Art Archives - The Blog of the Mad Hattress

Thermal Printing – A cool new thing?

By accident, I kinda stumbled upon the world of thermal printing or better say, its use for tiny printers which you can take along with you to make stickers, notes and scrapbooking with. Thermal printing itself is actually something we all have come in contact with in the form of receipts you get at a cash register. But using it for private creative projects was a totally new concept to me. It was intriguing enough that I wanted to try it out. But after doing some basic research I found out that thermal printers come with their own advantages and disadvantages. So let me introduce you to the Phomemo M02 Pro and tell you what I like and what I don’t like about it.

Let’s start with the specs of the M02Pro, it’s 3,3 * 3,2 * 1,6 inches and fits effortlessly in the palm of my hand. Paired with its lightweight of about 400g, it lives up to its name and makes a very portable printer, that fits into almost every handbag or even the pockets of a jacket. I could not find any definitive answer as to how long the device holds up, other than Phomemo themselves saying “can print 6 rolls of paper continuously when fully charged”, which I could not really test out… But when I was using it to make about 10 cards, it never died on me. I charged it overnight and was able to use it multiple times the day after. So I would say it’s at least decent for normal usage :)It connects wirelessly via Bluetooth with any android or apple device, in my review here I used an iPadPro and a Samsung Note and it worked without problems. All of this sounds like an advertisement, but I don’t get paid to say that xD Those technical specifications are one of the reasons why I was so interested to get one of these things for myself, it almost sounds too good to be true 😛 And it actually might be…

Some of you might already know how Thermal printing works, but let me explain it again so that we are all on the same page. Ink printers use one or multiple coloured inks to bring a certain image onto a paper. For that, you can use almost every paper but not every ink and when the cartridges are empty, they have to be refilled, often at a high price, which is one of the reasons why I stopped refilling my normal printer at one point. The thermal printers technically do not have this problem, because they work fully without ink, instead, they use a special paper with a thermal sensitive coding which is activated by the printer applying heat to it. This means that you can only use special kinds of paper, but you will never have to refill any cartridges. The biggest problem that comes with that though, is the fact that the image created on thermal paper will fade away after some time.

It’s hard to say how long the paper with the image printed onto it will hold up, because the paper used in these special printers like the one I review here, created for the purpose of using it at home, is a little different from the receipt paper you would get in a supermarket. It also highly depends on the way you store it. If it is in a cold and dark room, it will obviously last longer, than when it sits in direct sunlight. Different sources on the internet say different things, but the average time that a thermal printed paper will hold up in good storage condition seems to be between 5 and 7 years. Phomemo themselves state on their website that: “Just like all other thermal paper, our prints will eventually fade. Different paper has different storage time, we have 2 yrs,5 yrs,10 yrs,20 yrs, long term effective(over 20 yrs) for your reference.” Which is still quite the bummer, at least it was for me. But after thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that you could still get a great value out of a product like this, depending on what project you plan on using it for.

Taken from Phomemos Website: https://phomemo.com

Let me tell you a bit about what you can actually do with a Phomemo thermal printer. To operate it you need to install a free app that comes itself equipped with some free-to-use templates for different tasks. Such as to-do lists, different frames or you could just type your own text into the app and it will be printed out, making it a great use for label printing. You could also use your own images such as pictures you made yourself, free to use stuff from the internet or your own art. I tried out all of these options and have to say it might not be the best photo printer, but I loved being able to just print something aesthetically fitting the theme of a project I did or making my own art into stickers.

For my review, I have used 3 different kinds of paper, all of which have been self-adhesive: plain white paper, transparent paper and silver glitter paper. On their website, it says that all of them are long time effective papers, said to hold up more than 20 years. I mostly choose them because they were part of a kit you were able to pursue on amazon and I did not want to put too much money into something, I had not really tested yet. But there are some more options to choose from like semi-transparent paper, normal coloured paper(which gives your black and white image a coloured background, sometimes even with a nice pattern) or paper which makes your print a different colour. That last paper is what I am most interested in since it’s as of now the only way I have seen printing something in colour, using the thermal printing method. Maybe I will use it in a future review 😉

When you are following my blog for a long time now, you must have seen that I like to design greetings cards myself and send them off to friends and family. I have used different methods for my designs, I have hand-drawn them using different pencils or watercolours, I tried fully digitally painting and later printing and I even used some scrapbooking techniques with different stickers and Washi tape. This scrapbooking technique is what I used the least, mostly because I needed to rebuy stickers for it over and over again, since using multiple stickers for one card, makes them deplete very fast. And honestly, that was always something which I dreaded, that I needed to know in advance which kind of stickers I wanted to use and also buy them in advance. With the thermal printer, I can come up with designs for stickers myself or search for already existing designs(free-to-use) fitting the mood I am in or the card I am designing. Which I love, but it would also mean, that nobody could really keep my cards, since the designs would fade away eventually. But honestly, nothing lasts forever, right? And maybe that makes the cards and the experience of receiving them even more unique and interesting 😉

Obviously, in this review, I was not able to try out all of the different options you have with this thermal printer, but I hope that I was able to at least give you a good overview of the product and you now have a better idea if it would be something for you or not. I can’t say that I am fully convinced about thermal printing being the best printing and I think it highly depends on the person and what they intend to use the prints for, but at least for me, it was worth buying and trying this printer out. I especially liked how the transparent stickers did not fully cover the scrapbooking background I made, but kinda added to it. If I keep using it on a regular base, I try to make a follow-up review maybe using different papers but also showing how much the designs I made in this review faded until then. If you have any questions or use a thermal printer yourself, tell me about it in the comments 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT

March 30

Sketch A Day – A Drawing App By Artists for Artists

Sketching something once a day is a great concept! It can not only help you to improve through practice it can also help you to make drawing daily part of your routine. But there are problems with it, sometimes you just don’t know what to draw or you will draw the same things over and over again. A friend from Slowly(another great app which I can highly recommend!) told me about this app called “Sketch A Day” which I want to present and kinda review for you here today 🙂

Sketch A Day basically looks like a light version of Instagram, where you can upload pictures and other people can like or comment on them. But if you dive deeper into the functions of the app, you will see that it’s a lot different, because it’s made with artists in mind. When uploading an image you can for example tell the app what kind of medium you have used, so that later your drawing can be sorted accordingly and found by the people who enjoy exactly that. You can choose between very common ones like digital, pencil or ink, but you have many more options such as gouache, charcoal or pastel. You can also talk about the reference you have used if you have used any. Which I mostly used to share and find new cool tutorials. But the biggest advantage of the app, are their prompts!

