 9 and 10 year olds, I'd love to hear it! I think they'll be excited to try something new and open up more possibilities for themselves as artists right now; beyond that I won't be particularly intense about it.

Also, do you remember when you learned paint mixing and basic colour theory? What were some moments that stood out to you or stuck in your mind forever?

[shelandsorcery]

I'm going to start teaching my nephews some basic colour theory; they're 9 and 10 and really passionate artists, and I think a little knowledge now will help them push themselves a lot further.

I'm going to start with colour mixing. I really think that color mixing using paint is a valuable metaphor even if you are working digitally 99% of the time. who knows what my nephews will end up focusing on as they get older, but having the metaphor of mixing paint to achieve different colors and understand how colors relate to each other visually should be a really useful ground level structure in any ongoing learning they do with color theory.

so I've put together a watercolor palette using student grade non-toxic paints. we've got two reds, two yellows, two blues, and burnt sienna.

I'm going to include white gouache as well, so we can talk about tinting colors, and how colors appear different when they are diluted versus tinted. also, honestly when I was their age I think watercolor was really punishing, and just bringing in some white gouache gives them a chance to rework areas if they want to. I'm hoping this makes stuff a little less frustrating and helps them feel more empowered to keep fixing and pushing their work instead of just giving up.

I don't currently have a plan to have black paint in there right now, because I want us to focus on color mixing, but I wouldn't on principal prevent them from having a pan of black paint in future for their own time with the paint. I just think it might be distracting or confusing when I'd rather we focus on mixing neutrals with these colorful pigments.

I've got five Windsor and Newton Cotman brand pans - phthalo blue, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow hue, cadmium red medium hue, and burnt sienna; and the other two pans i filled with van Gogh brand tube paint - ultramarine deep and madder lake deep.

This gets me a decent spread of secondaries without confusing anything by introducing the CMY approach.

I think learning the CMY palette will be valuable too! but it made sense to me to start with palette that most resembled what they are likely to be learning in school in terms of subtractive color mixing. if they do learn about additive color mixing, they'll be working with the cmy palette with light, so I figure I'll let this be different at the moment.

I've included burnt sienna after weighing my options, because I think it's important for them to learn how to neutralize colors in a few different ways. burnt sienna and ultramarine blue are such a classic neutral formula, and such a great way to mix something that's nearly black, that it felt important to include. the fact that when you mix it with the phthalo blue you get a green instead of a neutral, I think that's a really great example of how color mixing can be surprising as well.

I'm working on a couple little example paintings to help them see the range that is possible with this palette, so here's one with greens and purples; I'll do one in neutrals overall and another maybe in oranges and teals.

I think for exercises we might want to work up to the colour wheel - maybe starting first with the basics of mxing using different rations to get different colours, and go from there.

If anyone has any advice on teaching this to 9 and 10 year olds, I'd love to hear it! I think they'll be excited to try something new and open up more possibilities for themselves as artists right now; beyond that I won't be particularly intense about it.

Also, do you remember when you learned paint mixing and basic colour theory? What were some moments that stood out to you or stuck in your mind forever?

[shelandsorcery]

I watched the documentary dear Mr Watterson last night while I did crafts, baking and priming sculpey paint palettes that my young nephews made, and by the end I was crying about Calvin and Hobbes. how are comics so good? how is that a thing? what an incredible medium. maybe I need to be making comics a little bit more intentionally. or maybe, I need to be making comics more regularly but maybe less intentionally?

[shelandsorcery]

I took another pottery class and relearned to throw on the wheel with my newly limited hand function and got to use all sorts of beautiful glazes and overall had a magical time!