Tag: February 2011

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2011/110205.html
Entry #1 on this page (tagged: february, art)

Goal:
100 Daily Drawings

Tools:
Pack of 100, 6x4 Index Cards
Hard Pencil (4H) and Soft Pencil (6B)
White, Vinyl eraser
a decent Purple pencil sharpener
Approximately 80 Copic Markers
A few multiliners of various widths
an excellent lap desk
Scrap paper for testing marker colours and protecting the excellent lap desk!

Five days, five drawings! Most of my drawings have been pencil sketches with no extra colouring. But abstract and non-objective art fascinates me! I'm not terribly good at this kind of art, but with 100 drawings, I think I can get some practice in!

I am also quite interested in trying out some Chinese Brush Painting. Not with a brush and watercolours, but with my copic markers...

You see, the brush nibs on copics are entirely bendable. You can squish them all you want, and they always pop back into their normal shape. Yet another awesome thing about copic markers!

I'm thinking that the brush nib is about the same as the brush they use for chinese brush paintings. Or close enough to play with, anyway.

And then, too: the brushes used for chinese paintings are made out of animal hair, all kinds of animals... yuck! and extremely NOT VEGAN!

The "formula" to make Copic nibs is a closely guarded secret... but it's entirely man-made materials. Yay Vegan!

So: Action Plan...
∞  Pull out my Chinese Brush Painting kits.
∞  Find that book about abstract forms in nature.

And keep working on Time-Sensitive Projects #1, 3, 4 and
∞  Time #5: Letter writing explosion on SendSomething.net! Write back to everyone.

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2011/110213.html
Entry #2 on this page (tagged: february)

I finished reading another book this past week, which brought my Unread Book Pile down to 43, from the 50 that I started with at the beginning of the year.

Unfortunately, I accidently bought a new book!

I swear it was an accident: It was two dollars! How in the heck am I supposed to resist a 2$ book?!

*sighs* It was a Kindle book. and I don't have a Kindle. And I told myself I would wait until my birthday. In May. May! Months from now. But I have this growing library of Kindle books...

heh.

Note to self:
After buying the Kindle, must download... Calibre.
Gonna need to "convert" some ebooks after all!

In my wanderings the other day, I came across an interesting article on the GoodReads blog:
∞  GoodReads: Reading Across the Gender Line

The post is about how women buy and read more than men, but there are more male writers. Also there are more male published book reviewers.

And then there's this weird thing where men read mostly male writers, and women read mostly female writers... BUT "women were more than twice as likely as men to read and review a book by an author of the opposite gender."

huh. In my own reading habits... When I am buying a book, I definitely give more weight to my decision when I am buying a female author. In science fiction _especially_, because I know that there aren't as many female writers in that genre. (thusly my happiness and joy with James Tiptree, Jr, a brilliant female sci fi writer!!)

And up until fairly recently, my favorite author has been male: David Brin (science fiction writer of the series called Uplift). Unfortunatly, he doesn't seem to want to continue with the series that enchanted me. So I needed someone new!

I really enjoyed the Wess'Har series, by Karen Traviss, even tho she completely ruined the end. heh. (But, after all? Science fiction with vegan aliens? What's not to love?!)

And then I fell in love with Kij Johnson.
It was Kij Johnson who has lead me into this uh interest in Japanese mythology and history. Expanding my reading and knowlege is brilliant!

So, I suppose she's my new favorite author.

And now I think I need to go re-read The Fox Woman. Did I buy that as an ebook? Yep...

Which leads to a GoodReads post a bit further down the page
∞  Will 2011 be the Year of the Ebook?

also an interesting article, although the entire idea of ebooks is so very old to me. Since I've been reading ebooks since the '90s. *smirk*

And, finally, I cannot believe that the guinea pig Tessie didn't win the GoodReads mascot poll
∞  GoodReads Mascot Poll Results a bee? are you kidding me? *rolls eyes*

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2011/110219.html
Entry #3 on this page (tagged: february, art)

Yay! The top nine markers in the photo are some of the brand new copic colours, which arrived in North America this week! Day Job Perk: I got to be the first person on the continent to buy and have these copics! haha!

(New copic colours I didn't buy are E23 Hazelnut, E81 Ivory, YR30 Macadamia. I think I have enough browns and tans at the moment, that's all!)

I'll have to go count, but I think I'm approaching 100 copics! There are currently 346 sketch colours.

I am very happy to now have a partial set of the warm greys. I have the same partial set of cool greys. And I think I'm done buying greys for a while since I'm not interested in the toner greys or neutral greys.

I played with the markers a bit last night. The only new colour I'm disappointed with is the BG70 Ocean Mist. It is way too pale. But I had to have it because the other BGs in that colour group are some of my favorite colours!

Daily Drawing Update
I continue. I have missed a few days, tho. I seem to lose my momentum over the weekend and then it's really hard to get back to it on monday. eh.

Okay, much to do this weekend... guess I'd better get at it!

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2011/110226.html
Entry #4 on this page (tagged: february)

Yep!

∞  VINE Sanctuary Eastern Shore Sanctuary moved to Vermont and their new name stands for Veganism Is the Next Evolution. I like it. Plus! When I sent them a donation... their thank you card was HANDMADE! It very much delighted me!! :)

∞  Alphabet Colouring Pages New colouring pages at Doodle Art Alley. They are free! Samantha's colouring pages are the absolute best I've found!

∞  Free Streaming Movies for Amazon Prime members? That's interesting! I got about three minutes into Amadeus... and then the Internet distracted me. heh.

∞  I recently finished two of the three books I was reading! And now I've picked up a biography of Rachel Carson (who wrote Silent Spring). It's a wonderfully fat book... 634 pages, and yes, I always read the footnotes!

∞  Daily Drawing is not so daily... It's been about 28 days and I'm only on drawing #21. I just don't have drawing Enthusiasm. And I really Want Drawing Enthusiasm! In fact, I think I'm going to rename my daily project "Drawing Enthusiasm".

Static8 > Journal > 2011 Archive > Tag: February

<< BackTo Jan 2010 --- GoTo March 2011 >>