As I mentioned before, there are those days when you look at a white sheet of paper or a white screen and your mind seems empty. A prompt can not only help you start it can also make you try out motifs and styles which you might have never thought of yourself. Prompts can also be interpreted in many different ways, making it a fun challenge to come up with something interesting. One prompt could be the word “story” which might lead some people to think of some kind of storybook right off the bat. Other people might think of their favourite story and draw something out of that, while others might draw a storyteller.
A prompt that really made me think was “symbol” because that could be almost ANYTHING! It could be an icon used to show people where the restrooms are, it could be referencing something or symbolizing a feeling. In the end, I decided to go for drawing the sign which I have often seen used as a symbol for sign language in general. It’s actually the international sign for “I love you” often used by deaf celebrities when posing for a picture. But drawing that was more difficult than I thought… I went from drawing a realistic hand to an emoji hand to adding an emoji heart but still, the canvas looked empty. So I tried out different things and in the end, created something that itself references old comic books. I don’t think I would have ever come up with that idea if it were not for the app.

Some of the Drawings I did on the App for the prompts “Flying”, “Atmosphere”, “Massage” and “Bug” 😉

There is also the option to become a gold member, which I personally have not tried out yet, but I still want to talk about it. One of the functions which you are gaining by signing up for it is being able to create an artist profile, which basically means adding a background picture, description and everything to your already existing profile and being able to show off the artworks you have made on there in a better way. Which to me sounds a bit… underwhelming considering that I could do almost all those things on Instagram for free. The other function which will be opening up to you is chatting with other members, which I know you can do on Instagram too, but hear me out! Because that’s actually the function I would love to have the most, which made me consider signing up sometimes already xD Because compared to Instagram, which basically everyone can use, on Sketch A Day there are only artists, many different ones with many different styles. And more than once I would have wanted to be able to ask someone how they drew something. And I feel like if I have had the option they would have answered.

But even without these features, I feel like the app is still worth recommending! One of the things that gives me additional motivation is my streak meter which is showing me how many days in a row I uploaded a drawing. At times it can be stressful to come up with an idea inspired by the prompt, but you can always see the prompt coming the next day and if you watch an advert (which sometimes works, but sometimes it does not for some reason) you would get to see all of the upcoming prompts for the rest of the week. So that way you can at least think about what your next drawing could be, which I find super helpful^^ Also there is a kind of library with texts other members have written about how to draw. Recently I read one about how to draw hair the correct way. I am still not able to do it(because I suck I guess xD), but I think it’s cool to have this kind of knowledge collection on there.

All in all this app seems to be made by artists for artists, it’s a way to connect to a creative community and not only be inspired by them but also motivated to draw. It gives you ideas and hints, that keep you drawing on a daily basis and thus practising and getting better with time. I feel like it makes sharing art, for someone who might be still a bit insecure(like ME) about their work, easier because as of now I have never gotten a bad comment or no likes on a picture. So it might be a good first step, before switching to another app one day. Therefore I would highly recommend it for beginner artists, but also don’t see why a professional artist could not have fun with it. I guess this app is for everyone, who like to create something visually. If you got curious now and want to check it out, you can do so here on android and here on apple devices 🙂

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT

January 12

Sexism in Cartooning and Manga / Anime

My Art Journey

I was always fascinated by people who can draw and for a long time, I thought that would be a talent you have to be born with to actually create amazing art as we see in Comics, Manga, Cartoons, and Anime. But with Corona coming around and me saving some time on not having to get to University and back, for example, I wanted to use that newfound time to learn some new skills or maybe get some more hobbies. Drawing or better learning how to draw became an idea that manifested in my head and nagged me till the point where I finally just started to try it out.

My goal is to be able to tell my own stories with engaging characters, interesting backgrounds, and just expressive art in general. I want it to be something in between western comics and eastern manga, but of course, I have not found my definitive style yet 😉 To get better, I am currently watching a lot of tutorials on Youtube on how to draw eyes, mouths, noses, and faces in general, since I have to start somewhere xD And while watching these various tutorials from different artists there has been something coming up again and again which just does not sit right with me, thus I feel the need to talk about it over here: Gender and Sexism.

Just as a heads up: I don’t want to talk about sexist plotlines and character actions in Cartoons or Anime, since that’s a whole other can of worms I might be tackling another day xD What I want to talk about is solely limited to the way people draw and teach how to draw people in a comic or manga style. Let’s begin with the light stuff and end on the very problematic ones 😉

Female and Male attributes

The First thing I have noticed in these videos is that there is a distinct separation between how you draw a male and how you draw a female character. And I get that there has to be some kind of indication, as guidelines. So if an artist wants to make a character of his being read as female, he should be able to do that. But some of the things which are getting taught, sits a bit wrong to me.

