September 2021 Scrawlrbox - Dramatic Landscapes, Charcoal and Graphite!

 It’s that time of the month again!  Time for another Scrawlrbox!  

I guess I should update you here on the blog - since I quit Paletteful Packs (that last box with the markers was just too undervalued) - I went back to Scrawlrbox!  And truthfully, I’m so glad I did.  They take a little longer to get to me, but they are absolutely so well curated and always a great value.  Here’s what came inside the September 2021 box and my thoughts on each item: 

1. Derwent Charcoal and Graphite Sticks

As soon as I saw these, I got excited.  I have a set of Inktense blocks that I got from Scrawlrbox some time ago, and my IMMEDIATE thought was… can I wet these down?  I love it when I can add water to something to play with it, and so I was SO excited when they reactivated with water!  The different sizes and shades have different values too!  I’m excited to be able to use these blocks two different ways to get different effects on my piece.  

2. ArtGraf Water Soluable White Tailor’s Chalk

ArtGraf is one of those companies I’m always excited to see in an artbox!  Their products are always high quality and unique, at least to me!  This tailor’s chalk didn’t disappoint!  It’s very opaque and is so easy to use with a paintbrush.  If I was one for messy fingers, I’d probably break this guy up to try using it to get different textures on my piece (I still might try this if I’m brave, haha!)  But this is exactly the kind of fun and interesting product I would never have purchased myself but will use often!  

3. Faber Castell GoldFaber White Pencil

I’m always interested to see if a white pencil will hold up to my gold standard for white pencils - prismacolor.  I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this Goldfaber pencil!  It definitely performed WAY better than expected and much better than a lot of other white pencils I’ve gotten in boxes.  The paper is also really great to work on dry, so this was a great addition to the box!  

4. Faber Castell Pitt Matt Graphite Pencils in 6b and 14b

These were probably my least favorite item in the box, but that’s kind of unfair because they are very quality pencils!  I just think the 6b was a bit repetitive with the derwent graphite sticks, but the 14b was really useful.  I imagine if you used this box with less wet media techniques that you would have found more use for these pencils - so I’m still thinking they were worth it.  

5. Clairefontaine Paint-On Mixed Media Paper Pad, 5x7 in Denim, 12 sheets

Clairefontaine continues to produce quality, versatile, and affordable paper.  I love their Paint-On mixed media paper. It was super fun to get some more toned paper of this type!  The blue tone added another color and dimension to this box, and the paper took wet media QUITE well. It also isn’t totally smooth so it does pick up pencils and the sticks well too! Again, a solid surface that really makes it feel like I’m getting my money’s worth!  

6. Derwent Blending Stump

Not much to say about this except that it did the job well!  I don’t have a blending stump, so I’m definitely glad to have one to try out with my colored pencils!  Derwent is tried and true and always puts out quality products! 

I decided, since the Scrawlrbox Prompt this month was “Dramatic Landscapes.”  I knew immediately after swatching this box that I wanted to try a big moon with mountains!  I had a lot of fun making this piece!  The moon didn’t granulate and move in the same way that it would with granulating paints/watercolor paper/salt and salt water, BUT it still did a pretty good job overall! I also had a blast trying to shade the mountains!  

So, was it worth it?  Overall, Scrawlrbox values this box at $35.79 USD.  I paid $33.10 for this box, and the value was $38.44.  This is a little over $5 more than I paid for the box, but I have to say I think it was a pretty good value.  I’d have loved one less of the Faber Castell Pitt Matt pencils (the 6b probably) and to add a Derwent Graphitint blue pencil to give us one more blue/indigo value within the set!  BUT this is really splitting hairs!  Once again, Scrawlrbox continues to give us great art boxes with super cool supplies!  If you'd like to watch the whole unboxing and process, it's below on YouTube:

Did you get this box, what did you think of it? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! 

Inktober and Linktober 2021!

WOW - it’s been a hot minute since I wrote in the blog! Let’s start with a little bit of catch up!

First of all, I started streaming!! That’s been REALLY fun, though with me being back at work these days I haven’t been doing it as much as before! I’ve been streaming lots of fun things, including art, various Zelda games, and art about Zelda games!!! If you are interested in checking out streams, you can find me here: http://twitch.tv/kbsmith34

Next, I’ve been working on turning a LOT of what I do here into videos on YouTube! When I started that I kind of let the blog fall away, but to be honest I think I want to try to keep the blog going along with the YouTube videos! Sometimes a blog post can be longer and a bit more thorough than a YT video - and so I’m going to *try* to get back to balancing both things.

So, we are currently in the middle of inktober and linktober. I’ve been trying to manage both things, and we are on day 18 and I’ve kept it up so far! Linktober gets my main attention for longer pieces, and I do feel like my work this year is much better than 2020. I will say that in 2020 my main goal was just to draw with a reference as closely as possible because I was so new to so much of it! This year I’ve done some of that (for instance, all of my little LttP scenes are pretty heavily referenced) BUT one of my main goals has been to try to make things in my own style with less referencing and more feelings. So far, I think it’s been going really well. It shows growth for me I wasn’t confident about before this challenge, which makes me really happy and proud.

Inktober was something I really wanted to try this year but with specific constraints so I could actually do it and not get too “in my head” about two art pieces every day. I decided that from beginning to end, each inktober piece would be 10 minutes or less. This is from initial sketch to final product! I chose reasonably sized paper for this, and a pencil that dissolves under wet media. I also am using simple watercolor washes and a permanent ink brush pen to do line work. I feel REALLY good about this journey also - and think this has definitely increased my skills at basic drawing and line work!

I recently made a YouTube video showing off most of my challenge art to this point, and talking about the official inktober products that I purchased to use for inktober. I will say I’m in LOVE with the Viviva Colorsheets! I bought the inktober set and the metallic set because I wanted to try the metallics. They are a wonderful “on the go” option for my sketchbook! I’m really glad I took this opportunity to try them! The full thoughts are up on YT here: 

Thanks for reading along and catching up with me today! I’m looking forward to getting back to longer and more detailed reviews of products here on the blog. Check out my Instagram and YouTube pages for more inspiration! Bye for now!