November 2021 Sketchbox!

Hi there everyone! It’s November Sketchbox time again, and I’m SO very excited to go ahead and talk about this box!

This box was all about watercolors, and the watercolors in the box were some of my favorites! They sent us a palette of travel Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors in SUCH a nice assortment of colors and the cutest little case that definitely reminded me of CD’s in the 90’s! Here’s the swatches, items, and what I thought of each item in the box:

1. Kuretake Gansai Tambi Travel Watercolor Palette

This little palette is really amazing. I loved the colors chosen, and it’s a GREAT

way for people to try the GT paints for the first time! I already know I love these paints, so I’m very excited to use them on the road until the palette is gone! The color selection is great, and the addition of the pearl color is perfect for the holiday season.

2. Koh-i-noor Hardtmuth Pencil in 2B

This is, a pencil. It’s not any better or worse than any other pencil in any other art

box. Koh-i-noor always puts out a good product, but I really feel like adding a sketching pencil to an art box is unnecessary. We all have a pencil somewhere to sketch with (I think that’s a fair assumption anyway), and so this just feels like a waste of value. I would have much preferred the addition of another kind of art supply that worked with the rest of them. I DO appreciate a set of graphite pencils if that’s the art challenge - this just wasn’t that.

3. TCW Stencils Color Sparx Powder in Wisteria

These powders are so neat and fun! I didn’t use it as a powder on this piece, but

I really enjoy playing with these with my color burst powders from Ken Oliver. It’s a messy time, but a fun time when I get them out! This was a beautiful, rich purple and I’m always happy to see this type of medium in an art box!

4. Hahnemuhle Toned Watercolor Paper in Gray

This is a solid surface for this box. I enjoyed the toned gray paper, and how it

worked with the white highlight of the pen. This paper isn’t 100% cotton, but it’s very quality cellulose paper. The size is also perfect to create cards or postcards, which I really like to do with my artwork.

5. LePetit Water BrusH20 from Kuretake

This was probably the most disappointing item in the box for me. Maybe I’m just

not meant to use a water brush, because I haven’t found a single one I actually enjoy. This is interesting to me, because I DO enjoy using brush pens filled with in the same manner. I just find them to work much more consistently than any water brush I’ve ever used. This one was small and even though it comes apart for travel it doesn’t fit into the palette given. I ended up using my own brushes on my piece, which I often do and don’t find that to be a violation of the integrity of any art box IMO. But I’d have much preferred a travel size round brush without water for this box, since I know they always try to include a brush with paints.

6. Archer and Olive Acrylograph 0.7mm paint pens in White and Navy

I was SO excited to try these, because I have an Archer and Olive bullet journal

and I’ve been wanting to try them for awhile. These are great paint pens! They seem to be about comparable to a Posca of the same tip, but priced just a little bit higher. I will say that the nib on these seems a little more solid than a posca, and that might be why they are pricier. But I really enjoyed these pens and will definitely use them in mixed media pieces AND in my bullet journal.

My piece turned out really fun and festive: 

Overall, I really liked this box! It was easily one of the better boxes I’ve gotten from Sketchbox in the past 6 months, BUT it was still barely a value. I’m not sure what’s going in with Sketchbox right now, but I do feel like I haven’t been getting my money’s worth lately. I’m going to get the December box from them and then take a break for a bit, and maybe try doing some different types of challenges with the supplies that I already have! 

Here’s the full video for anyone that wants to see the full process of the art and swatches: 

Do you get Sketchbox? What did you think of this box? Let me know in the comments below!

Holiday Sketchbox 2021

It’s here it’s HERE! The Sketchbox Holiday Box for 2021 is HERE!!! Oh MAN I’m excited for this box and to play with it! Let’s go through what we got inside the box, what I think of the supplies, and how I see myself using them all! At the end we will talk about value and if this box was worth it:  

Box Price is $89.00 USD and was $10 shipping, for a total of $99 USD. 

To see the unboxing, check out my video here below: 

Contents: 

1. Hahnemuhle Watercolor Postcards, set of 30

I’m VERY excited to get these in a box! They are a high quality for a cellulose paper, and even though they are thin, I think they work really well. I’m planning to use inks with them because if you are going to mail postcards, you definitely want to make sure they aren’t going to be ruined if they get wet! THAT is probably my biggest complaint with the items in this box, but we shall get there later on. I was absolutely pleased with the addition of these watercolor postcards to this box!

2. Kuretake Gold Mica Ink

This stuff is LIQUID GOLD. Honestly, this was the best thing in the box. I liked a LOT of this box, but this was my favorite thing. If you can’t get this box, just go online and get this ink. It was beautiful on black and white paper! And it’s ink, so it won’t get ruined or lift! I’m really looking forward to using this in the future and in my metallic gold/silver roundup!

3. Sketchbox Round 6 Brush

I was surprised that I enjoyed this brush so much! This brush is softer than the brushes I’m used to getting in an artbox, much more like a traditional watercolor brush. It reminds me of a creative mark Mimik brush - and I’m in love with it. It’s definitely going to be in my brush rotation going forward!