Like the fact that the biggest two distinctions between male and female read characters are eyelashes and lips, female characters get them, male ones don’t. Because as real people we all know those features are not gendered, male read and female read people both have these features and they are not different from each other. There are other factors like certain genes which might give BIPOC larger lips, some might have naturally red lips other have the same colour as their skin tone. But again the factor here is not the gender, but the general genes. The same thing goes for the eyelashes, some people naturally have longer ones and others might have shorter, or thinner ones, making them appear less visible.

Obviously, we all know that and what you might think to yourself now is: those features on women are extraggered because they have been known to wear makeup more often, especially in the past. And I have to agree with you on that to some extent. I am sure that’s where this phenomenon of drawing originated from but we have to ask ourselves the question: Why do we still use or repeat that kind of style? Because in these modern times, all genders are allowed to wear makeup and if they would have been in the past, there would have been a lot more men doing it already too.

“I draw caricatures, not real people!”

Now I know many people would say at this point: These are not fully realistic characters anyways and you have to make a distinction between them. It’s just normal to see eyelashes or thick lips and expect them to belong to a woman, right? But the thing is: It’s only normal to us, because we see it reproduced a thousand times. It’s not set in stone in the way our brains are wired, it’s a man-made thing and it can be changed, by representing gender differently. For example, pirates are often represented wearing eyeliner, so many people are actually totally fine with male pirates wearing makeup because they have seen it so often that it has become normal to them. Meaning that if you would show them other kinds of makeup on men often enough, that too would become normal at one point.

Since I have thought about this topic for so long here are some features that I might suggest we all try to use for drawing different genders in the future, because they are actually often(but not always) based on the gender a person is born with. The overall shape of a woman’s body is more curved, they have bigger hips for example, and if they gain weight or muscles it will show in different areas than when you would draw a man. Men are more edged, less round so to speak, the same thing with weight and muscle gain showing differently in their anatomy. And of course, in non-realistic styles, you don’t have to show every muscle, but you can keep in mind that it will take the shape of a man’s body and the shape of a women body different and you can use that to convey your message as an artist. I am sure that’s only one of many ways, but it shows that change is not impossible.

The role of women as objects

This post already is a bit longer, but I still want to speak about the other thing I have noticed and it will be a lot quicker to talk about it because sadly it’s something all women are very familiar with. When listening to those mostly male teachers on YouTube talking about how to draw the female characters, they often used words like “seductive“, “sexy” and “lushes“. But when I want to learn how to draw a mouth, why do I have to learn how to draw it in a seductive way? Why do eyes have to be sexy? Just as a reminder: those were basic tutorials. I am not against art that is seductive and I am sure there are tips and tricks on how to create art like that too, which are very helpful. But I just don’t get why that would be something taught to a beginner.

Also, why are those words only used when talking about female features? Can’t men’s eyes have a sexy look to them too? I am a bisexual woman, I get the appeal of other women, but again that’s not something I am looking for when searching for tutorials. We can’t justify that by saying those teachers were male and they will be attracted to female read people, so that’s why they are using the language like that. Are they supposed to only teach other cis-male people learning art, so we are supposed to think that is the way how they communicate and that’s why “they understand” that the teachers “did not mean it like that”? Because YouTube is available to everyone. Drawing is available to everyone. Art is something that can be created by anyone. So make it for everyone and think about how 50% of the people potentially watching will feel if you can’t stop fantasizing about the lines to draw to create a female character.

Verdict

I am not sure if there is a real verdict to be made here, since I can’t review the way people teach something in a way I can review a book or a movie. But I think it helps to speak up when you notice things like that. Because if we don’t, things will never change. I don’t expect this post to go viral, or for those teachers to read it by accident, but if just some people start to notice similarities in videos they watch or lessons they listen to and they speak up, we already made progress 🙂 It was just very strange for me to see that something like this did not really change in so many years, that artists from over 50 years ago are still referenced and copied. Not that I don’t think we shouldn’t honour the old artists! I just think with new times, there will be new artists and new ways to draw too and that we maybe should focus more on those. Go with the time and explore new possibilities^^

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art | LEAVE A COMMENT

November 12

Artfulbox : Lino Printing

I am back again with another Artful Review! Like I mentioned last time I got multiple boxes, including some older ones when I made my subscription in September, that’s why I have so many to review^^ But for the people who don’t know what Artful is, it’s actually a quarterly subscription box from the UK meaning that you will get a new one every 3 months. Every new box will focus on a specific theme, exploring different art mediums and supplying you with different materials. Some of the old boxes’ themes include water coloring, calligraphy, and drawing with ink. This month’s box is themed after Lino printing, let’s take a look into it together!

The first thing we get in the box is a Lino cutter from Essdee with 10 extra cutting blades in different sizes, then a 112-page magazine with tutorials and interviews, 3 lino sheets (200mx150mmx3.2mm), two tubes of special block printing ink in red and black, a block with 25 sheets of premium heavyweight cartridge paper, a clear 200 micro A4 Acetate sheet and a 100mm ink roller. Compared to all the other Artful boxes I have reviewed up till now, this seems to be the one with the least amount of items in it. I can’t tell if that’s because these items are very pricey, meaning all boxes have the same value but some might be fuller and some less. Or maybe this was one of the first boxes and the budget wasn’t as high. I don’t necessarily feel like something is missing, since I actually don’t know anything about lino printing yet and all of the items seem to be of very high quality. After taking a look into the magazine in more detail, I might come back to this though.

