Dioxazine – my future art magazine

I like magazines. My favorite are art magazines with lots of pictures. Most art magazines nowadays are just full page ads for gallery exhibitions in New York or California.  What about Texas? Why can’t we have a cool art magazine that showcases Texas artists and not gallery clowns? Well I want to try and change that.

Many of my art friends from school have moved or are spread out all around the state so I set up a small forum so that we can hopefully build a scene of sorts in the Texas area.  I still need to figure out a way to start the magazine, as in get some money to pay folks to let me show their work. The first editions will be black and white pocket sized books that I may or may not screen print myself. The magazines would then be distributed online and through local shops who wish to do so.

The other thing that I need to do is corral these folks into one place, and subsequently draw more Texas artists together. Hence, the forum. I tried to create an online artist forum several years ago that failed due to lack of folks having the internet. With the advent of smartphones more of my friends are popping up on instagram and facebook so I think we’ve got a better chance of making it work this time.

Anyway if you are interested in having your work shown in a black and white bitty indie magazine then email me at dioxmag@gmail.com .

Three markers I must use.

I love really wide tipped markers. You can’t get that ribbon effect with a chisel tip or felt tip marker, plus they lend themselves to creating very good caligraphic fonts and letter styles which I adore. Below are three wide tipped markers that I really want to get my hands on:

1. Molotow Transformer 613tf

As you can see this one comes empty because the black filled ones are sold out everywhere. I don’t mind an empty marker because they are cheaper and I’d like to use my own ink formulas once I get around to messing with them. The best part about these is the tips and bodies are interchangeable to shorter handles, thinner tips, etc.

2. OTR .084 Calligraffiti Flowpen Marker

The basic On The Run flowpen created with the help of graf artist “Shoe”, this one has a slanted wide tip that makes it ideal for doing calligraphy letters. I was told that the ink that OTR uses is some of the best for good dark letters so I want to give this one a try.

3. Krink k-51 

Made in the USA. I hear that Krink makes quality products, and for 10 dollars a marker they had better be. I would love to try one of these out.

365 Project Day 12 – Last day of Noodlers Ink

Been using my husbands fountain pen ink with my nibs with sub par results. I’ve read comments where other people had problems using it in nibs as well so that makes me feel a little better. Anyway, I picked up a jar of india ink at the store today and will use it in tomorrows post! My video camera’s power cord should be in this afternoon so after this video the quality should get much better.

365 Project Day 11 – Curly Script

I like doing script fonts, they have the most character to them. Not much to say today. Took Cody to the airport this morning so I’ve been in a bit of a funk since then. Hopefully my doc visit tomorrow morning will show promise.

In this video I explain an idea I’ve been throwing around about a small run art magazine. Something very similar to this: http://www.endlesscanvas.bigcartel.com/category/zines
Just small pamphlet style magazines in black and white which would showcase artwork, photography, and literature that my friends make. I have several art school friends that have been meaning to get together but have all moved away or are constantly moving, making it hard to meet up. A small mag would kind of bring all that together I think. Just an idea.

Only problem I’d run into is being able to afford to pay the folks for the use of their photos/drawings/poetry as well as make the books cheap enough for normal people to afford. (everyone would want like 100$ each, so the art alone would cost me 3000 for a 30 page mag + materials and time and be 100% unprofitable)

365 Video Project – Day 10 Another Calligraphy Pen

I love working with ink like this, just gotta get the hang of it again. I’ll be purchasing some calligraphy pens and india ink soon, that should help with the application problems.

365 Project Day 9 – Basic Cholo Letters

I love working with big fat markers, making little cuts and corners in the paper is just more fun with them. Blocky letter styles like this lend themselves to big chunky markers like this. I copped this marker from work one day out in the shop floor. The smell is crazy strong but nothing like an open container of Nazdar.

365 Project Day 8 – Hand Written Sport Script

Not much to say with this one, I worked in an athletic print shop so long these are forever engraved my brain. Teddy woke up after I started so I had to stop, that’s why the J is already started in the video. Sharpie on the thick paper doesn’t glide well. Ran out of Moleskine so using the Becca book. It’s raining outside.

365 Project Day 7 – Tattoo Style Script Font

While I am not a fan of the use of this style of font professionally, I do find it very fun to draw. Any font where I have room to thrash the pen around is always a good one to write. I do need to practice to get it just right but for a start it doesn’t seem too bad.

JetGirl’s 365 Project Day 6 – Quick Tag

So I kind of ended up watching Fast Five and didn’t get a chance to set up anything too fancy tonight. Teddy didn’t get to bed till late so that also threw my timing off. Oh well, today’s video is up none the less!

365 Project Day 5 – Western Style Font

Since yesterdays video was so short I thought I would make up for it with a long drawn out detail video which included something with serifs. I was all ready to do some wicked thin bits with my trusty Pilot brush pen but when I pulled it out of the drawer it had dried up on me. /sadface So I switched gears and did the piece you see here with a blocky old western font which I adore. I like really old fonts and typefaces which don’t need to be exactly uniform.

The pen I refer to in the video is a Pilot Double Sided Brush Pen which you can purchase here. The pen I talk about using in High School is the Pilot V5 and V7 series which you can find here. If you are too young to know what the joke is here it is a play on the words “Post no Bills”.

JetGirl’s 365 Video Project – Day 4 Vintage Tattoo Lettering

I liked this one the video was nice and quick, things ran smoothly. I am getting to the last few pages of my large Moleskine notebook which means I’ll either switch to my pocket one or write on larger individual sheets of paper. I would like to do some outdoor videos in the future using drippy markers and paints if possible once the temps warm up a tad. Anyway, I thought today I would give tattoo lettering a shot. I like the simple line quality and little curves that everything gets on the ends and such. Once I realized that the video was way too short I quickly started to shade the thing for the sake of making a whole minute long video.

365 Project Day 3 – I never said I was good at this.

So the first day one of my friends requests the font from Bioshock, aka “Andes”, so today I gave it a stab. I have a long way to go as far as getting my practice in with those new dip pens and I learned something today when switching from the thin hard Moleskine paper to the rugged and absorbent watercolor paper – Moleskine paper is no good for dip pens. The first day I tried my dip pens I thought “oh man I need a different ink!” blaming the ink is commonplace in screen printing as it is generally the culprit in application failure. However, when the first video I shot failed I had to switch to a handmade book my little sister made me which showed me just how important a good paper is to your drawing/inking medium. I think I’ll do some research into good calligraphy papers. I will continue to use the handmade “Becca” book for any dip pen applications.