New direction

It's been far too long and I've been far too busy or lethargic to maintain this blog, my website or even my art practice.

Occasionally ill get a message or email from practicing students or experimenting artists asking what tools I use to create a piece or what medium I work on. It only seems easiest to keep a catalogue of some sorts of my tools enjoyed. Similar to how someone experimenting with watercolour would make swatches of colour and try adding salt, sugars or silica beads to the patches of wet paint.

So I'm going to give this a try. See how I fare. There are thousands of beauty bloggers reviewing blushes, brushes, eyeshadow pallets or eyeliner pens. But I'm finding it hard to discover pen or drawing review bloggers. We purchase tools based on their price tag and our budget, by what the professional illustrators use and what our lectures advise or our role models promote.

I'm hoping to construct a review of tools to advise people who may cross this blog what may suit their needs, interests or what they may want to try out and expand their kit.

I admit I'm forever trying to find that fantastic pen that makes me draw amazing or makes me excite at the prospect of drawing more and more. One that's comfortable to hold for hours on end without cramping my hand and wrist.

Many pens are available from online retailers. Shopping around to get the better deal is a great way to grab a bargain but our local stores for stationary such as rymans, the range and hobbycraft. Even asda, tesco and Morrisons can hold a secret gem for our drawing tool collections. Not forgetting art stores in larger cities.
But as always suggested for those art stores it's far better to go in knowing what your looking for, rather than allow you to get overwhelmed and purchase items you will never probably need or use.
A main example being do you really need 3 different brands of gold ink pen? Or 7 different options for a 0.2 fineliner pen?

Hopefully not but I've met dozens of people who do this. And in quite a few cases they buy pens which are manufactured by the same overall company. Same inks, same nibs slightly different packaging.

Most noticeably is the fact that faber castell owns letraset and through progress in the company the pen that costs the extra £2 is overall the exact same as the one in the less fancy packaging.  Yes there may be slight differences nib strength, plastic strength but overall that's what I hope to document.

To maintain continuity I will be using a seawhite of Brighton chunky square sketchbook. A personal favourite for its paper colour, strength and it's texture for drawing with various tools. It's also a great size since I enjoy the medium and large size for most of my sketch works.

I'm also using Berol Venus pencils, particularly 2B. There will no doubt another post on its other lead strengths and what they mean etc. But at current if I fancy sketching out an image to ink over its currently a favourite over mechanical pencils. Yet again, another blog post to explain will no doubt follow.

Without waiting any longer or having to type anymore on my phone. Let's have a go at this shall we?