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This year's Advent calendar was made by Semja for me, and it's AWESOME! Chess all the way! :D

( Just look at this lovely modelling! )

I always admire when people are good at working with clay and/or modelling paste - it's one of the techniques I've tried, more than once, to no avail. Lucky for me that Semja has this skill!

First things first: no, this is not a comprehensive list of knife tip geometries! There are so many of them - and most of them so highly specialized - that, if you need one of them, you know... XD So, in order to give a "beginner-friendly" overview, I've narrowed it down to four types that are common enough you may actually encounter them in real life without having to look for them in a specialized store.



Let's look at these in some detail! (With the caveat that, of course, tip geometry is not the only thing that determines a knife's overall function. Material matters. Blade thickness matters. Grind matters. Handle design matters. Size matters. XD And so on. Really, this can only serve as a rule-of-thumb - but we have to start somewhere when trying to determine what a knife is for, right?)

( Explanations of these four knife tips. )

Anyway... This (grossly over-simplified, I know) entry will hopefully help you identify what kind of blade you are dealing with, what its strengths and weaknesses are, and what tasks people will likely use it for. (None of this is intended as legal or professional advice; don't sue me, yadda, yadda. If you do dangerous shit with sharp objects, I'm not responsible.)

So, I painted the cover of my new watercolor box! :D I received two awesome suggestions and decided to sort-of-combine them: it was castiron's idea to draw a greenhouse with metal parts to match the silver theme of the, well, duct tape. XD And yhlee asked me to draw a field of flowers that uses all the colors in the box... Well, at the time of that post, I had already begun to sketch the greenhouse, but, ALL THE COLORS? Can do! :D

( WIP and materials behind the cut. )

Because I've neglected the knife nerdery a bit lately... Here's an intruduction of the basic shapes the cross-section of a knife handle can take, their advantages and disadvantages as far as I'm concerned (I have, uh, strong opinions about knife handles), and what tasks they are suited for. (There is no "the best", just the right handle for the right person and/or task.) My list is far from comprehensive, and there are plenty of "intermediate" shapes as well as culture-specific ones, but for the start, I'll stick to the simple geometric shapes that are the most common ones world-wide.

( Opinions about handle geometry. )

...you can tell I'm a drop profile person, can't you? XD Anyway.

As always, if you don't know a technical term I'm using or you want to know more about a practical application, just ask!

Another postcard for someone on postcrossing - this time, it's a combination of drawing, painting, and papercut. It has transparent windows! The book page, inkwell, ink blob and large leaves are see-through.



Materials:
Watercolor paper: Florence watercolor paper, smooth, white, 200gsm. This was a bit of a compromise: it's the thinnest possible paper for watercoloring, but the thickest possible paper for reasonable papercutting. (Still: not much detail possible.)
Transparent paper: Folia, 115 gsm (I chose the thicker variety, for obvious reasons), light green.
Fineliners: Staedtler, different sizes.
Acrylic pens: FlySea, white and black.
Watercolors: various brands, no idea which was what. It was not my watercolor box. I'm not at home and didn't grab the box in my bag when there was a perfectly good one open on the table.
Knife: snap-off utility knife. Cheap but good. XD Seriously, it performed really well (as in: non-wobbly, good angle, and ergonomic in my hand) but it's a no-name thingy, no manufacturer printed on or anything.
Varnish: LUKAS spray varnish, satin gloss. (Added to protect the watercolors before gluing everything together.)
Spray glue: Ghiant Hightac, an ancient can. Oh well, it came out a bit yellowed and blotchy but it still worked... Somehow.

More pictures (of the papercutting and of what the card looks like with backlighting) behind the cut.

( Pictures! )

I'll definitely make more cards with this technique. It's so much fun! :D

This fairy is again made with the help of the craft materials sent to me by Up-Quark.



Stuff I used:

So, a few weeks ago, I received a wonderful handmade sketchbook from antaresnox, and I just (finally) got around to testing it!



Isn't it lovely? It's tiny (7x7 cm, which is a bit under 3x3'') and has colored pages in pink, yellow, green, and blue. YAY! I love drawing on colored paper!

( More pictures, including the art supplies, behind the cut! )

Here are proper scans of my first two sketches, fuchsia (on a pink page) and aconitum (on a blue page). I used fineliners (Staedtler in 0.1 and Faber castell PITT in M), markers (Faber Castell PITT pen B in sky blue, pink madder lake, and light phthalo green), and a white gel pen (Pentel).





I already adore this little book! :D

Double knives are a great thing: you have a larger blade for rough work, a smaller blade for detail work, and you wear them in the same sheath for easy access. A blade for every occasion! I (unironically) love the concept - it's very practical. However... This also happens to be the type of item that tourists love to bring as a souvenir from Finland.

( Let's take a look at a very touristy product. )

Very fast papercut (and, well, paper tearing, because that's a lot of fun as well) made from the giftwrapping paper of today's advent calendar gift from Eleisis, as well as Kraft paper I got from someone else... Because, hey, it's black-and-gold sparkly paper, it should not be wasted! :D I glued verything into an Arteza watercolor sketchbook, which was a gift from Glitzermond. (So, everything was a gift!) Unfortunately, the paper doesn't really like water, but it makes a nice textured background. (I enjoy having contrasting textures in paper art. It's an entirely underrated part of the fun!)

I bought some new toys!



In my last papercutting suply post, I had mentioned my intention to buy a cutting mat. Well, I did that! I mail-ordered one from Gerstaecker (one of Germany's largest art supply stores), and because I've never before owned a cutting mat and don't know the quality criteria, I simply took the cheapest one: their home brand. (I've made good experiences with their own products before; those are usually perfectly good artists quality.) What can I say? I'm very happy with this purchase! Turns out this is a much better support for cutting than the back of watercolor pads. The mat provides the perfect counterpressure without getting scratched, and the paper edges turn out very clean. This is clearly an improvement.

Additionally, because I was curious, I ordered some weird products. These art knives are not held like pens but rather act as an elongation of the index finger: basically, you cut by pointing. They're made by Fiskars, which means they were on the expensive side, but also, I was expecting reliable quality. The orange one is a fixed blade, the white one is a swivel blade.



My first impression is, wow, this is an interesting product! Also, as you can see, the hole is a bit too large for my finger, but that's not a design flaw; rather, I simply have very small hands. I will have to modify that grip with tape. (Not the first time I've had to do that with tools.) Especially, I really enjoy the fixed-blade one. The blade size is chosen in a way that the tip is exactly where my index finger would be pointing, which is very helpful! I managed some very precise test cuts without even a period of having to get used to how this instrument behaved, it's just that intuitive. I have a lot of control over the pressure, too: that's directly controlled by the index finger as well. I think I'll be using this scalpel quite regularly! (Especially since I don't enjoy holding pens and pencils, so anything that feels less like a pen and more like a natural body extension is a welcome improvement.)



Interestingly, I'm less sure about the swivel blade (the white one). Because that blade rotates, the blade's orientation doesn't always align with the direction my finger is pointing, and because I'm a very primitive and very direct person, this is causing me some issues. Basically, the main advantage the tool with the fixed blade provides me is gone, so despite the design similarities, my brain interprets this as a completely different tool. A sure sign of that is that I instinctively use these tools with different hands: the fixed-blade one wants to be an extension of my left hand, while the swivel-blade one feels more like a knife, and, as such, has to be used with my right. By the way, it's an excellent knife (I mean, it should be, for the price... Otherwise, I'd be upset!), and I still like it better than the more pen-like swivel-blade scalpel I already owned, so I guess it's good to have. Just... It's the fixed-blade one I'm super happy with. Amazing tool design.