Now that I have read through the magazine in more detail, I have actually already found something that bugs me a little bit. As I have just mentioned I was not sure if something was missing, but now I am. There are at least 3 things, which are talked about in the magazine, which could have easily been included. The first thing is tracing paper, which they say “you might have laying around in a drawer”, I personally never use that for anything, so now I have not. The second thing is sandpaper, which seems to be used for the ink sticking better to the lino or making textures, which they might think we get together with the third missing thing, being recommended by them in the magazine, an “anti-slip matt” from a hardware store. I do agree that all of these things could be already in a household of either an artist who has to trace for their work or maybe a handyman, who used sandpaper to make his wood creations smoother. But that’s not how a subscription box like that should work, I should be able to open it and begin working with what they supplied me with. The tracing paper and the sandpaper sound to be somewhat essential and also don’t cost much I assume it would have been no problem to put it in. The “anti-slip matt” seems to be more optional, but is still recommended, so why not include it?

What I really like about the magazine is that it feel way more beginner-friendly than some of the stuff in the previous boxes. In the beginning, they encourage you to use the 3 sheets they supplied in the box to start and experiment at first, not get into creating ASAP. That will be very hard for me to do, for the exact reason they state in the beginning pages “Not wasting resources” but the way they explained it, it’s not wasting, it’s kinda like creating your own color shart to know how the colors will look like on paper. That’s what you are doing, trying out the different nibs and what kinds of shapes and lines you can make with them and to make notes about it, maybe already planning a future masterpiece. When you are about to get started but have no idea what to carve yet, they have some templates with easy to recreate shapes to get on exploring the medium. Nothing as crazy as some of the tutorials seen in the ink boxes magainze(review coming soon ;)! They also tell you many important things about the shelf-live of Lino, the right methods to store and wash it, and how to carefully use the tools right. All of that information got me really hyped up to finally try out some lino printing myself, but first, let’s get on to carving 😉

Since I am trying out the box in October I was in the mood for some spooky designs and I had some pretty finished ideas in my head already. I wanted to make a Halloween stamp with a pumpkin and a potion bottle design(the ghost kinda appeared :P), but to get it from my head onto the Lino was a pretty challenging process. I used an H4 graphite pencil (which was not included) to draw my ideas directly onto the Lino, which did only partially work out. I did not want to put too much pressure on the pencil, because I did not want to leave marks in the lino, which I would not be able to get rid of again. But the graphite did not really stick to the surface that well, so I needed to go over and over it again. I then traced the lines of the design I wanted to have with the cutter and then made an outline in form of a rectangle. After finishing that task I tried to work my way inward, regretting small details like the pumpkin face xD But I did it in the end and was pretty proud for it being my first try, but also kinda nervous about if it would look the way I wanted it in the end, after applying the printing ink and transferring the designs onto paper…

The next step seemed fairly easy, but it was not xD After carving the pieces I cut them out with scissors to be able to print them onto the paper individually. I only used a small bit of the black printing ink, which can be compared to very thick acrylc paint, and apllied it to the right side of the roller, because my lino pieces were fairly small. I then went over the lino pieces multiple times, hoping for an even covarage, but intially also filing the small cravices which ment to stay ink-free. You can also see that in the first results, my small ghost is basically a black blob on the page. As for my potion bottle I actually regrett my choice of having the liqguid inside stay white and the glassy ouside be black. I can’t really say I planned it liked that, I only thought it about those two things being able to be distinguished from each other. That at least workes I guess 😛 My halloween stamp came ou the best I think, you can make out the shape of the pumkin and it’s face, even if it’s not perfect and the seem around the stamp is visible too, even though you could see that the bigger space made it even harder for me to get it covered evenly. But with practice, especially with the aplling ink part, I can see this workng very well for me and I can take all the information I got out of my errors to make my next lino pieces came out better 😉

This was actually the first Artful box which let me work with materials I have never used before. I did caligraphy as a hobby and I used water colors in school as I mentioned in the previous reviews but Lino printing was never something on my radar, I don’t think I would have picked it up to try out by myself. But it was actually quite fun, maybe because it was so diffrent! Carving out my designs instead of creating them step by step on the paper, was a very intresting experience. It was both easier and harder than I thought, if that makes sense 😛 For my very first try it did not feel as if anything was missing, though some tracing paper and maybe a marker of some kind which would stick better to the Lino would have been nice. But I guess the other things were not as needed as I thought when reading about them the magazin. I am still curious about the sandpaper and what could be done with it. But the Artfulbox is supposed to just ignite the curiousity in my and this one really succeded. Mabye I will buy sandpaper and try it out some 😉 And maybe you will too, I can highly recommend this box and the idea behind Artufl as a subscription as well^^

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Artful, Mystery Box, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

September 8

My first poetry with Rupi Kaur (Milk and Honey Review)

Cover of the book: black backround with white text saying "Milk and honey, rupi kaur" and two realistically drawn bees. Text on the end is orange and says: "#1 New York Times Besteller".

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Published: 4th of November 2014
Length: 208 Pages
Genre: Collection of Poetry and Prose
Price: 11,49€ on Amazon

Review
Let me tell you the story of how I got to know the work of Rupi Kaur. I am actually not a big fan of poetry, at least not of the stuff we had to read and analyze at school. I guess not everyone liked to unpack a Sonett and its multiple layers of meaning, especially when it’s about something you are not interested in at all. So when a pen pal of mine, actually recommend Kaur’s work to me, in a totally different context and I got to read some of her poems, I was quite surprised that I was enjoying it. The friend suggested using her poems and illustration to get inspired for my own works of art, mostly illustrations too. So the intention was not even to get me into poetry, but maybe it kinda did?

But then, in an effort to find out more about this artist who got me interested in reading poems, I found out that not everyone was enjoying what she wrote, quite the contrary. Many people called her a wanna be-, Instagram- or tumblr poet, they were saying that her work seemed lazy and not quite thoughtful. People were pointing out that some of her work would be considered statements, might have even been Twitter posts, but not art. Which really got me thinking: what is art and who can decide on the definition? (There are famous people in Germany I know of whose whole art persona is based on sharing their own tweets on different platforms, it might not be poetry, so maybe to be the best example, but I would say it could be art, modern art so to speak.) That’s why I really wanted to write this review because I guess if I would not have been reading some of her poems before, hearing and reading all these negative things about Kaur’s might have been the point where I would have stopped researching. I might not even have bought the books I already put in my online shopping card. But glad I didn’t, I gave this artist a chance and I can’t say that I am regretting it.