4. Dynasty Black Gold Brush - Whale Tail 1⁄2”

This brush is... interesting! It’s fun for the novelty of it, but I never would have spent money on something like this. I’m going to play with it over time and see if I think it was a worthwhile addition or not. It says it’s to make ribbons, but like is painting the end of a ribbon really that difficult? I’m not sure the $12.50 pricetag for this was worth it though, but I’m going to play with it and see.

5. Stonehenge Co Metallic Watercolors - Gold, Pearl and Red

 Oh MAN these are wonderful! I have a stonehenge metallic blue paint already, and so I already knew this was great paint. My biggest thing here would be that I think it would have been nice to get a red AND a green instead of a gold since we already had gotten the gold ink, but they are all wonderful. I’ve definitely already purchased a green to make a set here because I like these so much! This is great paint and definitely worth the value! They did perform WAY better on black paper than on the white paper though, so I’m much more likely to use them on my black watercolor and mixed media papers.

6. Cretacolor 24 set of Artist Studio Watercolor Pencils

I really feel like calling these “Artist Studio” pencils was so misleading. These are very VERY student grade pencils in my opinion. The color payout is weak, and they lift like crazy. I was super excited when I originally got these, but they are not a good product for this box. Also, because we were given watercolor postcards, I feel like the fact that these pencils lifted so badly was even worse! If these postcards were to get wet in the mail, they would DEFINITELY get ruined! I think with the postcards it would have been better to include a set with fewer colors that was going to be harder to lift like that cretacolor aqua monolith woodless watercolors, OR something that is more permanent altogether like the Derwent Inktense blocks or pencils. A smaller selection of these would definitely have been better in my opinion!

7. Nicholson’s Peerless watercolor Sheets - Portrait Set

These are right in line with the pencils above. They are pretty much the same

thing as the Viviva colorsheets, and they lift just as much as Viviva. Again, this seems like a bad medium if you are using postcards. If we had been given a regular watercolor paper pad I wouldn’t be complaining near as much, but these will definitely need sealed somehow if they are to be used on these postcards. I’d have traded these and the pencils for a decent set of watercolor pencils or inktense pencils/blocks/pan paints. That would have been a pretty incredible deal actually!

8. Daniel Smith Masking Fluid

This is solid masking fluid! I love good masking fluid, and this stuff is really high quality. I’m not sure how much I will use it on these postcards, BUT this will be a great addition to my overall collection of watercolor supplies!

My overall initial impressions are that this box fell a bit flat. The supplies feel disjointed. The metallic supplies are REALLY high quality, but they shine most when used on black paper. The box didn’t come with black paper, so that’s kind of a bummer. The postcards are really nice, but they need to be used with a media that is going to either be sealed OR be more permanent from the beginning. The only permanent item in the box is the gold ink, and so I would have much preferred some type of permanent/inky medium with the watercolor postcards. OR give us regular watercolor paper, but I still think the pencils were a huge let down. I never value quantity over quality in boxes like these. Ultimately I would have traded both the watercolor sheets and the pencils for one set of 12 half pans of inktense OR another similar watercolor brand and something to seal the final postcards. And I would have traded the strange brush for a quality flat or mop brush and maybe a permanent brush ink pen for line work or something like that! 

But separately, some of these products are going to be great! Have you tried any of these products before? What is your favorite type of holiday picture to do? Let me know in the comments below! 

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!

April Paletteful Packs - What an absolute cluster...

 Well.  

The April Paletteful Packs box is here.  I was really hoping since we got very common pens the last two months, that we would get something unique, or in tubes or palettes, you know, something different.  

And then we got this: 

I'm not even going to go through everything or write it out here in much detail.  I made a video of my thoughts and a time-lapse of my artwork here: 

But in case you want the cliffs notes version, here it is: 

• The pens are a great office supply, but not art markers.  
• The copic was upcharged because it's an exclusive "special black," which feels like a big old swindle to me.  It's a BLACK COPIC.  If you own copics, you HAVE a black one.  Honestly.  
• The Signo Gold pen was great - honestly the best thing we got.  
• The brush was nice but unnecessary because the pens are NOT really meant to be used in that way.  But it's a solid brush and I will use it.  
• The bristol paper was excellent when I used it with my alcohol markers, but was awful when using it with the markers they gave us.  The markers tore it to shreds.  But I will use the bristol board for my alcohol markers.  
• The sticker was cute. 

The bottom line, I'm probably cancelling Paletteful Packs.  I might give them one more month, but for the value I feel like Scrawlrbox was 100 times better.   I only canceled Scrawlrbox because the pandemic made getting the boxes difficult for awhile and they were really, REALLY late each month.  But honestly I'm at a point where I'd rather wait and get different things than keep overpaying for boring boxes.  

I'm sorry if that seems harsh, but I feel like even the worst Sketchbox is 4 times better than the best PP box I have gotten to this point.  It seems to be time to move on for now from them.  

