Pop Goes the Artist!

My birthday was the end of October, but I just recently saw someone I hadn’t seen since then, and I got a couple more birthday presents.  (It’s kind of fun, actually, spreading out the birthday festivities like that.)  Anyway, I got a couple of new art supplies that I’ve very eager to try out.

First, I got a set of 10 Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Artist’s Crayons.  They’re “water-soluble wax pastels” so they can be used with a variety of wet and dry techniques.  I should probably get some heavier paper before I experiment with adding water, but they look like they’d be great for vibrant and colorful sketches.

I also got a (less interesting, but probably more practical) set of 6 Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pens in shades of grey.  They’re really more like markers than pens, since they have a brush tip.  I enjoy sketching in pen and marker, and it forces you to be both decisive and careful, since there’s no erasing.  But I also think I worry less about perfection and more about recording my impressions of the subject, since, again, you really can’t correct mistakes.  The fact the markers are in shades of grey will be fun too.

I also got a book that I’ve been wanting for awhile, called Alphabetica: An A-Z Creativity Guide for Collage and Book Artists by Lynne Perrella.  It’s a gorgeous collection of the artwork of fourteen different artists, with a loose alphabet theme, and it includes technical tips, commentary on some of the artworks featured, inspiration, and a “workshop” section featuring a different workshop with each of the contributing artists.  It’s a great book just for the artwork featured, but I think it will also be a wonderful source of inspiration for my own altered books.

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Either Friday or Sunday, I’ll be going to the National Gallery of Art to see two different exhibits for two different classes.  I’m especially looking forward to seeing “Prayers and Portraits: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych” for my Renaissance class.  (For my other class, on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, I just have to visit the NGA’s late medieval permanent collection.)  It should be a fun trip.