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earthrimroamer.bsky.social
@earthrimroamer.bsky.social
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earthrimroamer.bsky.social
For the first time in my professional life, I got an email yesterday asking if it would be appropriate to address me by my first name. Today, I got a second email from another person asking the same thing. Did I miss a memo…?
February 13, 2025 at 5:05 PM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
Nightly journal therapy thanks to *waves vaguely, shrugs*. I’ve gotten into getting a brush out and playing with my fountain pen inks like they’re watercolors, and experimenting a bit with resist techniques. Although that usually involves a white crayon with…varying results. May move into gouache.
This one is all about color. Lots of pink, yellow, and blue, with Washi tape cut into stripes of varying width around the date header. I hated to just have that be the only thing on the page of any real interest, so continued it down the fold and out between paragraphs. It seemed like a good time to experiment with different combinations of these colors next to each other. Why not? Gray clouds around the date header for Reasons, kind of screwy because the color was more pigmented than I was expecting, so couldn’t build many layers with it. At the bottom is an illustration of a dream I had had the night before. I don’t really want to explain what happened in the dream; it was a little too reflective of the waking world in a way that made me uncomfortable about my choices, so I drew it. Really, sketched it in Diamine Evergreen, then applied water. Spaaaaace! So the date header is a bunch of purple and orange ink plus white paper covered in white crayon to make stars with, I think, Monteverde’s Purple Diamond (DC Pen Show limited edition, I think) on top, then covered with Diamine Graphite. The planet in the lower left of the facing page is similar, albeit also with (I think) Lamy Vibrant Pink and a couple of numbers from Sailor Ink Studio. The planet didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but I think it’s actually better this way? It’s awfully dramatic, as though it were illuminated from above and remains mostly in shadow. The stars in this case are actually from a white Gelly Roll pen. Mixed feelings about this one. I was actually hoping to simulate an aurora in the date header (partly because the dark green ink is Diamine Aurora Borealis) and then continue it down the fold and onto the facing page. Obviously that didn’t work out, but I really liked the brush strokes so just kept it up for the hell of it. It’s a mix of the aforementioned Aurora Borealis, Diamine Coral, and Sailor Ink Studio #173. The Yoseka sticker is actually from an online order a couple of weeks ago; it’s covering up bleed through from the planet in the previous photo.
February 8, 2025 at 9:35 PM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
More fun journal layouts. It’s been a wild week or two (or six), and I find myself turning to lots of color with varying degrees of success. Fountain pen ink samples help with coordination.
This one is more about the beetle sticker. A couple of years ago, I drew a little Easter/vernal equinox piece that included the stag horn beetle on the left. Recently, my son got a little 3D-model kit that let him build his own beetle out of paper and cardstock; the beetle on the right is from the packaging. When I saw the latter, it reminded me of the former, so I pulled it out of the piece and printed it on my Canon Ivy 2, then cut it out. Of course, it has led me to consider ways in which I can draw my own stickers, which is a bit further down the rabbit hole… Experimenting with dot markers and some leftover wrapping paper from a birthday gift for my daughter. Mixed results, I think, but of course color is my happy place. The mix of dot sizes possible with these markers is intriguing and makes me think of Jack Kirby from DC Comics; his style incorporated a lot of those. Alex Ross did a 100th-birthday tribute to him that reflects this aesthetic, which I guess you could say is my Roman Empire. A little simpler and more straightforward; layering of translucent geometric stickers of various shapes and types. Kind of an experiment in composition more than anything else. My favorite recent layout. The image on the left is courtesy of my two-year-old daughter (in the censored image on the right), who went a little nuts with some stamps one day. I loved the result; it’s so dreamy and textured, almost suggesting multiple perspectives layered on top of one another. It reminds me of Chagall, especially the stuff he was doing in the 1910s and 1920s, like a friend of mine, “Peasant Life,” which hangs in the Albright-Knox in Buffalo. One of those things that resonate. The date header is clipped from another part of the same toddler experiment.
January 30, 2025 at 2:47 AM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
I can’t be the only person who takes photos of book covers for my to-read list, only to completely memory-hole them for years until the Libby tag list needs a refresh.
January 24, 2025 at 12:44 AM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
I’ve been quiet for a number of reasons, but wanted to quickly drop a photo of a recent visit to my favorite YouTube studio ( /s ): Yoseka in Greenpoint, Brooklyn! I stopped by for the first time and found it as charming as their channel, which you can enjoy here: youtube.com/@yoseka?si=J...
A small but well-stocked storefront anchored by a long table in which dozens of pens are available to test. The shelves along the walls contain everything from journals to stickers and everything in between, including small hourglasses, bottles of ink, and trinket dishes. I showed up just after they opened, but it quickly grew crowded not long after this photo was taken.
January 23, 2025 at 5:50 PM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
Happy brain wrinkles today. I have what I call “friends”: pieces of art in museums that I revisit through the years. This one is the longest-standing, I think: 22 years and counting. It’s “The Dead Christ with Angels” by Manet, in the Met. More in description.
