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Roundup
Post #1166 • April 25, 2008, 9:07 AM • 21 Comments
You've used your Artblog.net Utrecht coupon, right? Go use it again then.
New from Warren Craghead: Petals, A Spell, a DIY origami book.
"I have no problem with being asked to put my head in a bin; I just ask that once it is in there I can see or experience something that has the desire and ambition to vault over the everyday into some place new and exciting and really challenge its audience." - Andrew Frost. (via my Andrew)
The Two Percent may prove useful regarding your next NYC art visit.
Those who have heard me talk about the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts may have wondered what it's like. An ambitious student has produced a video. It opens at the Villa Rospigliosi in Pistoia, where the Italy Program is stationed.
GuitarViol built for my man Dave.
60% of world's paintings come from one village in China. (Andrew)
Siegfried Woldhek intelligently surmises what Leonardo may have looked like.
Mad Fold-In gets updated for the new millenium; nails art world. (Chris)
Printmaking from 1800 BC to last week. (Dee)
"Picking it up I knew how Thor must've felt the first time he hefted Mjolnir. With this brush pen I am invincible!" Chris Rywalt.
Peter Bagge covers the New Hampshire Primaries.
Department of Skills: Dresden Dolls.
2.
April 25, 2008, 12:51 PM
I wish I'd thought of that painting-on-the-Gothic-eyebrows trick when I was in college.
Hey, maybe I'll use my New Kuratake Brush Pen, thanks to the chorus of boys in my life who brought it to me!
3.
April 25, 2008, 5:07 PM
The link for "put my head in a bin" dropped me on the second of a two-page article. A good article, though.
I enjoyed the MAD link.
Maybe, wwc, you could help my daughter and I with the very last step of the origami comic. We've failed time and time again.
4.
April 25, 2008, 6:24 PM
The guitarviol, kinky as it is, has some potential. 21 inches is a very short scale for a guitar and that emphasizes the steely nature of the strings both when bowed and when plucked. (I wonder what one would sound like if strung up with nylon strings.) There is a place for this sound. It needs to be mastered first, though.
5.
April 26, 2008, 5:54 PM
check out this vid:
http://www.howvids.com/Education/How_to_Make_Stencils.ad2
6.
April 26, 2008, 7:11 PM
While browsing at Books & Books, I ran across a truly delicious-looking new art book called The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings. Actually, delicious is too vulgar a word, but since I'm not Flaubert, it'll do. The reproduced color images (on ivory non-glossy paper, which works better) are gorgeous; if the originals look any better, they must be beyond ravishing. OP, for one, must see it. I insist.
Also there was a terrific new (?) book on Winslow Homer watercolors, The Color of Light. Also highly recommended, albeit after the Monet, Homer seemed a bit astringent (I guess it's a Maine vs. Paris thing). Still, great stuff.
When I see work like this, and I remember what is now being served up as art, it makes me want to laugh till I cry.
7.
April 26, 2008, 8:24 PM
Thank you for the info about the Kuretake Brush Pen. Does anyone know how it compares to the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen? I noticed that a few people complained about the quality of the ink one must use with the Kuretake model. The Pentel model is much cheaper but it might be for a good reason.
8.
April 28, 2008, 5:37 AM
I have no complaints about the Kuretake ink. I've gone through a number of different inks over the past couple of years, including Higgins grey swill and, most recently, a bottle of sumi ink. The Kuretake ink is a good solid black which dries very quickly. It doesn't smear. It isn't waterproof, but I don't usually draw in the rain. It dries perfectly flat and matte, unlike the sumi ink which is a little glossy and sits on top of the paper (not that that's necessarily a bad thing).
I showed it to Reilly Brown, my comic artist friend, this weekend, and he said he was going to stop at the art supply store on his way home and get one, he liked the Kuretake so much. I discussed the ink with him and he thought it was funny that anyone would say you couldn't do comics with it because it's not waterproof -- no one cares what happens to the art once it's scanned (except for collectors, I guess).