I am not an expert on this field obviously and I don’t try to discredit the people who gave their very negative opinions on Kaur’s work, but I want to try and give another perspective on the topic. Because I think, what some people might actively or subconsciously have done was gatekeeping and I think in its essence, that was wrong. Comparing Kaur’s work with what I knew from schools, definitely showed some differences. Most of her poems are quite short and as I said, their meaning can be understood easily. The themes of her poetry surround around womanhood, abuse, family and relationships and you can say they feel like very meaningful quotes. The most popular one, which her first book is named after is “Milk and Honey”:

Image shows on of the poems from the book, black text on a white backround: "how is it so easy for you
to be kind to people he asked
Milk and honey dripped
from my lips as i answered
Cause people have not been
kind to me
- rupi kaur". On the right side of the page there is a illustrauion of a glas with a honey stick ontop and bees fling around it.

The messages of this poem seems to be: people who have been hurt, try not to hurt others because they don’t want anyone else to feel the pain, they felt. It’s said with a more visual language and emphasizes with a not quite fitting illustration, to which we get in a moment, but you get a general idea. There is no second or third layer behind it, which some people might consider lazy or consciously vague so that more people can relate to it. But what exactly would be the problem with that?
Kaurs work in her first book feels very much like a sort of theraphy session for herself and the reader, where you get lead through diffrent stages from “the hurting”, over “the loving”, to “the breaking” and in the end “the healing”. Writing down those maningful quote-like and longer poems, seemed to have helped her deal with certain things that might have happend to her. And it did help me feel understood somewhat too. Since I can’t believe Kaur only did that to become famous, I want to ask again: what exactly would be the problem with that? If she was helping herself and others with her words, is that not the purest form of art?

I said the illustration was not quite fitting, not because I wanted to critique her art style, but because I think a different imagine might have emphasized the message a little bit more. Her Illustration is general, seem to be what people like to complain about the second most though, also calling it lazy. I feel like that’s very subjective like the whole thing might be because I actually really like the art style Kaur used. Just because it’s not shaded or colored, because the ends of the lines don’t connect to each other all the time, it still has something very interesting to it, that I really enjoy. I actually even tried to recreate that, which is not as easy as it might seem. People also like to point out that it feels like the illustrations are only there to fill the pages, make the book seem fuller, they don’t really see it as part of the poem, which I find strange. I see them, the illustrations and the poems, as a connected piece of art. Like in this example:

Another Poem from the book, black text on a white backround:
"the idea that we are
so capable of love
but still choose
to be toxic
- rupi kaur" with an illustration of a scorpion on the right end of the page.

It’s one of her shorter poems, which again can be understood very easily but with the scorpion she choose to put on that specific page, it might tell a bigger different story. I see it as a nod to the fable of the scorpion and the frog, which goes something like this: A scorpion asks a frog if he can ride on his back to get from one side of the river to the other side. The frog asks “Why should I risk getting stung by you?” to which the scorpion answers “Why should I sting you on the river, if it would mean that we both drown?”. The frog sees the logic in that and decides to help the scorpion, but halfway over the river, the scorpion goes against his word and stings the frog. With his last dying breath, the frog asks the scorpion why he did that and doomed them both, and the scorpion answers “It’s just my nature”. So both the poem and the story play with the idea of people making bad decisions, hurting themselves and others in the process. But Kaur’s poems seem to condemn the actions more, going against the idea of “It’s just my nature” whereas the fable kinda leaves that more open to interpretation. With that in mind, I don’t think Kaur just put random art on the page to fill up her book, she did it because it was part of the art she wanted to create and maybe the message she wanted to sent.

Final Thoughts
So, all in all, I would say art is a very subjective thing, so don’t let other people tell you that something you enjoy is bad and always try to make up your own mind. From what I understand, Rupi Kaur’s work might be considered Level 1 poetry: fun to read, easy to understand, and aesthetically pleasing. It might not be comparable to Level 5 or Level 10 poerty, but that does not mean it’s not good or not poetry at all. So this might be a good book to get you started on poems in general, especially if you like the topics mentioned. It might get you interested in this form of art and that’s never wrong.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Book Review, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT

August 13

Exhibition “Broken” by Reiinku

Hello, people of Wonderland! Recently I took part in a very special exhibition and I wanted to tell you about it 🙂 The exhibition took place in an art studio called Resdient Creative, where you can get tattooed but also chill and just be surrounded by creativity and maybe be creative yourself. It was made by Daria Reiin aka Reiinku and thoughtfully set up in a cellar under the studio. The exhibition is up until the end of the month and I would highly recommend you going there if you would happen to be in Hamburg, Germany^^ But keep in mind that you have to make an appointment first, stay safe and healthy!

Official poster of the exhibition with a close up of the mai piece: a girl and her oni mask falling. Text says: 31 July. 31 August 2021, Broken(in japanse and english)" on the left side: "Exhibition by Reeinku" on the right: "of masks and inner demons".

The room you see in the photo was actually hidden behind a curtain and filled up with smoke, so the lighting would really come to play. It was really cool to see the art being framed by the room, which kinda looked like a piece of art itself with the shibari-styled ropes and other decorations. You could really say going in there was an experience, it was not only about viewing the art itself but feeling the eeriness and the exhibition as a whole. It was really interesting and I can’t say that I have experienced anything like that ever before. Of course, it’s never the same in the pictures, it’s something to really be felt in real-time.

