Day 8, An arty kind of day

Its Thursday 8th April and day 8 of the blog, I must admit its tough thinking what to write about everyday! So today it’s a little about the art I’ve completed today.

Firstly I have my own challenge for April where I am testing three journals with different mediums, one per day every day of the month. Day 8 is in the Mindful Giraffe notebook, and the test is the Ecoline Watercolour Brush Pens. I like the pens, I haven’t used them much but they are juicy and play well together as a watercolour pen, the question is how will the journal take it – especially as yesterdays was the Archer and Olive notebook that really didn’t like them too much. I found a tutorial online by Kim Dellow, who I have previously seen in a classroom somewhere (Maybe Life Book 2020, I can’t actually remember). Anyway I decided to go for it and do what I can with the pens, and just accept what the paper would do.

Ecoline Brush Pen Mindful Giraffe Notebook April 8th
Ecoline Brush Pen Mindful Giraffe Notebook April 8th

Well I am genuinely surprised! I used the pens as a pen, watered it down with a brush and even attempted some water drips and the pages gave me no issues at all! Of course there is a little buckling, that goes without saying, but the page held up well, no pilling at all, the pens went on easily, blended with each other, and dried nicely while allowing layering.

So onwards to the next art.

This time it was to do a pen test with new pens I received from Pen Pusher. Kuretake Zig Fudebiyori metallic brush markers in Gold, Silver and Black. I decided to test on black and white sheets. They are lovely and work well on both pages. I decided to also add some Gelly Roll pen doodles.

April 8th Pen Test
April 8th Pen Test

I decided to test them again, this time using Acrylograph pens. I know I’ve talked about them before but the pen just does nothing for me! They need to be shaken well before use, pumped to get the flow going and despite the little I used them I had to keep shaking and pumping the pens so the nibs are now frayed and scratchy, they are an expensive mistake. So the ZIG pens, awesome – the Acrylograph not so much.

April 8th Pen Test ZIG Metallic and Acrylograpgh
April 8th Pen Test ZIG Metallic and Acrylograpgh

After this I decided to go back to the free, time limited, subscriber course from Willa,.I only have a couple of days left to watch before I lose access (or buy the course when it goes out for the general public).

Colour Play - Finished
Mixed Media Colour Play

This was a fun piece of play using the “mother method” of colour work. Take a single colour, then slowly blend with black or white to get different tones, then add 1 other colour to the mix so everything is linked and is based off the mother colour. Then when done you doodle to your hearts content! I used black micron, white signo broad and ZIG silver and black pens,

After this, our son wanted to publish his latest page. He is so enjoying being a part of this and he is especially loving the comments people are leaving for him – I thank you all for helping! Owls are such a big thing in his life! He is also learning valuable technical and social media lessons that will help in his education.

Then it was tea time, I had remembered to sort the slow cook today, a family favourite Rogan Josh, although to say it was spicy was an understatement! We are all now enjoying the TV and letting our taste buds settle down. Nathan Fillion in Firefly is always good entertainment!


Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Great Grey Owl

Thank you to everyone who told me what they’re favourite owl was. The Great Grey Owl was the winner this time. If your favourite owl didn’t come through this time, then don’t worry I will be discussing most owls eventually.

Great Grey Owls can grow up to 2 feet (60.9 cm) tall and with a wingspan of 4.5 – 5 feet. They are mainly grey, but with browns and white mixed in with it. They mostly eat voles but they will also eat pocket gophers, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks and weasels as well as frogs, toads and insects. They live in the forests of Scandinavia and North America. In captivity, the Great Grey Owl can live for up to 40 years.

Thank you again to everyone who told me their favourite owls to help me do this set of facts! Keep an eye out for the next page which will be coming soon. I hope that you enjoyed this as much as the Barn Owl facts.

Day 7, Website learning curve and some art!

So what should have been an easy day of reading blogs and writing my own blog turned into something else entirely.

One of the blogs I follow since joining the blog-along, has a “blogs I follow” link – “Wow that looks cool” I thought, “I wonder if I can do that” closely followed by “Oh that’s exciting they have me listed, but why is my page not linking properly, and why isn’t my picture showing?”. This then followed several hours of frustrating times of trying to work out whats wrong with my website, a steep learning curve into our managed website hosting system (my IT Manager had to go to his day job office today, and so I had to do it alone!) after several attempts to resolve I couldn’t, so I decided to chill and do some art.

Firstly was to play with my master board/sketchbook I created yesterday following a newsletter from one of the Sketchbook revival artists Helen Wells and add more things to it.

A comment on one of my earlier days posts reminded me that I enjoyed Book of Days last year, and I haven’t finished all the classes, so I chose one to do and getting my journal only to find I had already started it and I just needed to get back into the zone and finish it. Iris is a great teacher, she has a really unique and free way of working. I found that I deviated from the class a little, but it makes my piece mine right?

Our son decided he wanted to sit in Dad’s chair today and “be all professional and keep you company“. No problem but what will you do? “I’m going to respond to the ladies that sent me a comment on my first page, and maybe write a new page!” OK great, just let me know when you want help and I shall be there. I’m really pleased to say he needed very little help and the page uploaded without problem. You can see it here and he would really love it if you were to read and comment on it.

