Art Activity Idea: Trying out the Studio Series Blank Book from Barnes & Noble

Found these blank books at Barnes & Noble, and thought that they might make for a fine collaborative art project with my nephews. You could tackle it as a family project one rainy day and engage the writing and illustration skills of everyone in its completion. Once finished, you could put the protective clear plastic cover back on, and your new custom picture book would be ready to join the rest of your children's library.

Drew a custom cover with a pigmented pen liner and  colored it with with markers.

Copic and Prismacolor markers worked fine on the hard cover material, but they will bleed through the interior pages a bit. It will be not an issue if you only draw on one side of each sheet, but if you do choose to color with markers you may want to use some protective absorbent sheets underneath the paper.

Interior cover drawn on first page a fine pigment pen reflecting the kids interests and favorite animals. The "Series" component reflect what the kids see in their own reading books collections these days.

Pencil and pigment felt tip pens work just fine on the interior pages with minimal show through. since they are a pretty good thickness for drawing paper.


Added a few graphic designs to opposing corners of two book spreads, so that the young ones may add additional doodles or text as they see fit.

While you could use any black pen for lettering and drawing, I would recommend choosing archival pigmented pens for their permanence and water-resistant qualities. That way you have maximum flexibility in your selection of coloring materials afterwards. Meaning you don't have to worry about smears and smudges once ink and lettering have dried, and you can use alcohol-based markers and some light water-based media..

I like the brightness of the marker inks on the white paper,

 but they do seep through the page as shown above..

Watercolor pencils will work dry or wet, but keep washes light to minimize warping of the paper. We plan to continue to work on further pages in an organic manner developing additional text and images simultaneously.

Naturally you could tackle it in a more organized and planned fashion, by writing and laying out each page before filling the actual blank book. Now go make your own picture book.

Just a couple more coloring/sketching pages from the book. Some I started with some partial sketches for the kids, others were drawn on top of drawings the kids started. I colored parts of them with different hues to encourage the kids to use multiple colored pencils when coloring a given section.

Rikota Brush Markers Set Review

Thanks George for generously sending me these Rikota Brush Markers and Sterling protractor and 6" ruler. The latter two make a nice addition to my collection of straight edges and templates and are a nice reminder of a time when drafting products were actually manufactured in the USA. While the country of origin is not clearly indicated on the markers, it is a fairly safe bet that they were made in China or Taiwan like the rest of the stationery offerings at Barnes & Noble.
These marker sets can often be found in the artists' section of Barnes & Noble bookstores. I would regard them as a value-priced introducion to the creative potential of brush pens as sketching and coloring tools.
Color chart drawn on blank Rhodia paper.
Quick coloring test.

Their brush-shaped felt nibs are not particularly sturdy nor resilient. Three of them are already sporting frayed tips after very light use during these review tests. Line variation is accomplished mainly by rotating the rather rigid nib on the paper rather than changing the pressure on the brush nib.
Their pigment load is low to moderate, so a single brush stroke tends to look fairly light on bright white paper. For rendering darker hues and shadows, they layer and blend fairly well. Yet, I would not bet on the longevity of the work created with these markers. They are clearly meant for creating disposable art like notes, greeting cards, and perhaps some calligraphic marks while the brush nibs are still somewhat new.
This set of 12 Rikota Brush Markers would make a nice coloring present for a kid artist or provide a spot of fun for an adult artist stranded on a strange city away from his or her regular art supplies. For higher quality brush markers, I would recommend trying the Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens or the Tombow Mono Dual Brush-pens.

Review of the Barnes & Noble Wacky Birds Colored Pencil Block in Acetate Box Set of 13

On a recent trip to a Barnes & Noble bookstore, I found this neat set of colored pencils.
Their original block pencil set presentation resembles a pencil "sandwich" before it is cut into individual pencils, so it could easily be used as a visual aid when explaining to kids how pencils are made.
Despite their natural interest in coloring and drawing activities, younger kids might grow bored with the limitations of the same old materials (mostly crayons) available to them for their artistic pursuits. To keep them motivated, it is a good idea to introduce new drawing and coloring tools from time to time.

Both of my pre-school age nieces enjoyed folding and rolling the flexible pencil block set while the 12 colored pencils were still attached to each other. The oldest one quickly pointed out that this colored pencil set was"clearly" designed for kids and shrewdly talked me into letting her take them home after promising that she would share them with her little sister.
The rectangular profile of each pencil is rather unique and comfortable enough for doodling with the added advantage that they won't roll off an inclined drawing surface.
The pencils can be easily sharpened with standard sharpeners.
Freshly sharpened set. Top side of the pencil block features the picture of whimsical birds while the bottom and sides are painted white.Since each colored pencil is decorated only one one side, they can also function as an easily solvable puzzle by memorizing the color sequence of the set.
For an inexpensive gift set, these Wacky Birds Colored Pencils laid down fairly bright colors on the white card stock. After completing this color chart, I used a few colors on the apple sketch as an example for Nicole that she could use more than the red pencil to render the apple surface. Thus, she promptly sketched the falling apple with the red, orange, green, and purple pencils underneath and even saved some white to convey its reflective surface. These 13 pencils make for a nice portable sketching gift set.

Bookstores' Colored Pencils

Picked up an inexpensive set of 24 short colored pencils (3 3/8" long) neatly packaged in a Kraft tube at Borders. Its compact size make it suitable for field sketching and ideal for long car trips with the kids.
Already had a set of large colored pencils from Barnes and Noble artist supplies section in my studio collection.
Both sets are unpainted which lends them a rather distinctive look laying down on a drawing table, but in practice it slows down color selection while working with them. Always a good idea to make color charts of new coloring sets on a sketchbook for future reference of their actual hue and intensity on the paper.
The smaller pencils' swatches were slightly more saturated, but neither set was particularly bright like professional artist pencils. Sets of these student grade art supplies are useful as starter sets for fledgling artists and to keep their younger siblings entertained once they switch to artist grade supplies.