Art Supplies and Tools I Use and Recommend

I've put together a list of the tools I use in my art. I've listed what they are and included my Amazon affiliate link. You don't have to use my link, but I'd appreciate it if you did. I get a few cents for your purchase and it costs you nothing extra. Thanks so much! :) Check out some general info on tools at the end of the list.

Pens & Pencils:

Micron Pigma black assorted size drawing pens

https://goo.gl/trexFG

Micron Pigma colored pens

https://amzn.to/2Okgtk0

Generic colored drawing pens

https://amzn.to/2Im8ZHO

Crayola dual tip markers
https://amzn.to/2OlOAYR

Prismacolor markers
https://amzn.to/2IkFxSv

Crayola vibrant colored pencils
https://amzn.to/2Ihs3ql

Prismacolor colored pencils
https://amzn.to/2DvuAP7

Sakura White gel pens
https://amzn.to/2Oige8M

Pentel Metallic Gel Pens - Gold & Silver
https://amzn.to/2xPyHPX

Drawing pencil set for shading
https://amzn.to/2R0oGrZ

Pencil blenders set
https://amzn.to/2OlImbr

Markers:
Uni Posca Acrylic Paint Markers (inexpensive, opaque, long lasting but not refillable)
Uni Posca Black & White - Fine to Medium Set of 8 Pens
https://amzn.to/2QYfIeV

Uni Posca Paint Marker PC-1M White, 3 pens
https://amzn.to/2R0BH4I

Uni Posca Paint Marker PC-1M Black, 3 pens
https://amzn.to/2ImYqnO

Uni Posca Paint Marker Extra Fine set - WHITE/GOLD/SILVER/BLACK
https://amzn.to/2QZvhCZ

Uni POSCA Paint Marker Pen - Extra Fine Point - set of 12 Colors
https://amzn.to/2QZnG7n

Montana Acrylic Paint Markers (more expensive, but refillable)

Montana Acrylic Paint Marker 2mm
https://goo.gl/5ULm8A

Montana Acrylic Paint Marker 15mm
https://goo.gl/5m1fHr

refill
https://goo.gl/HFNvHF

Drawing Tools:
Circle templates for Quilters

https://goo.gl/mNj2be

Small Circle Templates

https://goo.gl/4TLqpB

Large Circle Templates

https://amzn.to/2xSTTVg

9” diameter compass

https://amzn.to/2Ogw2cm

Protractor - 4” & 6” set
https://amzn.to/2Ihs8KJ

12” clear ruler
https://amzn.to/2OkcELG

Paper:
8x8 black cardstock
https://amzn.to/2Of4Dav

Strathmore 9x12 smooth Bristol Paper pad
https://amzn.to/2Dy4kni

Canson 7x10 sketch paper pad
https://amzn.to/2IhJxCY

8x8 asst color cardstock
https://amzn.to/2Dy40oA

circle grid sketchbook
https://amzn.to/2Oa3fpR

Misc:
Ultra-thin USB powered tracing lightbox
https://amzn.to/2xEJZXN

I use a bendable arm holder for my camera (iPhone) to record my videos. This one:
https://goo.gl/Vi78eV


General thoughts on tools:
Paper

Any paper will do to sketch and practice, you can use nicer paper for final mandalas. Handmade papers are great, patterned paper, water color paper or artist cardstock. You can paint or color your paper before or after you make your mandala or leave them on plain paper. A heavier weight artist paper works well to prevent pen marks from bleeding through.

A sketchbook is a great thing to keep all of your mandalas and mandala inspired sketches. It’s not only beautiful but acts as sort of a history of your art and progress.

Pens
Any pen will work for making mandalas. Don’t let not having the “right” pen stop you from creating.

Fine point pens are a must to create detailed patterns. Pigma Micron 01 pens are great for details, they are very fine, write well, last a long time, dry fast, and are permanent. There are many fine tip pens available though.

A medium point or thicker point marker is also nice for bolder lines and filling in spaces. Micron 05 pens are great. A lot of people use sharpies, but be careful, they can bleed through paper easily.

