Giant Lucky Star

Disclaimer: I did the project featured in this blog back in 2024 and I'm just getting around to writing about it because I have a horrible habit of putting blog projects in a folder and never writing about them.

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Have you ever made any lucky stars?  Where you take a strip of paper and fold it into a cute little star?  

I made my first one in 2014...

..and since then I've made just a few.

So when I saw this video...

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... I knew I wanted a go.

Here's the largest lucky star in my collection so far.  (Without anything for scale, because apparently in 2024 I was an idiot.)

This time I took a few sheets of A4 paper, and sliced them up.  

With those thinner strips on the right, I made these stars.

I took a bunch of those wider strips, and taped them into a strip so long I had to roll it up to get a picture of it all.

And then I made a lucky star with it.  Here it is once I'd finished the the folding, compared to a pen and the littler stars.

And here it is all puffed out.

The final step isn't important to the structure of the star, but it is important to me: I added a face.  And stacked it up with the others.

Giant lucky stars use a LOT of paper, but you can't deny that they're adorable.  Should I make a larger one?

Gel Pens from Asda

I love any excuse to buy new art supplies, so when I see cheap pens I grab them and tell myself I'll write a blog post.  I'll photograph everything, and stick it in a folder on my computer, fully intending to eventually write a blog post.  

I'm really good at collecting products for blog posts.  There are currently 124 blogs waiting to be written - and another 233 blog projects in progress.  I'm not so good at actually writing the blogs.  I'm trying to be better, but there are going to be some old projects appearing.  This one was done in 2021.  

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For those who don't know, Asda is a cheap supermarket in the UK.  And in 2021 I spotted these gel pens when ordering my online shop.

As previously mentioned, I love an excuse for new art supplies, so I got them delivered along with the cat food, kitchen towels, and instant mashed potato.

They were super sparkly!  Although I'm not great at capturing that in a photo.

But when I started the art piece...

...I managed to get a really cool picture of the glitter.

The art piece is nice, and I used all the pens, but I'm not sure the colours go well together.  It was fun to do though. 

 

Unlimited Pencil

Disclaimer: I did the project featured in this blog back in 2021 and I'm just getting around to writing about it because I have a horrible habit of putting blog projects in a folder and never writing about them.

Have you ever heard of unlimited pencils?  I hadn't either until I saw this listing on one of those cheap websites.  I can't remember now if it was AliExpress or Temu.

I love a novelty art supply, so I had to grab one.

On the outside it looks kinda like a fountain pen, and then the nib is kinda metal looking.  Inside the barrel is an eraser-type cylinder.  

Shock!  It writes like a pencil.  And the eraser erases like an eraser. 

The pencil went into my pile of blog-projects-to-get-around-to, and I forgot all about it for 4 months.  When I finally did pull it back out, I did my usual testing.  Scribbles and a monster sketch.

I did a quick swatch on black paper...

...and then it was time to do the full piece.  Which ended up being something a little different for me.  I was on a cabin holiday with some friends, and we were having a crafty afternoon.  I was doodling, and they were making Gundam models.  

So I drew a Gundam.  

Not perfect, but a fun exercise for me.  And the pencil worked great.  Just like a pencil.  

I didn't really use the pencil again, mostly because I didn't like how thick it felt in my hands.  So when I saw these thinner ones on Temu a year later I gave unlimited pencils another chance.  It helps that the barrels are gorgeous colours.

Like the red one, these ones worked just like normal pencils. 

And I did two full pieces of art with them.

So are unlimited/eternal/infinity pencils any good?  

Yeah, they kinda do what they say on the tin.  I haven't actually used one for an extended period to test the eternal-ness though.  Maybe I should.  

I have to admit, when I'm reaching for a pencil I do tend to grab a standard pencil rather than one of these ones.  I'm not even really sure why.  I may commit to a challenge to fill a sketchbook with one, see how it goes.  

Have you ever used one of these?  What did you think?

Castle Art Coloured Pencils

I used to have a full set of Faber-Castell Polychromos coloured pencils.  They're a professional, very fancy, very good, very expensive set.  Except that I didn't use them to even a fraction of their ability, and I had a friend who would have done.  So I gave them to her.  And then I needed some more coloured pencils, so I got some slightly fancy, very, slightly expensive ones.

 

When I got them, back in July 2024, they were £30.  At the time of writing they're £33 on Amazon.

They come in a nice tin, with a list of all the colours in the lid.

And they come with a fancy booklet too.

Which has lots of very detailed information on how to use them.

Including information about how to sharpen them, and what different types of point will achieve.

I love the thoroughness.  I also love the fact that there was an extra leaflet with a full on tutorial.

I didn't follow it, but it was still very cool.  There was even a product catalogue showcasing all the different mediums that Castle Arts make, and which colours come in which range.  It had a very satisfying colour chart.

There was a card for signing up to the Castle Arts Club, which I didn't do.  And there was a swatch card, which I did a couple of squares in before I remembered to photograph it. 

One more bit of paperwork - that lovely sheet of vellum you can see under the swatch card - and we're finally through to the pencils.

So so so pretty!

They come on little trays, with handy little loops for picking up each tray.  

Time to start messing around.  There's a bunch of little tests I do with new art supplies, including layering them, and blending them.  I like to sketch out a little monster, and I like to do a full coloured monster.

The pencils are pretty, I have a few niggles.  

First off, if you're going to number your pencils and put them in rainbow order, why mess up the numbers?  It was fine til you got to 20.

When I first opened the box there were a few colours out of place - like that yellow you can see on the bottom layer a few pictures ago, and these reds.

That picture is also a good example of one of the other niggles I had - the attention to detail regarding quality.  You can see on pencil 006 the excess foil stamped around the number.  And you can see on some of them, on 020 especially, the different end shapes.  

But that's all aesthetic stuff, and doesn't affect the quality of the pencils or their result.  

They are lovely.  Nice and smooth and creamy.  And the paint on the ends matches the colour you get pretty well. 

I filled out the swatch card, and did a page of swatches on black paper too.  

Then I settled down for the next step.  Once I'm down swatching new art supplies I like to create a full piece of art.  On white paper I did this cute teals and purples monster piece.

And on the black paper I did this cute little frog prince, inspired by a prompt from Katnipp.