I then moved onto another Book of Days piece, I completely got into the zone with Sarah Trump and playing with watercolours to create a fabulous background before adding more detail. Its pretty much finished.

Hubby got home from work and we all had lunch (I know, all this by lunch time!!). The kids are now off playing Roblox for the afternoon, Hubby is on a zoom meeting and I’m back on trying to fix the website issues. Its funny how many things I am actually finding wrong, but its also good because it means broken links are being located and fixed. Fortunately The IT Manager has been giving me assistance from the other side of the room and we think we have fixed it all issues we know about. It also means that one of the blogs I follow is getting a high traffic flow today, I hope you don’t mind Cheryl, but I thank you for highlighting the issue without you realising it! Now if you could just tell me how to add that “blogs I follow” side bar that would be awesome!

As for the rest of the day – I just need to go and read some blogs and comment on them, finish the crochet I started yesterday from the crochet summit (I made notes and now cant get back to the video as I am not paying for VIP access, so I’ve got to work out how to make a matching mitten without a pattern…anyone any good at reading/making patterns??), do my April page in my notebook – and you know sort out an evening meal, socialise with the family, get the boy to scouts…. it’s all go around here!

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Barn Owl

This species of owl is 36cm tall and has a wingspan of between 80-95cm. The barn owls mainly eat field voles, but they will also eat bank voles, shrews, mice, rats and small birds. they live for 20 – 25 years. The barn owl is very recognisable, with a white, round-ish face with brown wings. The female barn owl is the same, but has a darker shade of brown and has black spots.

2 little barn owls!

The reason that I have gone for this owl is because, when I was younger, I went on a school trip, and I held a barn owl on my arm. Ever since, I have loved all kinds of owls. I personally think that they are absolutely beautiful and majestic creatures.

Let me know what your favorite owl is in the comments and the most common one will be the one I do in my next post!

Day 6, Effy’s Blog Along

I genuinely have no idea what to write about today. The commitment to the blog is I post daily and read and comment on three others a day. I’m sure I’ve done more than that every day but they are all so interesting and diverse I don’t want to miss them. I feel that I don’t have much to say that’s interesting, so I’m wondering what to write. So as it’s still morning, I shall write my “to do” list and see what I can tick off when I come back here later. I have just read a blog posts about lists which inspired me to do this – Sorry!!

  1. Hubby is back WFH today. He has had a week off with us and its been lovely. A week of lazy days, the four of us plodding around together has been so wonderful but getting up at 6:30 am this morning was a bit of a challenge! I told the kids not to make an appearance until at least 9 am today. I dreaded going doing stairs to see what Mouse related mess there would be, but actually the cat & the mouse are ignoring each other. The cat is asleep, the mouse is nowhere to be seen, the peanut butter in the makeshift trap is firmly still in place.
  2. Quick visit to the supermarket for essential supplies at 8 am. Blimey its cold out there. We live close enough I could walk there and back with my shopping in 11 minutes (hubby timed me). Despite the brilliant blue sky and sunshine it was super cold and I noted that two cars in the car-park had obviously driven through a snow shower. That was a shock, but looking at the sky there was definitely a snow cloud heading this way.
  3. Write my postcards for my WAY group and get them sent out today.
  4. Do my daily art spread in my journal. I’m testing three notebooks and I really like today’s one the most so far, the Pitt Pens flow nice on the page. My doodles are a bit “babyish” but I don’t mind, I’m creating something for me!
  5. Package up my clothes returns parcel. I hate buying clothes online, especially jeans and ordering in a closing down sale is a bit of a gamble – it didn’t pay off and they need returning. The curse of the long legged woman strikes again! Darn, I wish I could order a “regular” pair of jeans just once and they would fit my legs!
  6. Have a website argument with the returns company, and schedule the collection / return multiple times so now I’m confused and don’t know if they are collecting or if I have to walk to the drop off centre!
  7. Read 3 blog pages & comment (think I’ve done 6 today…)
  8. Place an order for Nespresso Coffee. I cannot believe we have left it so long before ordering, we only have enough for 2 cups! Fortunately we also like tea (a lot) so we wont go thirsty.
  9. Daughter has just watched the final episode of Resident Alien, like us she is sad its the final episode. It’s been such a great series, though we are all happy they have commissioned another. We do love Alan Tudyks’ acting (we are introducing the Kids to Firefly as well…).
  10. Son is now released from Self Isolation , we got super lucky its happened at Easter as it hasn’t really bothered him – YAY he can go out – he is super excited, so to celebrate he is just going to play on the Wii…!
Daily Spread

Still to sort out

  1. Make some bread.
  2. Early lunch needed as hubby has a 1 pm meeting. Hmm what shall we have to eat today. (oh its 11:55 I better go and make it..!)
  3. Check the potatoes – can they be planted up yet?
  4. Do an art class, but which one – Wanderlust? LIfebook? Awesome Art School, so many choices.
  5. Ephemera – I have so much loose ephemera, I need to sort it out and make some journal pages from it, maybe watch a YouTube video to “remind me” what to do

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.