Colored pens are great for easily adding color to your mandala. It also looks great to use white, or metallic pens on black or dark paper.

Pencils
A #2 or HB pencil is the best all around pencil for drawing out your mandala sketch. It’s a medium lead pencil and draws a lighter, fine line.

Shading Pencils
Softer lead pencils are great to have if you like to shade your mandalas. #2 or HB pencils are soft enough to use for some shading, but I’d recommend at least a 2B and a 4B if you like to have a lot of contrast in your art. The softer the lead, the darker the mark it will make and the easier it is to blend out.

Erasers
Erasers should be used minimally, if at all.Try to go with the flow of your marks, even if they’re not what you planned or you don’t think they are perfect. There’s a certain freedom in not worrying about “mistakes” and just going with the flow, sometimes you’ll be surprised at how awesome your “mistake” turns out.

Blending sticks or Tortillions
Tightly wound paper in a stick form with a pointed end. Great for blending out your pencil shading. You can just use your finger to blend though, so this is not a must have item. …just really helpful ;)

Happy Drawing -xo

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Decorating a Hand Drum with Traditional Henna

Hi there! So, I just got a new frame drum (my first, I'm fascinated by them, I really want to learn to play) and wanted to decorate it with a tribal style mandala with traditional henna. I used a cone to draw with filled with Jamila henna made with lavender eo. Maybe someday I'll make a video of me playing... IF I ever get good enough, lol. :P Let me know if you like it. Enjoy!

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How to Make a Tote Bag with Your Pareo or Shawl

So, we made a spontaneous side trip to the beach while in Portugal and I didn't want to carry my book, sketchbook, pencil case, glasses, wallet, etc. etc. loose in my hands so I came up with a quick way to make a tote bag using my pareo. Super easy and super useful... even pretty darn cute. :D

Let me know if you have questions. Enjoy! :D

-xo Deb.

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DIY : Jewelry Organizer Board

My newly made DIY jewelry organizer board

Love jewelry, hate organizing it... well, hate the process of organizing jewelry. I love it when my jewelry is actually organized and I can see everything and find what I want. Piles and stacks of jewelry spread everywhere drives me nuts, half the time I don't even remember what all I have and end up wearing the same 4 pieces all the time... cause I see them and they're convenient to grab.

So, after the thousandth thing I've tried for organizing my jewelry, I think this one might actually work.

I just took a cork bulletin board and covered in in cloth (literally just glued the cloth to the board) and added bits and stuff to it to hold my jewelry.

ooo... it's like art on my wall. :)

I knew that I had a lot of earrings and wanted to be able to easily hang them up and take them off (otherwise, I'm way to lazy and wouldn't do it, they'd still end up on the counter or thrown on a shelf)

I tried using push pins at first, which was ok, but a pain to take the earrings off. It also my the larger earrings turn at an odd angle and sometimes fall off. So I went on a search for something else, which wasn't easy, there's really not much out there that fills this purpose. 

After quite a bit of searching (read hours on google images and searches, lol) I found these on Amazon: Crazy Tackz. They work pretty darn well for holding earrings (dangly type, not posts, I haven't found a solution for post earrings yet, luckily I only own a couple pair so it's not an issue) and my rings that are of the bulkier variety.

You can see the hooks in the photo below. It'd be better if they were full "eyes" instead of just hooks, but they still work great. The back pin portion is pretty darn long, which would likely be great for holding heavier things in the hook, but they definitely poke out the back of my board (maybe it's a thin board though?). Anyhoo, they are waayyy better than push pins and I'm actually using them which says a lot coming from me, the queen of lazy. ;)

Close up of the Crazy Tackz hook pins

I kept the push pins for hanging my necklaces and bracelets, they work just fine and that kept the amount of hooks I had to buy way down.

I made little shelves out of long jewelry box tops. I'm thinking they won't last long and I'll need to actually do something more sturdy at some point, but they were quick and easy and they work for holding my bulkier bracelets and a couple misc. items. --also my 2 pair of post earrings. I just put about 5 push pins in the inside lip of the box top (sorry, don't have pic, just let me know if you're not sure what I'm talking about) to hold the "shelf" onto the board and then a couple of push pins tightly up against the bottom to help keep them up and not sagging too much with the weight. They still sag some, which is why I'm thinking I'll need to find a different solution at some point.