It’s really just a big painting of Christ’s corpse seated facing the viewer and cradled by a grieving angel with naturalistic blue wings over his left shoulder. His skin is yellowish-gray and a stab wound is visible just below his left pectoral. Over his right shoulder, another angel is visible, this one grey-winged and weeping. In the lower right-hand corner of the painting, a snake is visible among stones. The thing that makes the wrinkles happy is the angel on the right (Christ’s left). The wind that blows her hair back and billows her robe but affects no one else in the piece; the sorrowful serenity of her face contrasted with the naturalistically-rendered feathers on her wings; to me, she is just perfect. I also appreciate the piece overall; showing the actual corpse of Christ is a bit of a novel approach in Manet’s time, and isn’t something I’ve seen much of elsewhere. Some of the details also don’t quite jibe with the passage Manet identified John as the inspiration for the piece, so I appreciate even more how it (inadvertently or not) shows up the myth-building involved in the creation of the Bible. Accuracy isn’t the point! Though, ironically, the biological fidelity of the wings depicted were still the big attention-getter for me, from the first time I saw it to today.
January 17, 2025 at 9:26 PM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
This is my third year in a Hobonichi planner; my first in a Weeks. It’s interesting how different the experience is and to watch myself try to figure it out. Posting for accountability and to counterbalance the perfect spreads one sees posted so often. Sometimes ugly is as ugly does. #P&J
Last week’s pages. My use of color is a little chaotic, but generally one set is from stuff filled in in advance (yellow and and blue-black) and another set is from the colors for that week (pink and blue). I generally find it impossible to use a unified color scheme because…well, Reasons. An example of me figuring it out. I’m going to New York this week for some retail therapy. I like to strategize my purchases well in advance based on a number of factors, including price and comps from other b&m retailers in the city. For some reason, I didn’t think I’d need this week’s memo page so covered it with what to look for at a specific shop, including current retail price. Bad decision. And I’m still figuring out the relationship I want the weekly pages and the blank pages in the back of the Weeks to have (e.g. the box that says PAGE 4 refers to memo page 4 in the back), so for this week, I cut out one of the blank pages and tipped it in. This photo is from a couple days ago, and the blank page is pretty much covered at this point, so this is where I’m rethinking using a Weeks this year…
January 14, 2025 at 9:05 PM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
Got a Yamamoto paper tasting set—vol. 3, “Silky,” in case anyone was wondering—and swatched all of my full-size fountain pen ink bottles on each paper. A little obsessed with the result, which suggests I may be some kind of bird or pollinating insect.
All three types of paper together. From top to bottom, Sheep Clouds Bond; Smooth Art Paper; Yamamoto Bank Paper Takasago Premium. The bank paper is probably the best; I like the unique texture of the art paper, but it does REALLY funky things to the ink (and the little slip that comes with the sets says that it’s not suitable for dip pens anyway!); and although I do like how the SCB handles sheen in particular, it’s rougher than I’d like. The Sheep Clouds Bond. Sheen isn’t showing up well in any of those photos, but on this one, the LAMY Vibrant Pink has a beautiful greeny-gold sheen I haven’t seen in any other case and the Diamine Coral is LIMNED in gold. The art paper. Dull, dull, dull. The Fahrney’s Copperfield Brown (which is well-behaved, albeit no great shakes) comes through almost chalky and grayish??? All the warmth gets sucked out of the Herbin Violette Pensée and Vert Empire—and, in fact, nearly every other ink except the RO Ng Special, which just looks flat instead. The bank paper is probably the most balanced, although the Diamine Majestic Blue is the only one showing any sheen. It’s funny—SCB makes most of the colors more intense, except Aurora Borealis, which looks much more saturated on the bank paper. On top of that, the multichromatic nature of the SIS #173 comes through more aggressively here than on the SCB. Maybe I should be more scientific about how much ink I drop on these things.
January 10, 2025 at 2:25 AM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
Homemade collaged cover for my #Hobonichi Weeks mega. Chaotic and messy but then who isn’t?
The front. Paint sample chips, pastels, washi, holographic foil transfer. The back. Cricut adhesive vinyl, pastels, candle packaging (the Steinbeck photo and quote), more washi.
January 6, 2025 at 8:53 PM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
Current fountain pen friends. About half the collection; inks are all from samples.
Top to bottom: 1) Hongdian M2/Diamine 1892(??) Blue Black 2) Sailor Compass 1911/Diamine Graphite 3) TWSBI Eco/Iroshizuku Tsutsuji 4) Jinhao 82/Sailor Ink Studio #735 5) Kaweco AL-Sport/LAMY Beryl 6) Nahvalur Key West Pride/Sailor Ink Studio #741 7) Nahvalur Horizon Dawn/Iroshizuku Sui-Gyoku 8) Rotring Core/Diamine Sapphire Blue 9) Pilot Kaküno/Diamine Evergreen 10) Otto Hutt Design03/Sailor Manyo Chigaya What the actual inks look like in my shitty handwriting. I do favor broad nibs and tiny Hobonichis, unfortunately.
January 6, 2025 at 8:49 PM
earthrimroamer.bsky.social
In the new year, trying to keep stoking the creative fires by posting stuff that makes my brain wrinkles happy. To start with, recent layouts I liked (embarrassing journal stuff censored appropriately). #P&J
Most recent layout, with multicolored date headers and two different PET tapes along the bottom—a nighttime mountain range against stained-glass outer space. I’m especially pleased with how this one turned out! Basic, but I liked the mix of stickers with the coral squiggle. For added context, this was a Tarot reading I did for the coming year. Simple but, I thought, kind of neat. The forest scenes are from the same piece of PET tape; the horizon was cut off and applied to the date headers, while the rest is at the bottom of the entry. Not one I feel terrific about—don’t really like the ribbon up top, but live and learn—but I do like the layered tape and stickers on the right.
January 6, 2025 at 8:36 PM