I've gone through one cartridge of ink since I bought it. Now that I have an empty cartridge I'm thinking of filling it with something else, but I'm worried I might clog the pen. I've had so many ink pens clog permanently -- Rapidographs, fountain pens, even a Mont Blanc in which I only used official Mont Blanc ink. (Now that was some lousy ink -- it'd smear so easily, it was like it never dried. Don't even look at it! Looking at it can cause smearing!)
9.
April 28, 2008, 6:03 AM
Thanks Chris. I feel more confident about getting the Kuretake Brush Pen now. The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen costs only about $13 (it also has nylon bristles but they are shorter than the bristles on the Kuretake Brush Pen) and it also gets good reviews. The Kuretake Brush Pen costs about $40. I guess I will have to make a decision. It is good to know that the ink for the Kuretake Brush Pen is satisfactory. I would be careful about filling the cartridges with diffierent types of ink though because people have said that it leads to clogging.
10.
April 28, 2008, 8:13 AM
Great roundup - thanks !!
11.
April 28, 2008, 2:29 PM
If I hadn't found the Kuretake in person I would've been considering the Pentel (which link I put in del.icio.us on 10 April). Now that I've used the Kuretake, though, I'd consider going higher on the food chain just to see what they're like. Jerry's, as I wrote in my post, carries one twice as expensive; its brush hairs are natural-colored, but Al, the proprietor, looked them over and declared them synthetic. Since he's toured European brush factories as a guest of the family owners, I'd guess he knows more about it than I do, so I trust him on that. If I knew the brand I'd look it up. Kaimei has a natural hair brush pen at almost the same price (Amazon's price on the Kuretake is higher than what I paid) which might be worth trying also.
12.
April 28, 2008, 7:16 PM
re #3:
Ahab,
I feel your pain - that last step is very tough to describe, but it is very simple to do. There aren't any new folds, just bending the already made flaps. To help I'll be posting a short video of me making the piece. And thanks for making the attempt!
Also, I heart brush pens too. Mjonlir, yes, and Excalibur too.
13.
April 28, 2008, 9:14 PM
I ordered the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen online today and I will buy up to the Kuretake after I fill several sketchbooks using the Pentel model. Thanks Chris (and Franklin).
14.
April 29, 2008, 7:04 AM
Warren, I tried to put the book together and I got something that worked, or seemed to, but I wasn't sure if I got it right, because it seemed...well...I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. It made enough sense that it could be right and just strange, but it also could be I put it together incorrectly.
I was going to have my daughter put it together (she's nine) but I'm glad I did it instead, because she'd never have managed it.
15.
April 29, 2008, 11:31 AM
I hear you that there's some bafflement, but hopefully the forthcoming video, which will include me leafing through a finished book, will clear things up. Still, there may still be bafflement at the end - it is a drawn poem after all.
Thanks for trying to make it!
PS The video may be delayed due to a certain bun leaving a certain oven early. That bun happens to be the subject of the book we're talking about.
16.
April 29, 2008, 4:45 PM
Congratulations wwc. Our boy buns are four and a half and one and a half years old.
17.
April 29, 2008, 5:03 PM
Buns my ass. My kids are more like Hannibal Lecter crossed with a wolverine.
18.
April 29, 2008, 5:04 PM
There's a saying about the apple not falling far from the tree...
19.
April 29, 2008, 8:22 PM
Thank you Eric. Nice one Franklin.
The 3-year-old bun we have already is a sweet but very crafty character. It's only the combined brainpower of my wife and I that allows us to outsmart her now - when her new ally arrives she'll be unstoppable. Luckily she likes to draw and I can distract her candy-hustling by bringing out crayons and paper.
20.
April 30, 2008, 5:08 AM
Crayons and paper worked really well for us when Number One son was three or so. It doesn't last long though so beware.
21.
May 2, 2008, 7:10 AM
Uh oh... looks like it's time to take Roberta out to the the woodshed, and have her pick out a switch, for a whoopin'...
1.
wwc
April 25, 2008, 10:33 AM
Thanks for the link to the book Franklin.