Thought Corner: Sakura Pigma Micron Pens

Name: Sakura Pigma Pens

Source: Purchased

Set: 8 count

Walmart     Michaels     Blick Art Materials     Amazon     Joanns

More info...

• Archival quality ink: is waterproof, chemical resistant, fade resistant, bleed free, quick drying, and pH neutral.
• Ideal for sketching, inking, and illustration.
• Includes 6 Pigma Micron, 1 Pigma Brush, and 1 Pigma Graphic

Today, I’m going to be talking about the Sakura Pigma Micron pen set that I bought. This is actually my first set of pens with archival quality ink, which is one of the reasons I’m so excited to talk about them. I’ve just used ballpoint pens, markers, and more recently Papermate Felt Tip Pens. So, I was ready to make the switch to fine liners.

A full list of the supplies I used for the painting will be down at the bottom of the post…

What I’m working on…

• A witch based off of a sketch from my sketchbook

Some things to know…

• The ink is waterproof (more on that later)
• These pens do not have an odor to them.
• Does not bleed when applied to paper
• Dries quickly

This is essentially what these look like. I had the choice of getting a smaller set, but choose to get the eight count since it had all the sizes I was looking for in fine liner pens.

Here's a quick swatch. As you can see, the sizes range from very thin to thicker darker lines. I personally prefer the look of thinner lines, but its nice to have the option to change that up when I want to. I also really like the brush pen.

Starting with the sketch…

The piece I’m talking about today is based off of a sketch of a witch from my sketchbook. I’d always planned to eventually turn it into a painting, and I figured that October was a good time to work on this one because of Halloween. Also, it gave me the perfect opportunity to test out these pens. I love these pens. It was definitely worth the price. They’re easy to use, and when I did a swatch of the pens I didn’t experience any dryness, which has happened to me on occasion with markers.

For this painting in particular, I wanted to keep the lines fairly thin because they weren’t that important to the overall piece. I used the 01 pen to ink the majority of the sketch. And the 1 graphic pen along the hat, eyes, and circle to darken the lines.

Next, I got to test out my favorite feature of these pens: they’re waterproof. I do a lot of watercolor painting, which is the reason why I originally looked into getting a set of these pens. Let me tell you, it’s awesome having these to use whenever I want to add a little more detail to my pieces before I begin painting. I love the fact that the ink dried quickly and it doesn’t smudge or bleed even when a lot of water was applied on top of it.

I pretty much just used some colored pencil to really get the color of the hair where I wanted it. I was pretty happy with how it looked at this point, but I later used some gel pen in order to really define some of the details I lost while adding color. I like the finished  painting more with the gel pen so the colors aren't just dark-on-dark-on dark.

Finished Painting

Overall…

I like these pens. I’m going to be able to get a good amount of use out of these pens, not just for paintings, but also inking sketches. These pens can be a little expensive, but if you get them from somewhere like Michaels, you can use coupons and easily get a good deal on them.

Full list of supplies used…

Sakura Pigma Micron pens

Reeves Watercolor Paint

Canson Watercolor Paper

Sakura Gelly Roll Gel Pen

Artist's Loft Colored pencil

Finally Fall Book Tag

I haven’t done a book tag in a very long time, and recently I’ve seen the Finally Fall Book Tag going around. I figured that it would be the perfect time to participate in it since its officially fall and October. Sorry summer, but I'm ready for cooler weather.

Before I get started, I have to get to the fine print for this post. This tag is created by Alina @ Tall Tales over on youtube. Check out her channel HERE and visit the original tag video HERE...

In fall, the air is crisp and clear: name a book with a vivid setting! 

I have two books for this answer: A Star-Touched Queen and A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi. The world within these books is awesome—layered with mythology, magic, mystery, and politics—and the setting is part of what makes the books so good.

Nature is beautiful… but also dying: name a book that is beautifully written, but also deals with a heavy topic like loss or grief. 

I also have two books for this questions. The first is The Reader by Traci Chee. There is a bittersweet note to this story. The characters deal with a lot of things like grief, betrayal, and loss. The Reader is a gorgeous tale, and I’m looking forward to the sequel, The Speaker. The second book is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas—this one pretty much speaks for itself. 

Fall is back to school season: share a non-fiction book that taught you something new. 

I’m going to go with Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung by Min Kym. I might have mentioned this book before during Music Monday, but the review is posted on a different blog. That being said, this is a memoir written by Min Kym about her life. Gone is a candid account of Min kym’s experience. It also illustrated the kind of care an instrument like a violin requires.

In order to keep warm, it’s good to spend some time with the people we love: name a fictional family/household/friend-group that you’d like to be a part of. 

Hmm, this question is a little hard. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any families or friend groups I’d want to be a part of. Actually, I’d join one of the houses from Aliette de Bodard’s The House of Shattered Wings. To date, this book has one of the more unique uses of the fallen-angle trope that I’ve seen. It’s still a cool story and one I’d like to eventually reread before getting the sequel. 

The colourful leaves are piling up on the ground: show us a pile of fall-colored spines! 

I was actually quite surprised by how many of the books on my shelf didn’t have fall colored spines, and I ended up having to just pick some at random. I still had some trouble finding enough books to even make this stack...

Fall is the perfect time for some storytelling by the fireside: share a book wherein somebody is telling a story. 

This is an easy choice for me: The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco. I was late to the party. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter because I have read The Bone Witch and loved the story.

The nights are getting darker: share a dark, creepy read. 

Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi—which comes out October 31st, just in time for Halloween—isn’t necessarily creepy like that. However, the business of eating someone else’s sin and taking on the burden of their guilt, well, in my book that’s suitably creepy.