My Ganesha has his own special spot. :)

The most time consuming thing I did was make these ring holders (in pic below). I actually took the time to do them because I wear a lot of rings and like to have them displayed and easy to see/grab/store.

I didn't record how I made them, but basically I took strips of cardstock and twisted them into little cones. It took a few tries to get them right and still each one is a bit different. You have to make them small so that your rings will actually fit on them and that makes it hard to keep a grip on the paper as you're wrapping it and tapping it closed. The different sizes actually worked out well though because I have a lot of different sized rings and the different sizes allow them to stagger on the cones instead of all falling into the same place so you can't see them or grab them easily. 

When I had all the cones made (I made about 16 or 17 and only ended up using 14) I hot glued them onto a strip of cardstock that was the width of my long jewelry box shelves. My thinking was that this would help keep them stable and not falling over (which it does nicely) but I didn't think about the fact that if you bump or catch one cone, the whole thing falls off and rings fly all over your bedroom --yup, talking from experience here, lol-- I'm not sure what a better solution would be though, so I'm just more careful now, so far it's only happened once (and almost a 2nd time, but I caught it!)

Ring cones I made for my jewelry organizer board

All in all, I'm loving it, and actually using it which was mostly the issue with other solutions I've tried. They just weren't convenient or easy to use or whatever.... I just ended up not using them, so kinda worthless.

Hope this helps someone out there who has jewelry organization woes like I did. Let me know if you have any questions or ideas for improvement.

-xo deb.

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Tutorial : How to Clean Your Blending Stump

Shading your drawings is like putting icing on a cake; just makes something good even better!

You can use a lot of things to blend your pencil marks for shading, including a q-tip or just your finger, but the best way, with the most control, is to use a blending stump or tortillion. Here's a great, inexpensive kit from Amazon (but any Craft store will have them). http://amzn.com/B000YQM080

And a video I made on how to clean and resharpen blending stumps... cause it's important!

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Exploring Henna Body Art : Current Obsession

Some practice floral designs.

So, as is my style, I decided to go ahead and do henna at a small festival even though I haven't picked up an actual henna cone (a henna cone is sort of a tiny pastry bag used for doing henna)! Crazy? Yes! But that's the way I like it, lol, I kinda thrive off of the unknown and pushing my limits. I think a lot of artists are like this, but I also know there are artists who are totally dedicated to learning and working on a skill for ages until everything is perfect, I actually sometimes envy them their patience and dedication.

Anyhoo... the festival was put on by a friend and I just sat up in the show booth with my quickly put together set-up. --I DO love putting together booth spaces, half the fun of a show is figuring out my booth! I put together a cool Indian/Bellydance playlist and printed some signs and waited for my henna to arrive so I could practice.

Henna arrived and did not cooperate! WTH... *sigh* I'd ordered pre-mixed paste partly to see what the consistency of "professional" paste is so that when I make my own later, I have a guideline. But, the paste I ordered was way too thick. I only figured this out after many tries at drawing with the paste and it coming out clumpy and not flowing easily, etc. After an afternoon of practicing and getting extremely frustrated, I took to Google and Youtube to see what good henna should look and behave like. ...NOT at all what I had, lol, it definitely seemed that it should flow more smoothly and should have more of a sheen when applied (until it dries). So, I emptied out all my nicely coned henna (and wasted many of my coveted hand-rolled cones), mixed in some water bit by bit, trying to guess at what the perfect consistency is. It's quite an art, this henna paste mixing! Re-coned the paste and tried again. MUCH better! I'd say still not the best, I still think it should be smoother judging by what I saw in the 100 YouTube videos I watched, but it was workable... good enough!

