The first full episode of the Art Supply Posse is up and Heather and I talk about sketchbooks– the building block of any good art supply stash.
For full show notes and to subscribe, listen to or download the episode, go here.
This week is a bonus week because you’ll be getting TWO episodes. Our second episode should go up on our regular schedule on Wednesday night as well so I hope you enjoy getting to binge this week.
In honor of National Donut (or the more formal “Doughnut”) Day (and we all know I love a good donut), I’m dressing today up with chocolate, sprinkles and a good glaze!
I mentioned last week that I had a project in the works… well, here it is:
Heather Rivard and I decided to start a podcast! It’s all about art supplies. We collectively decided to start it when we had the thought “how come there isn’t a podcast about art supplies like there is for pens and pencils?” It occurred to us that maybe we ought to start it.
The show is called Art Supply Posse and iTunes just approved our feed so our Pilot episode it live. We will post our first real episode soon and will start posting regular episodes on Wednesday evenings. More information will be included in the episodes and on the Art Supply Posse website.
Please let us know what you think of the show, tell your friends, subscribe, and follow our Twitter feed. Thanks so much!
I recently discovered Unroll.Me which quickly and easily let’s you sort through all those newsletters you’ve subscribed to and will help you unsubscribe from the ones you don’t want. Then it allows you to sort the newsletters you do want to keep into a digest format called a “roll-up” or leave them in your email inbox if that’s more appropriate.
I used the web-based service and it took about 10 minutes to sort through the massive list of email newsletters I was receiving and decide which ones I wanted to keep and which ones I wanted to roll-up or leave in my inbox. I was able to unsubscribe from 31 newsletters in one go! The roll-up is then delivered daily as one email that I can read through instead of potentially 20 different emails. Joy!
The service is free which is awesome and is also available an iOS app. I’ll need to go through a few more email accounts later and will try out the iOS app for those account.
I think Unroll.Me is a good alternative to my current system which has been using a bunch of rules to filter newsletters into folders which end up getting ignored which is the method I’ve been using. I know that there are some other services available to accomplish a similar task like Sanebox which is frequently recommended by Mac Power Users but this free service seems like a nice “training wheels” version for me before I invest in a paid-for service which might be more power than I need.
This is not a promotional post. I just found this website and I liked the service so I’m sharing it with you as a public service in hopes that you’ll like it too and will help streamline your digital work process.
Pens:
Ink:
Pencils:
Notebooks & Paper:
Planners & Organizers:
Other Interesting Things:
Romain asks:
I am desperately looking for a large notebook (A5-A4) with 4mm squared paper; do you have any advice for me?
This took some hunting and I could only find one printed option that featured the coveted 4mm grid paper It’s the Miquelrius leather-look journals. They are available in 100-, 200-, and 300-sheet books with black, blue or red covers for $9.99 to $14.99. The paper quality is decent. I used a Miquelrius book for ink testing for some time early in my blog career before switching to Rhodia paper which is a bit more hardy.
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There are more images of the whole Miquelrius Grid journal I used available on Flickr.
Another option for grid paper would be to print your own paper. Paper Snake offers printable graph in a variety of quadrille and graph paper sizes in metric and imperial sizes including 4mm.
It wasn’t until I started writing with KWZ Menthol Green ($12 for 60ml bottle) that I realized what I liked about it so much – it’s essentially Emerald of Chivor without the sparkle. It might be a tad bit bluer when actually writing with it, but KWZ Menthol Green is probably the closest I’ve found to a sparkle-free substitute for Emerald of Chivor. It’s not water proof but it stands up to a little water without completely losing its shape so that’s handy. It’s a good shading ink, and its priced right too!
I testedd the ink with several different Esterbrook nibs which will account for the color variations. I used wide nibs, fine nibs, flex nibs and even a slightly janky nib. All worked well with the Menthol Green, even Mr. Janky Nib.
KWZ Menthol Green doesn’t have the red halo that Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku has either and its a considerably cheaper ink as well.
All-in-all, I can’t say enough nice things about the ink. The only bad thing is that KWZ inks sells out fast. Keep your eyes peeled for it. Vanness usually tries to get it in stock for pen shows so save your pennies for the next big show (DC and SF, for sure).
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Vanness Pens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