Picture shows a cella with white walls and many ropes in shibari style tying everything together. At the end of the room there is a jean jacket with the main art piece on it, with two ringlights shining at it. Infront of it are diffrent other art pieces haning.

The concept behind the exhibition referring to its name “broken” was the social concept of wearing masks. Maybe to adjust to a certain environment or to hide something, we don’t want others to see, many people wear a kind of mask on a daily basis. And some people might be wearing their masks for so long, that they can’t even imagine life without them anymore. So what would happen if some of those masks begin to crack, break, and shatter, revealing what has been sheltered underneath. And what would we see then? Would it be the same person that put the mask on in the first place or would they have been changed?

Some of these questions might get answered, through the paintings we see hanging in the room. They are of two different people. One wearing a mask to look like a pretty girl, maybe the white represents being pure. But when it crumbles, the mask reveals that there is something dark underneath, something dangerous also being represented by the flower wilting away. On the other side, we have a person wearing a mask to look angry, hideous even, but the cracks reveal a beautiful and loving face, emphasized by the flower in its full glory. So you could see it that way: Some people try to look pretty, but they are ugly on the inside, whether as people who seem angry on the outside, might be loving in reality.

A Collage of the other art pieces, on the left side: the first picture show hald of a face wearing an oni demon marsk with shar theeth and horns, the secound one show a flower blooming, the third one shows the other half of the face with the same mask, but crombeling around the eye, reavealing a much nicer face behind the mask. On the right side: there is hald of a face looking lighe a beautiful face but with a big crack, the secound picture is a flower wilting away and the thirs one is the other half of the face again crumbeling around the eyes reavailng a dark, dangerous looking monster underneeth.

The main piece of the exhibition was a jean jacket, entangled in ropes with the drawing of a girl losing her mask entirely. I especially like how the jacket itself is held up, it looks very dynamic, almost as if you could imagine the girl wearing the jacket while being shocked about the loss of her mask and possibly a big part of her identity. The mask is of a japanese demon called Oni being portrait with his horns, yellow glowing eyes, and sharp teeth. The girl behind the mask wears a little make-up, she almost looks innocent in comparison. But she too has horns, so maybe she did not lose everything with the broken mask. Maybe a part of her already identifies with the demon she wore. I like to interpret that as a girl who is shy and maybe scared but wearing a mask of confidence to protect herself. So when the mask falls down, some of this confidence still remains, meaning that she is now able to protect herself without the mask too or it could mean the demon is still inside her, even if it seems like she might have lost it.

A photo of the main piece, a jean jacket with flowers on the arms and a innocent looking girl on the back, a mask he wore broke in half and is falling down. The mask is of a japanese demon called oni and it has horns, same as the girl has.

All in all, it was a very special and intriguing experience, I am very happy to have taken part in it! What was especially interesting and might not be possible in every exhibition, is that the artist herself led us through and talked with us about her intentions for every piece. I might not have done justice writing about it here and now, but like I said in the beginning: if you get the chance to experience it yourself, do it 😉 If there are any other exhibitions done by Reiinku, I will be definitely sure to check them out! And if you want to check the amazing artist behind this exhibition out, you can do so here:

Reiinku’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/reiinku/?hl=de
Reiinku’s website: https://reiinku.com/

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Personal Life | LEAVE A COMMENT

July 21

Review of the Artful Box: Calligraphy

If everything goes according to plan, you have already read my review on this quarters Artfulbox with the theme: Watercolor. If you have not, but want to, just click on the unterlined text to get there 😉 If you are new to this: Artful is a quarterly subscription box from the UK, made by OhDeer the same people that came up with the Paperganboxes! Due to some Brexit issues most of my subcription boxes from April-Mai got lost in the mail, so did this one, which is why I am reviewing it only now. Gladly I got a replacement for all of my boxes and I was especially looking forward to this one, because I already have some experience on the fiel of Calligraphy and Handlettering. Though I have to say that the box itself does not really match it’s contents, I think Calligraphy has nothing to do with the ocean and fish, so I was a bit confused at first. The Artwork is great of course, but I would not have choosen it for this theme. But enough talk about the outside, let’s take a look inside!

Inside of the box: Many diffrent colored tombow markder lay beside a pencil and an earaser, ontop of a small book and blank greetingcards.

The box was made together with the company Tombow from Japan, which is a well established brand in the community of letter art and it’s actually diffrent from the newest Box where they made their very own supplies. Just something I have noticed, maybe getting what is needed for a good watercolor set was easier than making theirown brushpens or it was a matter of money and they just had more to put into the watercolors box 😉
In this box we get 8 Tombow Dual Brushpens in a very limited color scheme(we don’t get a yellow for example), 5 Tombow Twin-Tone Dual Tipmarkers, a Tombow MONO Ereaser and a HB graphite lead pencil, aswell as an A4 Bristol 250gsm drawing pad and 4 blank greeting cards plus envelopes.
Let’s talk about the 112 page magazine! Structuerwise it does not make a lot of sense to me… The table of contents begins on page 10 after a “the brief history of typography” and an editors note, after which the first thing we see is a making off of the boxart itself. A making off is always intresting to me, but not when I waited to get into the process of creating art, after waiting so long to get my box. Then comes the first interview and a tutorial which has nothing to do with Calligraphy or Hand Lettering at all. On page 30 we get the first glimpse of what creating letter art could look like with the first tutorial of blending colors together. But that also is a bit nonsensical because we get to know about the basics of how to use the brushpens and how to create letter art on page 50 and 66! Please tell me what was the thought behind that…? I guess you could argue that the box was not meant for beginners, but if that’s true we would not have needed the basic tutorials at all and could have used the space for some more interviews and advanced tutorials. Maybe they wanted to show first, what different kinds of letter arts could look like, but I don’t think they made the right call here and for a beginner that might even be a bit overwhelming. I know they already got better in the next box, so I don’t want to complain about it too much, since they seems to have noticed their errors, but I still wanted to mention it.

