Sunday, November 15, 2009

4 Favorite Not Quite Art Blogs

Leeks

Three Leeks, ink and watercolor in watercolor Moleskine
© 2009 Sydney Harper

I thought I would do something a little different today.  While I read a lot of artist blogs, there are several blogs I read that aren’t necessarily art blogs but they cover topics that are somehow related to art. Here are a few of my favorites.

1. The Pen Addict

The Pen Addict covers pens of all kinds, mostly for writing but also drawing, and occasionally they’ll cover other things like paper products and pencil/pen cases.  Really though it’s all about pens.  There are frequent giveaways and Saturday is usually Ink Link day with links to other pen reviews. I found out about Jet Pens, a US source for Japanese pens, from the Pen Addict.

2. Photoshop Tips for Artists

This blog doesn’t have frequent posts or even a lot of posts.  If you’re trying to use Photoshop or want to use Photoshop for your art photography, these tips are very good.  If you don’t have Photoshop, check the very first tip for suggestions on how to afford Photoshop.

3. Seth Godin

Seth Godin  is mostly about marketing.  I’m on a “learning about marketing” kick recently, but mostly I read his blog because of his unique perspective.  If you don’t already read Seth’s blog, check it out sometime. I usually come away with lots to think about.

4. Abstract City

This is Christoph Niemann’s heavily illustrated blog on the New York Times site.  I’m as fascinated and amused by his story telling as I am with the variety of techniques he uses to create the illustrations. Go back and look at some of his previous posts to see what I mean.

The sketch at the top is another one of my ink and watercolor root vegetable sketches.  This time the subject is some leeks I happened to buy at the store.

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Turnip Sketch

Turnip by Sydney Harper

Turnip, ink and watercolor in Moleskine
2009 Sydney Harper

I think I like turnips because they have that purple blush at the top. Well I like eating them too, but I would probably ignore them if they were just white. It’s interesting how important color is in our food. I was hoping to find some turnips with greens attached but it wasn’t meant to be. Probably because lots of people here eat the green tops so they can sell them separately.

An interesting historical tidbit about turnips is that turnip lanterns were the predecessor to today’s jack o’lanterns.

This sketch was done in ink and watercolor in my watercolor Moleskine.