Halloween Cut-outs

I made these little Spooky guys to decorate the house for Halloween. I've done larger designs but these are little ones that fit on the windows of a french door. 

 I used Strathmore Artgain paper. It's a great weight and jet black. Awesome stuff for cutouts.

A spooky spider

These are Westcott "Extreme Edge"shears, probably the best scissors I ever used. They're sharp and nicely balanced; and even come with a key so you can adjust the tension on the blades.

Nothing beats a fresh Exacto blade; I change them frequently throughout a project. (Keep an empty jar on your desk to store the used blades... there's never a dull Exacto blade, especially when they're sticking straight up in your garbage can!)

Looks like a Halloween party when they're all out on the table!

 This is where all the spooky guys stay with the help of tiny bit of double stick tape.
Happy Halloween everyone!

Moleskines on the Road

Who can live without a Moleskine anymore? They travel, they're trendy and they're pretty durable, which is important, because mine tend to get dragged everywhere and get kinda beat up.

I used the unlined sketchbooks in different sizes in hard and soft cover. There's also a Japaneses album, a storyboard sketch and pocket watercolor books.

 

The watercolor books really are great; strong durable paper that can take and hold color and ink very well. I carry a Niji waterbrush along with a Cotman mini pan watercolor set. Banded together it's a nice compact road kit.

 Each one of these have a story to go with them; I'll share them in future posts.

Two fresh Moleskinnes wait their turn.

My Kingdom for a Fountain!

This Libelle Alphabet Fountain is one of my favorites. It's got great weight and balance and feels good to draw with. The coating is a high gloss resin that's different from any other pen that I have. The description says it's perfect for "wordsmiths and crossword puzzle enthusiasts;" but they left out us type designers. I believe it's a Bodoni family printed on the barrel; looks great.

My Libelle worked through every page of a Strathmore pocket sketch. A nice little pair that I carried with me as I was reading "The Once and Future King" by T.H. White. 

Mine has a steel medium nib.

The only disappointment I have is with the cap. It posts fine, but the threads don't line up easily; you could easily cross up them up if your not careful. Other than that, it's a primo pen.

I usually use a converter for my fountains, but I used the standard Pelikan cartridges for this one, simply so I could do a quick refill on the road.

"The old man was streaked with droppings over
his shoulders, among the stars and triangles
 of his gown, and a large spider was slowly
lowering itself from the tip of his hat..."

"The Wart found himself almost hypnotized by by the
big words and hardly noticed that the big mouth
was coming closer and closer to him."

T.H. White's book is called one of the foundations of modern fantasy, I can see why. My only regret is that I didn't read this book as a boy!

I gotta try this pen with the converter, maybe with a Noodler's color...