The Things You Find

I got to talking with a friend today about supplies for my shop and artwork. Etsy now allows you to work with a manufacturer as long as they fall under their guidelines and after looking at what I'd have to pay for matte photo paper, packaging to protect said paper, shipping labels, and ink, I went looking around online today to compare some professional printers. So far I've focused on one. White House Custom Color. I'm going to test them out since they let you do up to 5 8x10 inch test prints at no cost and that includes examples of what they have to offer. I'm not sure I'll do it, but it doesn't hurt to see what they can do.

My Epson XP-310 Printer is pretty good though. I've printed several copies of my "Druantia" drawing to test it out and it looks like it's been drawn on, except of course for the graphite glare I see on my original. I'm troubled, though, because after six or seven 8.5x11 inch prints on photo matte paper the black ink is already starting to run out. It's ink that came with the printer so I don't know if it's just a small sample of the ink or if all of their ink is like that. I sure hope not. Here's an example:

Believe it or not, the one on the left is the original. Without the glare from the graphite and grayscaling the image before printing, this is what you get on the right. Do you think I should do grayscale or keep it RGB?

I will never sell the original drawing. One, because my old man pretty much commissioned it and loves it, two because I had to tear the page out of a sketchbook and you can tell along one side, three... it's mine. I'm not sure about this printing paper, folks. It looks fantastic but nowhere on the packaging does it say acid free, archival type paper. I will be looking for another brand of paper to go with my next ink cartridge if White House Custom Color doesn't work out.

Other things I searched for today was a set of graphite lead that a friend gave to me years ago. I've moved around a lot and some of my art boxes have been taped up for a really long time. I finally moved into a house that I intend to never move from so I thought I'd bust out every bit of my art supplies and works while my kiddo slept. I have 3 boxes (BIG boxes) downstairs and it took looking through all of them to find what I just knew I had. I did think that I lost the ProArt lead holder, though.

Turquoise Eagle Drawing Leads. I looked up this particular lead a little bit ago because I didn't know much about it when I got it. It seems to be "vintage" now. I also found some charcoal pencils I never messed with and an ebony pencil. I'm going to experiment tomorrow with all of this. Fun times! Will post pictures of whatever I do, be they epic failures or not.

By the way, with all of this drawing I've been doing lately, my kiddo seems to have taken an interest in messing with my pencils (dubbed "Mommy's special-don't-you-dare-drop-them-and-break-the-lead-or-a-terrible-and-ominous-glare-in-your-particular-direction-will-befall-you pencils"). Here's how I found him earlier, tampering with a drawing I started this afternoon. He was drawing leaves on the bottom of the paper. 

I let him get away with it just this once because he was so determined. I told him later that he needs to ask before he goes drawing on other people's artwork. He seemed to understand. I tested him to see if he remembered an hour later when I gave him his own paper and pencils. I came in beside him, picked up a colored pencil and acted like I was going to draw something on his paper. The glare I received.... Yup, he got it. Oh, and now he wants me to scan his artwork like I've been doing with mine. He wants to show off! Heh. 

Well, it's super late AGAIN! As always, thanks for stopping by.