by Tina Koyama My Leuchtturm weekly planner is eerily empty. As a mostly retired introvert, my calendar is never overly full, but it hasn’t been this blank since seventh grade. Jazzercise on Mondays, yoga on Wednesdays, an Urban Sketchers meetup every second Fridays – all gone for the foreseeable future (thank goodness the trash pickup…
This Daiso ceramic doodad (12 for $20.16) was not originally designed to hold ink sample vials but it’s absolutely perfect for it. It’s actually designed to hold a toothbrush. Sample vials (5ml size) fit in this ceramic holder perfectly. It keeps me from tipping over a sample vial when I’m doing swatch samples or just…
In the US, there are three major colored pencil brands that vie for the “most popular” spot in the professional/high-quality colored pencil category. They are colloquially known as the Ps: Prismacolors, Pablos and Polychromos. Prismacolors First up are Prismacolors which are currently called Prismacolor Premiers. These beloved pencils have been passed around to so many…
Review by Tina Koyama Since I don’t do much “real” watercolor painting – my main use of brushes is with water-soluble colored pencils – convenient water brushes serve me better than traditional paint brushes. Some new water brushes hit the scene recently at JetPens, so I jumped right on them: the East Hill line of…
Review by Tina Koyama If I have a serious gluing need, such as making a collage, I pull out a gallon jug of acrylic medium. But for casual gluing needs, I want something quick, easy and, above all, not messy. I gave up on glue sticks because no matter how neatly I tried to apply…
Sometimes, I just need to play with scissors and glue. I recently upgraded both my scissors and my glue stick so I thought I’d share my results. I had the matte black Allex S-165F Office Scissors with Fluorine Coating($18.50) in my cart on JetPens for eons and I finally decided to buy them. Their most…
When I saw the Iris Drawing Compass pop up on Kickstarter, I was intrigued enough to back the project. I have backed enough Kickstarter projects to know that no matter how optimistic the creators are, they will never hit their shipping date goals. So when it arrived right around the holidays, I was pleasantly surprised.…
