Tag: Art supplies

The Worst Digital Camera on Amazon

Deer Me

On any given day I talk to zero people. As a result, other people’s opinions have an odd place in my heart. I like that they exist, I don’t generally care what they are, but I do like that there are other people and that they have opinions. I’ve found this makes reviews of items, reading them I mean, rather satisfying.

I should mention I don’t mean like the Consumer Reports review, or some professional write up that might as well be advertising. I mean dumb shit like the customer reviews on Amazon.

Over there you can find a 20 mega pixel digital camera by Polaroid of all people which everyone hates. The Polaroid iXX090 isn’t just an itty-bitty camera with an idiotic name, it’s roundly despised. So of course I picked one up for all of $10.00

Actual things people say in reviews: it wipes out batteries after ten photos. It is incredibly hard to open the battery door. It doesn’t come with a memory card. It takes lousy photos that are worse than he ones their phone does.

A few actual things about the phone: it’s tiny. It runs on two AAA batteries. It uses a micro-usb cord and a micro SD card. It has a selfie screen and a taking screen. It’s shock-proof, water-proof and freeze-proof. It weighs less than my phone.

It doesn’t appear to kill batteries and I expect everyone saying otherwise wants to treat it like a phone and leave it on all the time while using cheap rechargeable batteries that are nearing the end of their usable life. Mine’s over 100 photos deep on it’s first set of grass-station alkaline’s. The battery door is easy to open, slide the button, then slide the door. Mine came with a 16 GB microSD card. It takes fine photos as far as digital cameras go.

Worst sketch ever? Maybe. Camera? No.

Rapseco Supaclip

Deer Me

The best art supply, that isn’t an art supply is the Rapseco Supaclip 40. Why is that? ‘Cause it’s a binder clip but without those little arms that get in the way. Those arms can be nice, and yeah you can pinch them and take them off if they are in your way, but I lose them when I do that. So I don’t have to fold them down and have them cover the paper I want to clip to a panel and I don’t have to fold them back and have them hang off the edges getting in my way. I can just use Supaclips.

That means I can clip paper to a panel and use it in anything that is built to hold a panel, like a pochade box. And they add just a hair of a sand-off so I can stack painted panels. I freaking love Rapesco Supaclips. The size 40 are perfect for eighth inch panels.

Schmincke Horadam Aquarell Eight Half-Pan Metal Pallet with Water Container

Deer Me

I might have a problem with watercolor pallets. I want to find one that’s perfect, that has everything I want, and nothing I don’t. That means I have a lot of pallets. Most recent is a little metal one from Schmincke. There’s at least three companies out there making the same pallet, Schmincke is just one, Whiskey Painter’s and Field Artist are the other two. The Schmincke is the most expensive one, but it’s also the only one to come with eight artist-grade half pans. Not bad for around twenty bucks more. It still comes out at less than a hundred which is my personal spend-on-art-supplies ceiling.

Things I like:

  • Has a ring on the bottom, which is important because when I grip something too firmly, queue the tremors
  • Has a built in water flask; don’t need a bottle or a water-brush (which I’m not a fan of)
  • Has an attached water cup; don’t gotta bring one along
  • Small enough to fit in anything
  • Sturdy enough to not need to be inside something
  • Only two mixing areas

Alright, so every other review out there is gonna say “ew gross! only two mixing wells!”. I get it, more wells, more mixing, more colors, whatever. I work small, five by seven inches and five by seven inches only and forever, amen. I like having just two, more than that is hard to stay focused. Mix a color, paint everything that’s gonna be that color, move on. Add a brush load of something more to one and glaze it over something that’s mostly dried. Two wells is good. Some dig the limited color pallet, I dig that, and the limited mixing pallet.

I don’t really love that I can’t fit any brush I like in the pallet. I mean, you can fit one of those tiny, super-short handle brushes (like the stubby Winsor & Newton ones that come with their smallest pallets) and maybe some ultra-tiny retractable brush. No normal travel brush is gonna fit. Not a Da Vinci four, not an Escoda Versitil four, certainly not the six or eight rounds I prefer. Oh well.

I should mention the matte enamel mixing wells don’t need breaking in. The flash doesn’t leak. It’s best to pour out of the flask not by shaking it but just a little squeeze to the pallet, the metals thin enough to flex a bit and that overcomes the air pressure that keeps the water from flowing out the little hole nice and smooth. I’m very happy with it.

Haven’t tried the paints that came with it yet, it’s got the eight from that Altoids tin Sennelier in it now. Gonna try and use those up.