JournalFest Treasures

While out in Port Townsend for JournalFest, I visited Akamai Art and Glass Supply store.  They are the greatest art supply store and they have everything under the sun.  I heard about the Stabilo Woody 3-in-1 pencils during a class last year with LK Ludwig.  She used them in her journals and thought they were wonderful.  I made a not of them but never went to any lengths to find them.  Well, lo and behold, when I was wondering aimlessly though Akamai, I saw a full set hanging on the wall and I just had to have them.  I can never choose colors so I go ahead and buy the full set when I can and when it makes sense.  A box of 6 or 8 versus a box of 18--it was no contest!  Ha!  They have 1-cm "leads" in them and they go on sort of waxy.  However, like the 3-in-1 pencils, they completely dissolve with the application of enough water.  A very cool tool for the arsenal indeed.

I visited the JournalFest Gallery and found some items that had been submitted by Steve Salik.  The covers are made of polyer clay and the spines are made of leather.  I actually watched him create these at Play a couple of years ago and watched him demo his method of making faux jade and faux ivory.  The handmade books were in my price range so I was fortunate to be able to purchase both of them.  I really like Steve as a person and so that made the purchase that much sweeter.

Always being on the lookout for items I don't find at home much, I saw something I had recently heard about but hadn't had a chance to look for yet:  Inktense Blocks.  These are simply little sticks of the "lead" of Inktense watercolor pencils and allow you to put a lot of color on a page without wearing your pencils out.  I used it to make the background for my little fellow that I posted about a couple of days ago.  Not being an experienced watercolor artist I have a lot of learning to do about watercolor in general but at least I have used them and I will likely use them more in the future.  The other is a box of Derwent Aquatone watercolor pencils.  I have yet to use them enough to comment about them but hopefully I will soon.  Oh, and if you are wondering about the black tape, that is what I use to keep the boxes from popping open in my suitcase when I travel!

During the Vendor Night portion of JournalFest, I purchased this visual journaling class booklet from Juliana Coles.  I'm looking forward to cracking it open and getting started with some of it.

I also made some other vendor purchases from some other artists which I may post about later....if I can ever get some more photos taken.  Time is of a premium these days.