January 2015 Giveaway

[Originally posted on the 15th of January 2015. Reposting to boost.]

  Here's to my third giveaway~

  This time, I'll be giving away two lovely Fabriano sketchbooks and one Derwent Fine Art Pencils set.

  Art Friend has recently started selling loads of new Fabriano loot, so I decided to grab a few of them to try out. And since I already love Fabriano, I thought it'd be great to let one of you lovelies to try out something from them too.

  I've chosen Fabriano's Eco-Qua sketchbooks. They're made from ecological Bioprima Book paper and are 85 gsm. Acid free, and has a slight ivory tint. They're lovely to hold and I'm sure you'd love to use them. The larger yellow one has ruled paper, while the orange one is blank.

  Eco-Qua's come in a variety of sizes... There are three different types of finishing- stapled papers, spiral-bound, and with the elastic band to close it. They also come with three variety of papers- blank, ruled, and grids. With that wide a variety to choose from, you'd be spoiled for choice.

  As for the Derwent Fine Art Pencils set; it's not a new product but I love that their pencils are watersoluble. The set even comes with a little brush. :)

Rules:

• You must live within Singapore to join this giveaway. I'll cover the postage fee so you don't have to worry about that.

• Giveaway starts on 15th January 2015, 20:00, Singapore time and ends on the 23rd February 2015, 20:00 Singapore time. 

• Please provide an e-mail that I can contact you with if you win the giveaway. The winner will be contacted by email within 48 hours after the giveaway ends.

• If you have any additional questions, feel free to send me an email- stephanie_jennifer@ymail.com

Other than that, you can join via the widget below. Anddd~ Good luck!

Update: Here's a post with proof that I sent out the prize to Russell ---- (click me)

Painting of the Day: "Like A Woman Scorn"

"Like A Woman Scorn" by Zero

  Coloured pencils on black paper.

 View his Instagram @art_by_zero

Book Review: Strokes of Genius 6

  "Strokes of Genius 6" was wonderful to look through. I loved the portraits within the book- they were emotive and soulful. There wasn't much helpful hints or any instructions within the book, but the Strokes of Genius series is more of 'nice books filled with pretty pictures' type of series. I felt the book was mainly focused on realism, as do lots of American art books, but I loved looking at all the works within the book and actually wished it had more pages. The print quality is great and I'm quite happy with it, overall. I'm looking forward to buy other books within this series.   View my other book videos here: (click me)

What I've Been Up To Lately...

  I haven't been posting according to schedule (either Monday, Wednesday, and Friday OR Tuesday and Thursday) because my internet connectivity is acting weird. So I sometimes get good connection for about two hours, and then after I can't even load Google's homepage....

  So. I'm sorting things out with my internet provider and they said they'd sort it out by February. Until then. I can't promise this blog will be updated regularly. I'll try my best- but no promises made.

  That said; here's what has happened over the past week...

I received my subscription box from "Pigment & Palette", and a book I backed on Kickstarter titled "Subtract". I'm already editing the video for "Subtract" so as soon as my internet connection is stable, I'll be posting it. Look out for that~

Look at the goodies within the subscription box~
Brush cleaner, silver acrylic, and a white pen.
I don't like brush-based mediums cause I feel I don't get enough control over the brush, and I only use my water-barrel Derwent brushes... I *might* use the silver acrylic to do a background sometime soon. I didn't like the pen because of its chemical smell and lack of opacity...

Have I mentioned that I'll be starting a new series called "The Travelling Postcard" Series?
In short, one of my friends is going to UK to further her studies, so I'll be sending her postcards with drawings made by me on them throughout the year. This is the 2nd of the set.

I started posting again on my Facebook fanpage.

I bought lots of goodies from Art Friend and am currently holding a giveaway (click me) that you should totally take part in.
The purple sketchbook is for myself, though. *smacks your hand away*

I watched "Cats", the musical with my mum and it was amazing!