I then spent about 4 days practicing for hours each day trying to get the hang of drawing with henna. It is MUCH different, though, drawing with henna on paper than drawing with it on skin. I only have so much of my own skin available to henna on though (and my son wasn't willing to allow me to apply more that one small emblem from his favorite web comic) so I was still a bit nervous on how the day at the festival was going to go.

Day of festival: AWEsome! Although darn cold, it's hard to draw anything with cold fingers, the day was really fun. My clientele were mostly little girls and a few teens, but still awesome. It's funny, too, because I normally don't really like kids (sorry, lol) but the kids who are attracted to henna tend to be artistic and a bit alternative and eccentric, just like me, so we got along splendidly. It was cool encouraging them to go for their art and to try mehndi art and henna if they can, etc. Really fun.

I still have lots of practice to do before I feel comfortable with henna, especially the really intricate bridal henna (if I ever want to do that) or being able to do free-form henna (off the top of my head as opposed to referring to a design) but that's good, I like things that really stretch my abilities!

Some photos:

My first design on skin with actual henna!

The sign I made for my booth. Later realizing that Temporary Tattoo isn't really what henna is, it should read Body Art.

My booth. Not bad for last minute design.

Some very happy little girls!

-xo deb.

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Exploring Henna and Mehndi Art

I've currently become obsessed with learning to do henna body art. I've always been inspired by mehndi (or mehendi) art and have done lots of illustration inspired by the style but now I want to do the actual body art.

Of course, first comes research, lots and lots and lots of research. Honestly it's one of my favorite things about learning a new craft. Reading about and surfing information and images for days on end. I love the technical as well as the artistic part of learning something new. There is a lot of technical part to henna surprisingly. Most notably that there is some pretty dangerous "henna" out there, usually labeled black henna, that can contain nasty chemicals that can literally burn your skin. Don't google black henna reaction... Yikes!

Henna in it's pure form is very natural, it's just a leaf that is crushed and mixed with liquid to release the dyes in it. It can simply be mixed with water to get a light, short lived stain on your skin, but to get maximum color and long lasting stains you mix with a couple other things. The liquid must be slightly acidic, most water is slightly acidic and therefore will work ok and some people use brewed tea, but lemon juice works the best. It's also mixed with essential oil (which is not actually an oil at all, but distilled plant extracts and can be very therapeutic). Cajeput, tea tree, eucalyptus, and lavender EOs are most commonly used. Sugar is also added to help the consistency of the henna paste.

HennaArtConnection has a great History of Henna page!

There are 3 main traditional styles of henna art, African, Arabic, and Indian. African designs are more geometric with large, bold patterns. Arabic designs are more open and graceful with large floral motifs. Indian designs are more fine and dense with intricate patterns and lots of use of paisleys, dots, lines, and swirls.

Henna designs and photos by Henna Lounge and NJ-Unique Henna

Modern henna though can be anything or a mixture of it all. Anyway, it's all beautiful and I'm excited to try my hand at it.

While waiting for my henna to arrive (I ordered a pre-mixed henna paste to start, not wanting to dive right in to making my own paste), I started practicing with lotion... yup, plain old hand lotion. Not exactly the same consistency, but close enough to satisfy my very impatient "I don't wanna wait" side. Here are some of my first designs:

(all these designs were inspired from what I saw on my henna google search, I didn't take time to look at who did them to give credit, 

I'm sorry, I was just practicing, if you see your design and want to be credited, just let me know. -xo)

It's really completely different than working with pen or pencil on paper. In some ways easier and in some ways more difficult. Easier because it's so much quicker to get line variation, just a little extra squeeze of the bottle (or cone, the preferred method of henna application) gives a thicker line. Also, the paste just flows from the tip and it's fairly easy to make straight lines because you can sort of lift and drag the paste across the surface, and it can be much quicker once you get the hang of it, mostly because of the before-mentioned reasons. It's much harder though because you're constantly aware of where your hand is, you don't want to smear what you've just drawn, so starting in the right area and bracing your hand with your little finger or other hand to steady your hand is important and tricky. You also have to be able to draw all shapes in every direction easily because you can't just turn the arm or body around to a different angle like you can a piece of paper. It takes practice for sure!

-xo deb.

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