Collage of the before mentioned book with text that says "Let's learn about calligraphy + other stuff" on the right and on the left it's a picture of the bristol paperpad from tombow.

As I said in the beginning I have some experience when it comes to this topic, which is why I was confused again. When I think of Calligraphy I think of quill pens with metal nips tipped in ink, sliding across the paper. But I have to say, that’s western-style Calligraphy over in some Asian countries Calligraphy was always done with brushes. Calligraphy itself might be a kind of umbrella term, describing the art or lettering. So I would say they did nothing wrong with the title, but I would have loved to maybe let it be more specific. Because what we got in the box, were supplies for what I and many others call Hand Lettering. The difference for me really lies in the supplies you are working with and the different techniques you can use because of it. You can’t do the same strokes with a brush of course, that you can do with a metal nib and vice versa. I can’t really speak for Asian Countries and if their traditional style of Calligraphy is different from that, like maybe what I think is traditional western Calligraphy is, is using metal nibs and old fonds, recreating the traditional feel of it. Maybe traditional Asian Calligraphy is using special brushes, with only black ink, which might be why they too would say the supplies given are more for a modern type of Calligraphy. For me both of these types of letter art are cool, so I am okay with getting some great Tombow supplies, but I think some people might expect something different and get disappointed because of it, so maybe boxes like this could use a longer title like “Modern Calligraphy” or “Calligraphy: Hand Lettering”. And I would also love if maybe traditional wester and Asian Calligraphy could maybe be a future boxes topic 😉
The tutorials themselves are interesting, I will separate them into tutorials for beginners, advanced techniques, and tutorials that are not tied to the topic. The tutorials for beginners are very good, you can’t really go wrong with that, to be honest. But I would have loved to maybe get a separate sheet to practice on(there is one in the magazine, but maybe a separate one would have been better, since who likes to write in books, right?), since I to this day struggle with what the right amount of pressure to put on the brush to get he result I am imgaining. I think especially for beginners that can’t be hard and a sheet like that can always be very helpful.
The more advance tutroials would be the ones talking about blending and using the special twin-tone markers, since that’s not something a beginner need to learn ASAP. You can go a long way just with the basics and being creative 😉 Since I have never worked with the twin-tonw markers before, I am looking forward to creating something with the help of the tutorials.
The last typ of tutorials kinda used the brushpens in diffrent way to create drawings. Of course, you can use your brushpens for drawing, but including these tutorials felt like as if the people behind the box though using the markers only for lettering purposes did not do them enough justice. The lettering is not “real art” or something like that. I really did not get the need behind including them if I am honest. We could have used some more inspiration or maybe diffrent alphabeth and fonds to copy better, especially for beginners, but I am also up for learning new alphabeths even though I am lettering for some time now.

With my last box, I tried to make a greeting card for someone’s birthday and since many people’s birthdays are coming up, I made another one with this box too! For this one, I used the twin-tone markers and the faux calligraphy technique. I have to say I really like the bright colors(which we have not gotten with the big Tombow markers) but I might have used them wrong… when going over a certain spot multiple times, the paper flacked very fast, which was quite surprising to me, since it was specially chosen for this box. But I have to say, it might be a user error, still something I wanted to mention. The tutorial on how to use them did not help me much since actually the person in the “tutorial” also used them for the first time xD And the “tutorial” was more about using the thin tip for outlining and the bigger one for coloring in the lettering art. So I have to say it was not very helpful :/ The other tutorial about putting a shadow behind the letter, was as helpful to be honest. It basically goes like this:
1. Write a word(not showing hot to do that with the brush pen the best way)
2. Put shadow behind it in different colors.
3. Done
I have to say I am a bit disappointed since that’s kinda what I could come up with myself, a tutorial would really take its time to guide me through the process step by step more, especially when I either have problems using the brush pens or have never used them before. I felt kinda let down. But I am still kinda happy with the card I have made, maybe I can put some more details in later, but I really like the colors, I have to say I rarely work with them, so it was nice to do that for a change.

Greetingcard done by me with the paper and diffrent pens from the box. It has a white backround and a text in tghe middle saying "Alles Gute zum Geburtstag"(meaning Happy Birthday in German). Left and right of the text are two party canon that fire simply drawn streamers and confetti. — “Alles Gute zum Geburtstag” is the long version of german people saying “Happy BIrthday” 😛

All in all, I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the box. The supplies we got were high quality, but I can’t really understand why we got those limited colors for example(still kinda mad about not getting a yellow), why there was no blending pen or a sheet of a practice alphabet. It just kinda feels a bit random to me. As random as the order of the chapters in the magazines, to be honest xD The whole box did not feel very thought through or maybe put together by someone, who does not enjoy Calligraphy very much. Maybe that’s why I am so disappointed in it, because Calligraphy is something I always liked to do, which is why I was looking forward to it so much! But I have to say again, this box came out before the watercolor one and it feels like they found and fixed many of the mistakes they made in this box like for example having a more structured magazine and less random supplies! So I will keep an eye on future boxes and their themes and I will definitely try another one sometime in the future 🙂 So you too should maybe not only judge them on this particular box and keep an eye on them, if you are interested in the general idea of these boxes! Now that I think about it, I am quite happy that I accidentally bought the watercolor box too, so that I was able to review both of them and see how the company has improved^^

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Artful, Mystery Box, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