At any rate, I made donuts for PP Prompt #3.  It turned out ok, but the piece had a lot of limitations because of the markers.  

Did you get this box?  What did you think of it?  Let me know in the comments below!  

April Sketchbox - Watercolor Surprises!!! And a SKETCHBOOK!

 It's the beginning of April, which means it's time for a NEW Sketchbox!  

This was a mostly fun box - and right up my alley because of the water soluable mediums!!!  Here are the swatches and the thoughts on each item:  

Sketchbox Supplies:

- Ecoline Brush Pen - Chartreuse

I've never had an Ecoline Brush Pen before but I have heard amazing things about them - and they were ALL true!  This brush pen is amazing!  The tip is high quality and the pigment output is amazing.  The brush pen moved really well when having water added to it too - which is ideal for a water brush marker.  This was a great addition to my waterbrush marker collection!  

- Marabu Graphix Aqua Watercolor Ink in Pyrrole Red, Sunshine Yellow, and Quinacridone Gold

These are very nice watercolor inks! I always forget when working with watercolor inks that they stain WAY more than traditional watercolors, and so I definitely had to adjust to that during my artwork. But I really liked these inks! I would have liked having another color (a blue or green) instead of the sunshine yellow. The sunshine yellow was VERY close to the brush pen, and so I felt like I had 3 very close yellows and that wasn't as useful as another color would have been.

- Daniel Smith Watercolor Stick - Genuine Sodalite

This is my favorite thing in the box! I LOVE this gray color and this is basically a stick of Daniel Smith watercolor! I will cut this up and use it in a palette - using it dry doesn't work as well but I know these sticks are basically the same as the pan paints! This is going to be a great addition to my watercolor collection! - Staedtler 0.6 Dark Brown Pigment Fineliner

I liked this fineliner! I always enjoy having some brown and colored fineliners to go with my arsenal of black ones! I enjoyed the challenge of a non-black marker this time! I even used some of the liner ink in the dark parts of my artwork!

- Stoneground Watercolor Half Pan - Hudson Bay Blue

This is a BEAUTIFUL shimmery watercolor! I really love this paint and will use it in tons of pieces going forward. It would have been nice to have a non-metallic cool blue in this box for mixing with the inks, but it did mix nicely to create some beautiful greens and neutrals!

- Silver Brush Crystal Series 02 Filbert

This was a quality brush and I don't have a filbert in this size! The brush had nice control and worked really well for me to even make trees! I used a larger brush to lay down my background just for convenience, but this is a wonderful brush!

- Magnani 300 GSM Accordion Watercolor Sketchbook

The biggest disappointment in the box. I cannot figure out this company and their paper. I loved the idea of this sketchbook, but the ink bled through the paper when I made a washed background. 300gsm cotton paper shouldn't do that. I thought the first time I got this paper from sketchbox that it might be a problem with my personal book of paper, but it seems that this just isn't the paper for me. Arches, Bee Creative, and Arteza (Expert) all have more quality 300gsm paper that I prefer to work on. I also use EtchrLab's 230gsm cold press 100% cotton paper is DOUBLE SIDED and I never have bleedthrough. So this book was a huge disappointment. I also found it hard to get the book to lay flat.

Here is a video of my full process with my artwork. You can see in the video where I discover that I need to put something under my paper to stop bleeding, and how staining the inks are right away. You can also watch me make trees and mountains! Enjoy the video here:

And here's the picture of the final artwork:

Overall, this box has a lot of great stuff that I will use over and over again because I use watercolors as my primary medium. My main complaints here were the 3 yellows in the box, and the pretty disappointing sketchbook/paper. I still think this box was worth it to me, but I'm hoping the next sketchbox will have a more consistent color palette and better paper.

Did you get this sketchbox?  What did you think of it?  Did you have better success with the paper?  Let me know in the comments below!!! 

Bullet Journal Journey - April 2021

 Happy April everyone!  Can you believe it's April already?  This month, I'm ready for sun and some warmer weather, so a warm color palette was definitely on my mind.  I ended up doing a honeycomb/honeybee kind of theme that I really love.  The cover page turned out SO cute!  I drew some daisies on there too, as daisies are the flower of the month of April.  I kept up with the theme for my goals page, adding more honeycombs and colorful dots:  

The calendar page went back to having a watercolor strip along the side and then I added the honeycombs overtop to tie it to the theme: 

Then, my mood tracker is made with honeycombs.  This isn't a terribly unique one this month, but I really love how it turned out all the same!  And my bill tracker page is always the same format with colors that match the theme of the month.  

Lastly, here are my weekly spreads.  I have to admit, I wasn't too creative with these this time.  I have a LOT of other creative things brewing right now, and so I just put down a base design on each page that I can doodle along with or over on each page as each week comes along!  

And there you have it!  I really love this journal and I'm so glad to have this fun and creative outlet each month!  What did you do for your April spread?  What colors do you gravitate towards this time of year?  Let me know in the comments below!