  I'll be trying to draw and read more for the next few days... Do pardon me if you don't see any new posts in the following days as the lack of my wifi is equally frustrating to me... I'll still be replying comments and emails, and I'll still be posting on my other social media platforms. :)

  Till' next time~

Recommended Artist: Paul Friedlander

Paul Friedlander makes mind-blowing kinetic sculptures made of light. They're

  They're really pretty, and some instillations are large scale works or interactive exhibitions. You can view more of his works via this link.

Book Review: The Art of Animal Character Design (second edition)

  "The Art of Animal Character Design" (second edition) by David Colman was beautifully printed and the cover was sturdy and the colours within the book was rich and lovely. The advice within the book was solid; but I really wished that there were more new sketches from Colman, cause most of the sketches in the book can be found on his Deviantart...

Book Review: Whatever you think, think the opposite.

Turn this book upside down.
...

Things are looking up already.

I think this page explained what modern art is about in a very elegant way.
Art isn't meant to be beautiful. It's meant to make you think.

Astonish Me.

   In short, I liked this book better than Paul Arden's first book, "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be". (Click me to see a review of that book.) It's more substantial. It's filled with quotes and anecdotes that I could relate to better. It was filled with advice that I felt I could use more than the ones in his first book.

  I'd recommend buying this book. I also am interested in how his third book, "God Explained in a Taxi Ride", is going to be like.

National Bird Day... And Other Things

  It's National Bird Day today. 

  Here's a drawing I did to celebrate it:

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  It was my maternal grandmother's death anniversary about a week ago... Christmas happened before it and there was a lot of festive cheer around me so I didn't really have the time to sit down and think about the significance of it.

  It's been two years already.

  While it's true that things will get better as time goes by, you'll never really fully get over the death of a loved one. You'll find ways to cope, to continue living your life. But there are some wounds that time won't heal completely... And that's okay. It's okay to feel grief even years after a loved one's death. It's okay to miss them. It's okay to be. 

  I'm grateful for how many changes have happened in 2014. 

  I'm grateful for all the love and support I get from my family and friends. 

  I'm grateful for my health, for being financially stable, and for having a job I enjoy.

  2014 was an emotional roller coaster ride, but it was a good year for me. I hope 2015 brings about even more fun and laughter, tears, joy, love, and adventures. 

---

two zero one five

Try Out Thursday: Derwent Blender Pens

Review of Derwent's Blender Pens that I bought from Art Friend..

  I actually had these blender pens for a while now but never got around to using them....

  They come in this pretty yet simple packaging. Nothing fancy. The back of the pack says, "Derwent Blender pens are designed specifically for use with pencils, allowing the artist to blend away pencil lines for smooth and even colour. They are effective with both colour and graphite pencils. ... Pencil can be layered over the top if required. Use the smaller nib for fine detail."

As you can see, the pack comes with two pens- one 4mm and one 2mm.

The smaller nib is a brownish tone, whereas the larger nib is white. In the picture, the larger nib is slightly blue because of the colours I used it on. However, even though the nib is stained the colours don't transfer if you take care to wipe it on a piece of scrap paper after each use.

  The pens smell kind of like whiteboard markers which might bother some people. I think you just have to use some common sense and keep the room well-ventilated (even pastels are harmful... so.)

  My only grief is that I think a bigger nib would be so useful for coloured pencil artists cause some of us work large scale. A flat and broad nib would be really useful. This would really speed up the time taken to finish a drawing, and I loved how you could still layer more colours on top of it.

I drew a jellyfish and then layered Coloursoft pencils as a background.
The colours dissolved very well. The black ink is from Derwent's Graphik line maker pens, and they didn't smudge. I'm really happy about that cause I now know I can ink the things I draw first, erase the pencil markings, and then colour in the background without worry.

  You might think that the gradation isn't very smooth, but this was from my sketchbook and I didn't lay the coloured pencil strokes down very well, plus I didn't add a second layer to it. But I can tell that the blender pens would work really well for my future works.  I'll definitely be using the blender pens more often in the future.

  Update: To see a before and after comparison of using the Derwent blender pens, click this link to see the magic.

  Now, I need to get my hands on Derwent's blender and burnisher pencils to try them out....... ^-^