July 7

Review of the Artful Box: Watercolor

I am back with another mystery/ subscription box review, this time it’s all about the Artful box, which is done by the same people who do the Papergang boxes too, so I had to test it out eventually 😉 The concept of both boxes is pretty similar, only that in the Artful box instead of stationery you get art supplies for a certain project and you don’t get it every month but one box every quarter of the year. I did not have the money for it in the first quarter of 2021, so I had now reordered the box and got it shipped in May.
Sadly same way with my Papergang boxes, there was a shipping/ delivery problem that led to the box that was shipped in May being lost. I did get sent a replacement box of course, but in the whole chaos, I kinda overlooked that instead of just buying one box, I actually made a subscription, so I got sent the next box already too. But to be honest, I am not mad about it, since it also sounds very interesting. Let’s have a look at it together!
So many things can be considered art, so there are many possibilities of what could be inside an Artful box. The people behind it thought it would be the best idea to highlight a certain type of art with every box, focus solely on that, and give the best supplies needed to start a project. This Mai box’s theme was Hand Lettering, which I actually did some years ago, so it was a great box for me to restart an old Hobby! The next box I got has watercolors as its theme and since the watercolor box actually arrived first, I will also review it first 😉

Insides of the box: a small glas container with white liquid, a blue box, a big aquarallpaper pad with an orange cover, blank greetingscards and a light blue metalcase for the watercolors.

The box came with a set of 24 watercolor half pans, a 29.5ml masking fluid bottle, special watercolor paper, 4 blank greeting cards, 5 different brushes, a pencil such as a pipette, and a 100 pages magazine with tips and tricks. The book was actually what I was interested the most in since the last time I painted with watercolors was in primary school and I absolutely hated it. I really hoped to get new motivation and learn new techniques which helped me use this type of art in a different way. The artwork on the book and within is very pretty, they even show how to draw one of my favorite animals a red panda! They start with some pages of general information about watercolors, assuming that you don’t know anything about it, which was great for me! But this information only uses up about 10 pages in the book, so if you already know how to work with it, you could start right away and still have enough input and ideas for your new projects 😉 So only judging from the book, I would say the box is both beginner-friendly, but also useful and interesting for people who search for art prompts, step-by-step guides, or interviews with artists who work with that particular craft.

Photo shows the metalcase from the inside, it's white, has 3 sides with diffrenty patterns and you can take the colors out one by one.

Like I mentioned, working with watercolors always felt like a chore to me, since it was the go-to color technique in almost all of my art classes and I still never seemed to fully master it. I also don’t think we were really introduced to how to work with them properly. For example, I never heard of a masking fluid before, even though it does sound like a cool way of creating certain patterns and would have been surely helpful!
As I am writing this part of the review, I still have not used the art supplies yet, but I wanted to let you know what I am planning on doing and later I can tell you if it has worked out of not 😉 I am actually a bit scared to try the very professional-looking animal drawings in the magazine and wanted to try something more abstract first. Since I also like to design greetings cards for my friends and family and there were some birthdays recently, I wanted to play around for a bit with the blank cards and use the watercolors to create an interesting background. Sadly there seems to be no real chapter on how to do that, only on some blending ideas in general. So I guess I will have to look for some other tutorials on the Internet. Maybe a small negative point: I would have loved to not only see realistic drawings, but some guides create abstract art too.

Close up of the artsupplies in from the blue bos: brushes, a pencil and a cartrage.

When starting to use the appliance from the box, I opted for watching videos on youtube in the end instead of using the magazine itself. I just learn better with visual input and the guides in the books were a bit too advanced for me. I watched a video by Shayda Campbell and tried to recreate a flower greeting card she made, testing out different colors and trying to blend them together.
One of the things I learned right away is that the colors are way more potent than anything I have used before! When using watercolors at school, we would mix them in the pan with the pigment itself and put it on paper, repeating the process over and over when the brush was dry again. With these watercolors, I take a bit of it on my brush, use the pipette to get some water on the mixing palate, and mix the puddle with my brush. Then I use this puddle for my illustrations and I only use the color again, when I am mixing a new one. It might sound kinda dumb to you, if you have worked with good watercolors before, of course, that’s how you would use it, right? But I have never done that, so it was all new to me xD What I realized because of it is that the half pans you get, which might seem very small at first, last longer than expected^^
The brushes felt like very good quality, but when working with watercolors, the liquid has a mind of its own. So even though they did not shed, but glide over the paper, the water often finds its own way xD If you will be more trained to use it, things like that won’t happen that often I guess, but for a beginner like me, it was not avoidable. The paper was really great to work with too! I did use a lot of water on it, because I wanted to try out different techniques and it never leaked or ripped, it only warped a bit, nothing some heavy books couldn’t fix. I did not get to test out the masking fluid, since it felt a bit too advanced for me yet, but I still appreciate having it in there for future use, when I got better 😉

Picture shows a greetingcard done by me, with diffrent colored flowers, vines and a text saying "Alles Gute"(german for Good wishes). — It’s was a birthday card, “Alles Gute” means “Good Wishes” in German^^

I would say I was pleasantly surprised by the box! The contents were very high quality, though all of them are produced especially for the box, which some people seem to be mad about(they even talk about it in the magazine). The way I understood it, there are certain brands being associate with “good art” and if you use any other brand, your art might not turn out as good, in some people’s opinion. I can’t really speak for them, since I have not used many different art brands when it comes to watercolor, but I would say it’s always good to try out new things 😉 And what I can say is, that the contents: brushes, colors, and paper were lightyears better than everything I have worked with so far and I can highly recommend it^^ The magazine itself is pretty interesting, especially the interviews, the guides are a bit to advances for a beginner. Of course, you could say that this box is just not made for beginners, but I do think it’s made to suit everyone. They are releasing a new box every quarter and it’s all about learning new things, so maybe there should be more projects for people beginning the craft. So I am looking forward to using my next box!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Artful, Mystery Box, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT