Hi guys!
I thought I'd try something a little different today as a bonus video.
Whilst I do a bit of arting in my sketchbook I'll talk about what I've been up to,
recent experiences and what exciting things I have planned next for my channel.
This won't be so much of a process video as it is a talky-vlog type video with most
content being relevant to art stuff and my channel, there will still be a regular video
this weekend of course, so if you're not interested in this type of video, still keep an eye out
for that one.
But if you are interested in finding out what exciting things I have in store and what's
been going on behind the scenes here, perhaps go grab a nice cup of tea, pick up a sketch
book and draw along with me!
I have a feeling that this is going to be a long video, so I will leave some timestamps
in the description box down below, to key sections of the video if you only want to
stay to find out about certain things.
So just a quick preface with what I'm doing here- I'm drawing a cat here in my sketchbook,
starting off with Prismacolor Col-Erase pencils, and then I'll colour it with some watercolour
brush pens and I ended up also using some coloured pencil and pens as well to add in
extra detail.
All the materials I use for this piece will be in the video description.
This was going to be a quick 20 minute realtime sketchbook study to be similar in length to
the voiceover, but I got carried away and ended up spending just over an hour on it-
so I have sped the footage up by about three times.
If I had known that I was going to spend as long as I did on it, I would've spent far
longer on the sketch making sure that it was a little more accurate than it is.
But that's just about typical really, and I find that this tends to happen when working
in my sketchbook.
As you may have noticed, I missed a week of uploading a week and a bit ago.
And that's because over the Christmas period I was back in the UK to spend some time with
family and friends.
I had managed to record one video in advance to make public whilst I was on holiday, but
alongside some commissions and an exam just before I left for England, I simply didn't
have time to make more.
So apologies for that but I'll try my best to make up for it!
I had a fantastic time in England- I hadn't been back for 2 and a half years so it was
about time for me to see my friends and family members.
It was also good to have some time to do a bit of drawing as well, after completing lots
of commissions it was really relaxing to draw whatever I felt like really and play around
with some new supplies too- which of course will be shown in an upcoming haul video.
It was also really nice to have a bit of daylight for two and a half weeks- where I live in
Norway we have about a month and a half of almost total darkness during the winter, so
having a more normal circadian rhythm was really refreshing!
Whilst in the UK I just had to go and visit some art shops and stationers, as my corner
of the country in Norway has very little choice really and it sounds silly, but I really missed
wandering around art shops just browsing and finding out about new items.
There were 3 locally-run art-shops that I'd decided I'd stop by on my trip- I had very
fond memories of them so that just made the experience doubly good- and there's something
really charming and personal about small locally run art shops compared to the huge chain-type
stores, or online shopping.
And of course it's important to support local businesses... and yes I suppose there is a
bit of irony there as I did travel 3 hours by plane just to reach them... but they are
local to my hometown at least.
Well, the first two "local" shops I had chosen to visit had quite obviously been shut
down, which was really quite sad, but I suppose somewhat inevitable.
But at least the last one I went to was still hanging on- and looked to be doing quite well
too...
So if you do happen to be tuning in from the South East of England, I really recommend
M Saltmarsh Artist Materials in Tunbridge Wells as they have an incredible selection
of just about anything.
It really is a treasure trove and I could've spent hours there!
I also wandered in to a WHSmiths- which is a book and stationery type store.
In stores like these like to use my phone with mobile internet to compare prices to
online stores to see if prices are considerably cheaper online- which happened to be the case
for the majority of items unfortunately, so it was only really worth my while picking
up some bits and pieces open-stock there, and something that happened to be on sale.
They were selling Derwent Pastel pencils openstock there and I was tempted to pick a few up,
but a lot of their items on display there had obviously not been handled with care by
patrons or employees, so I really didn't fancy the risk of buying a defective product.
And pastel pencils are notoriously fragile and almost impossible to use if their cores
have been damaged.
Similarly, the majority of brushes they were selling had been damaged in some way, by those
protective tubes being pulled off the ends of the brushes and then either being haphazardly
forced back on or the bristles damaged some other way.
Needless to say it was a very sorry sight and is a helpful reminder not just to be very
critical of the products that you're buying, but the type of environment they're in when
you're buying them.
On a related note, in the locally run art shop I went to, I happened to find some loose
sheets of sanded pastel paper that had obviously been hidden away and forgotten for years,
and some sheets were a little dusty and dirty.
So of course, I haggled and got them for half price and they cleaned up just fine with a
kneaded putty eraser.
And that's just another benefit of shopping local I suppose- they seem to be much more
understanding and willing to compromise.. and the people working there generally speaking
are more knowledgeable about the products as they are often artists as well.
In other supply-purchasing news, I ordered more items from Jackson's Art Supplies.
If you watched my previous haul video, you might recall that I had some issues with Jackson's
in the past, but because they are very reasonably priced, have a brilliant selection and have
great shipping options I decided to use them again anyway.
Unfortunately I had another problematic encounter with them, but it's on its way to being resolved
now.
What had happened was that I ordered some items on the 8th of December, but one of my
items- an A3 pad of paper- was put on backorder as it was out of stock, and would be mailed
to me at the next possible opportunity.
I got my items sent to my parents in the UK as I qualified for free UK shipping on my
order, and I was at home in England to receive the items when I arrived.
When I checked, everything expected was there and very well packed.
I had also chosen a delivery day though and they actually had delivered it the day before,
but luckily my Mother was at home to receive the package anyway
But upon closer inspection, the order form said that the pad of paper would arrive on
the 15th- and it didn't, and I only noticed that this was the case when I looked through
my order form before the New Year as I was beginning to worry that it wouldn't arrive
on time.
Not checking the order form sooner was totally my fault- I should've thought to look more
closely at it sooner, but... these things happen.
So as it was rapidly approaching the New Year, I sent an e-mail, realised that it probably
wouldn't be read soon, so I then went on to phone their customer helpline.
After a few minutes of waiting, I was put through, then told that the pad would next
be back in stock after I left England, so I reorganised shipping so that the pad would
be sent here to me in Norway instead.
I had to pay extra for the international shipping of course, but it wasn't extortionate at four
pounds and twenty two pence- overall, the paper still works out to be much cheaper than
other online retailers.
It does still feel like an unnecessary extra cost that I had to pay for though...
But I does make me wonder what happened to my order- perhaps the paper just didn't come
back in stock at all for it to be able to arrive on the 15th, or maybe something else
happened for my order to be missed.
And to top it all off, I got an email confirmation through saying that the item has been shipped.
But my address has been misspelled- which I suppose is not too surprising given that
it isn't easy to communicate a foreign address over the phone... although frustratingly the
address on my paypal invoice was correct and they probably could've referred to that to
check.
I imagine (or at least hope!) it will still arrive with me given that the address is probably
close enough to work its way through the system.
But the bigger issue is that the recipient on the address is my Mother, and to collect
packages here in Norway the recipient needs to show ID.
So in other words, I might not actually be able to actually pick up my pad of paper if
it does arrive at the post office.
The customer service agent understood the whole change of address situation and why
it was happening, and she even addressed me as "Claudia", so it came as a surprise
when the recipient name was incorrect as well.
I've sent another e-mail to Jackson's but they simply said that there's nothing they
can do ,and if I have any further problems to no hesitate to contact them...
It's frustrating and unnecessarily stressful.
And I'm just hoping that if it does arrive at my local post office, the workers there
will be trusting and understanding enough to accept the situation and hand off the package
to me.
I really want to like Jackson's for reasons already mentioned, but so far I've had issues
with every single one of my orders one way or another.
I'm probably just incredibly unlucky of course- but I'd love to hear your experiences with
the retailer- good or bad!
Now moving on to more positive things, and information relating more to my channel!
So first off, I have a huge amount of art supplies I'd like to review and if I continue
at my current rate of 1 review a month I'll never get around to doing them all.
So for now I want to bump my frequency up to 1 every 3 weeks or so, and I might also
start doing mini reviews as occassional bonus videos on other things- such as support materials
like blenders, sharpeners ...uhh...and other products I've found to be really handy and
have mentioned in other videos- but want to take a closer look at.
I don't want to become a review channel solely- I really like sharing knowledge about other
things as well, and although I relish being analytical and thorough I think repeating
my format too frequently might become a little dull for you guys and draining for me.
So don't worry- there will still be an interesting variety of videos coming!
I do have a mini-series planned coming up about waterbased markers and a few different
methods of blending and techniques to try with them which will hopefully be fun and
interesting- and they will be separated out over the course of a few weeks.
I have 3 videos planned for this series so far.
I also have a lot of footage that I can now release that I captured whilst working on
Christmas commissions- these commissions had to remain secret until the clients gave them
to their recipients.
So the footage is all coloured pencil pet portraits and I plan on using this footage
to demonstrate some of my glazing techniques and also how I draw fur.
Coming up, hopefully in the near future, is a collaboration with the lovely Scribblefix.
I've been meaning to collaborate with her for some time now, but I've been so busy that
it's been difficult to set time aside for another video that would need to be filmed
in advance.
I'm really looking forward to this collab video, and I'm incredibly grateful that I
have such a patient and understanding collaboration partner!
As some of you may have noticed, in the last few months I've been adding English subtitles
to my uploads.
I thought that adding subtitles might mean that more of my videos can be understood and
enjoyed by more people.
The auto-captioning does seem to be fairly accurate with most of my videos- especially
from about May of 2017 which was when I started using a different microphone and the audio
became a lot clearer.
But auto-captioning isn't perfect and it struggles a lot with brand names and unfamiliar arty
jargon, so I'm now starting to add English subtitles to some of my older videos that
are continuing to be frequently watched.
Also, thank you very much to Agniezska Varstadt!
She's been translating my videos and uploading Polish subtitles, which has been absolutely
fantastic.
I realise that it must be a lot of work- it takes time to subtitle them in English from
scratch so I can't begin to imagine what it's like to translate the videos too!
Having somebody message me out of the blue and say that they've done all of this work-
purely on good will- really warms the cockles of my heart!
Another exciting little update is that I plan on hosting a giveaway on my channel soon!
I'll make the announcement when I reach 2,000 subscribers which is tantalisingly close and
I can't believe it!
We've grown so quickly and it's all down to you guys, so thank you so much for subscribing
and sharing my content with your friends and family.
This giveaway is actually somethingI had planned to do when I reached 1,000 subscribers, but
it took me a while to get the prizes organised and delivered and now I'm so close to two
thousand that it's worthwhile to wait a couple of weeks and make the prizes bigger and better!
There'll be two lucky winners.
Each will receive a 6 set of Derwent Drawing Pencils, a fantastic selection of paper, a
small assortment of pencils and pens as well as a piece of my original artwork.
The items included in this fun little arty care package are materials that I really enjoy
using, or lend themselves to techniques that I find myself using frequently.
So yes- if you haven't already and you really like my videos, don't forget to subscribe
if you don't want to miss out on the giveaway announcement.
And of course the sooner we hit two thousand the sooner I'll start up the giveaway!
On another note, I've been arranging some of my videos into medium-specific playlists,
so If you want to binge watch a bunch of my videos specifically about coloured pencils
or waterbased markers, you now can!
As per tradition at this time of year, I thought I'd give myself some new goals for 2018- as
well as trying to improve and maintain my current ones, to try and drive my channel
a bit harder and my art journey and business as a whole.
I'd love to know if you guys like to make New Years Resolutions too, or if you have
any that you'd like to share that are art-related!
The big one for me is to keep uploading 1 video a week here on YouTube, but also to
try and get better at uploading on time.
I've been a bit hit-and-miss with uploading on time for the last half year or so because
I'm currently studying nursing full-time... in my second language too, and as you might
imagine, it's a lot of work.
My schedule for the channel had been to upload every weekend (usually Sunday) but often I'd
only get to upload on Monday or Tuesdays.
There have been a few reasons why this has happened- sometimes I've been ill, busy with
school-work, commissions, or I've had to re-record and edit the whole video again because something
has gone wrong.
Other times I've had family events to go to over the weekend- and although I don't like
uploading a day or two late, I'd hate to miss out spending time with family.
And ultimately I'd rather upload late than upload something rushed or that I'm not happy
with- you guys deserve good quality content, not just something that's been... slapped
together.
So to try and improve on this, I'm going to try and work ahead with my videos so that
I'll have a couple of videos made in advance and I'll be working on next week's video-
or the one the week after- in the current week, if that makes sense.
I'm sure some of you know how long it takes to make a video- a conservative estimate would
be that I spend about 20 hours a week working on weekly videos for my YouTube channel.
Some videos might be quicker of course, and others might take longer.
I don't want to sound like I'm complaining here, I really enjoy making videos and communicating
with you lovely people, but I do want to call attention to how much work content creators
put into their videos even if it doesn't necessarily seem like it- it was definitely a surprise
for me!
And all this being said, I certainly don't want to discourage you guys from sending in
video suggestions- I love making content that you find really beneficial!
Anyway, I digress!
My next little resolution is to get better at posting on Facebook and Instagram.
Before I started my degree I was fairly good at uploading regularly- not quite every day
but usually about 5 times a week or so.
Now, I've let that slip- and it's not that I don't have things to show, it's that I need
to become more inventive with what I could take photographs of as I'm working.
I also want to get better at communicating with you on there too!
Speaking of which, I'd love if you could follow me there- I post lots of things you don't
see in my videos, and sneak-peeks too!
My next little goal for this year is to get more involved with my local art community.
I'm definitely too used to staying in my comfort zone, behind my computer, to share my art.
But I think it's about time that I really tried to push myself a bit to try and market
more to a local audience and community as well.
Another goal I have is to see if I can use my new camera for recording- and perhaps get
some editing software that's a little more up-market than Windows Movie Maker.
I really want to improve the quality of my videos.
My current set-up has served me well so far, but there's certainly room for improvement.
If I have time, I'd also love to try some livestreaming at some point.
Last summer I streamed on Twitch for a bit and it was great fun and I'd really like to
do that again.
That would also mean that I can share with you guys my real-time progress- something
people have been asking a lot for, but currently I simply don't have time to edit and voice-over
several hours of footage.
I'm unsure yet if I'd want to use Twitch to stream, or stream here on YouTube- so if you
have any preference I'll leave a poll in the top right, and I'd really appreciate it if
you could give me your opinions on it!
On a similar note, I'm also interested in starting up a Patreon at some point this year,
but once again friends, I need your guidance!
There's another poll under that letter "i" icon and I'd appreciate if you answered that
one as well- and be honest!
If you would be interested in me running a Patreon and have some specific reward ideas
that you'd really love to see, I'm all ears in the comment section!
I'd also love to hear feedback on my ideas, and constructive criticism for my videos too.
I'm constantly striving to make my regular videos better so I would love to hear your
opinions.
I think that just about summarises this mammoth of a video- I don't think there's much more
I could talk about.
But, I hope you enjoyed this bonus video, if you'd want to see more of these personal
videos in the future, please leave this video a like.
Thank you very much for watching, I hope you guys continute to have a lovely week and I'll
see you in the next video!
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