The days are getting colder: name a short, heartwarming read that could warm up somebody’s cold and rainy day. 

I really can’t think of any other book beside The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis. There’s a lot of chocolate involved.

Fall (luckily, it’s my favourite season) returns every year: name an old favourite that you’d like to return to soon.

There are actually a lot of books I would like to reread. One of them is Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. It’s been a couple of years since I initially read Ancillary Justice, and I recall enjoying the story.

Fall is the perfect time for cozy reading nights: share your favourite cozy reading “accessories”! Spread the autumn appreciation and tag some people!

I’ll tag anyone who wants to participate.

This tag reminded me of how much fun these types of post can be. If you have any book tag recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments.

The Friday 56 (116) & Book Beginnings: The Creeps: A Deep Dark Fears Collection by Fran Krause

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

A follow-up to the New York Times best-selling Deep Dark Fears: a second volume of comics based on people’s quirky, spooky, hilarious, and terrifying fears... 

Illustrator, animator, teacher, and comic artist Fran Krause has touched a collective nerve with his wildly popular web comic series–and subsequent New York Times best-selling book–Deep Dark Fears. Here he brings readers more of the creepy, funny, and idiosyncratic fears they love illustrated in comic form–such as the fear that your pets will tell other animals all your embarrassing secrets, or that someone uses your house while you’re not home–as well as two longer comic short-stories about ghosts...

Beginnings: "Oh, hello! Thanks for picking up this book. It's kinda scary. We should probably prepare a bit before we read it."

56: "Sometimes I can't help but worry that any one of the random strangers I pass might be my soul mate, and I'm missing our only chance to ever meet."

Comments: My beginning is from the introduction, and my 56 is from Fear #56 because...well, the pages aren't numbered. Anyway, I received this book earlier in the week for review. I really enjoyed this collection of comics, and found it to be kind of fitting to read in October. I mean, today is Friday the 13th...

What spooky books, comics, or short stories have you read so far in October?

Review: The Creeps: A Deep Dark Fears Collection by Fran Krause

Title: The Creeps
Author: Fran Krause
Source/Format: Blogging For Books; Hardcover
More Details: Comic; Humor
Publisher/Publication Date: Ten Speed Press; September 26, 2017
Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads...

A follow-up to the New York Times best-selling Deep Dark Fears: a second volume of comics based on people’s quirky, spooky, hilarious, and terrifying fears... 

Illustrator, animator, teacher, and comic artist Fran Krause has touched a collective nerve with his wildly popular web comic series–and subsequent New York Times best-selling book–Deep Dark Fears. Here he brings readers more of the creepy, funny, and idiosyncratic fears they love illustrated in comic form–such as the fear that your pets will tell other animals all your embarrassing secrets, or that someone uses your house while you’re not home–as well as two longer comic short-stories about ghosts...

I’m always on the lookout for collections—short comics or short stories—because I don’t read enough of them. When I came across The Creeps by Fran Krause, I was instantly interested. Before getting a copy of this book for review, I wasn’t familiar with Krause’s artwork. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I genuinely enjoyed this collection of short comics.

The Creeps is filled with comics about deep dark fears. Think along the lines of being haunted by pets, falling through a portal hidden on the floor, and empty mascot costumes. The majority of the comics were, on average, only four panels long, but they were mixed in with a couple of longer stories that took up more than one page. I was expecting to really get a kick out of The Creeps, but it didn’t really make me laugh as much as I’d expected. That being said, the comics were still kind of creepy, and I liked the illustrations—bonus points for the fact that they were all in color.

All in all, The Creeps was pretty much the perfect October read.

This copy of the book was provided by Blogging For Books for this review.

About the author...

Ananimator and cartoonist. He is currently a teacher in the character animation program at CalArts, creator of several cartoons, and the creator of the Deep Dark Fears webcomic series and book.

The Friday 56 (115) & Book Beginnings: The Unnatural World: The Race To Remake Civilization In Earth's Newest Age by David Biello

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

With the historical perspective of The Song of the Dodo and the urgency of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, a brilliant young environmental journalist argues that we must innovate and adapt to save planet Earth...

Civilization is in crisis, facing disasters of our own making on the only planet known to bear life in the vast void of the universe. We have become unwitting gardeners of the Earth, not in control, but setting the conditions under which all of life flourishes—or not. Truly, it’s survival of the innovators. The Unnatural World chronicles a disparate band of unlikely heroes: an effervescent mad scientist who would fertilize the seas; a pigeon obsessive bent on bringing back the extinct; a low-level government functionary in China doing his best to clean up his city, and more. These scientists, billionaires, and ordinary people are all working toward saving the best home humanity is ever likely to have. What is the threat? It is us. In a time when a species dies out every ten minutes, when summers are getting hotter, winters colder, and oceans higher, some people still deny mankind’s effect on the Earth. But all of our impacts on the planet have ushered in what qualifies as a new geologic epoch, thanks to global warming, mass extinction, and such technologies as nuclear weapons or plastics. The Unnatural World examines the world we have created and analyzes the glimmers of hope emerging from the efforts of incredible individuals seeking to change our future. Instead of a world without us, this history of the future shows how to become good gardeners, helping people thrive along with an abundance of plants, animals, all the exuberant profusion of life on Earth—a better world with us. The current era of humans need not be the end of the world—it’s just the end of the world as we know it...

Beginnings: "The view from space changes people."

56: "Mud compresses under geologic pressure by as much as 90 percent, but sand is far more resistant, squeezing out water to compress by maybe 40 percent."

Comments: The Unnatural World is another one of the books I recently checked out from the library. This book focuses on an important topic: the environment. While I did like this book, it was still more of an average read. 

What are you reading this week?