Illustrations

They say that one should not judge a book by its cover, but I quite often do, there are good books with unexciting covers but I've also thought that if they don't bother to make an interesting cover, what's the point. This visual judging of books started as a kid, if a picture book has good illustrations, I'm more inclined to read it.

I wouldn't classify a lot of illustrations as "high art" but it was an early introduction for me and so many others, to the arts. One of the books I grew up with was Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and today I got to go see an exhibit of his work. It was fun to have the nostalgia of childhood but also to be able to see these images as drawings, sketches, watercolors, lithographs etc. and to be able to appreciate Sendak's skills as an artist.

Arches

I want to take a moment to say how wonderful Arches paper (pronounced arsh, it's French) is. Arches is fantastic watercolor paper, it's such a high quality, it's the best I've used, though I imagine there might be a few other brands better. Good quality paper makes it possible to make better paintings, there's a reason that they've been in business for centuries. Thank you Arches, for beautiful paper and a quality product!

Work with quality

I recently restocked some art supplies and I was reminded that they can be costly but for all that it can be worth it. I think there's a tendency to use cheaper materials because they're cheaper, I certainly did for quite a while. I was told at one point to use better materials and I resisted for a while, after all I was an art student but I've come to see the wisdom in using better quality materials.
Probably the more obvious reason to use quality is that I'm an artist, I want to sell my work, I don't want to have to worry about someone being upset down the road because a painting or drawing wasn't made to last like they thought it should. I work to make my art archival; you see lots of paintings in museums that are cracked etc. and in many cases there are older works in better shape because they were made in a more archival manner, it's sad to see paintings that grow old before their time. As much as I love da Vinci, his Last Supper is a perfect example, that fresco is absolutely beautiful but due to the experimental method da Vinci used, it had issues almost immediately. I've gotten a little off topic but I go to higher quality materials because they have a greater tendency to be archival as well.
Depending on what type of material and how you use it, you might also be able to make it last a long time. I have some watercolors that I got four or five years ago that I'm still using or only recently replaced.
The less obvious reason, at least to me, was the impact quality materials make on your final product, from brushes to paper, etc. I don't remember an obvious right away realization, it may have been when I used some lower quality materials that I was able to see the difference, better quality materials, better quality work.

Good article on Islamic Design

A friend shared this article with me and it's a good read and intro into Islamic Design. Check it out.

A visit to the Met

Fortuitous circumstances introduced me to this video today and I had to share it! So apparently the Metropolitan Museum of Art undertook to create a facsimile of a Moroccan courtyard. I really hope I get a chance to see this space in person. Back to the video, I love all this video says about craftsmanship, I feel like in many ways craftsmanship has fallen by the wayside here, but clearly there is great worth in craftsmanship.