I wanted this pen for a while and decided to treat myself to it. Its arrival experienced some delay (apparently, we have postal strikes) but it did arrive safe and sound eventually.

And it looks absolutely stunning in real life. The photos don't capture the shiny of the flowers very well, and it looks much better in daylight than it does in artificial light. I bought it for the pretty-factor, and much to my delight, it also writes well. I wrote several letters with it so far, and yes, after four pages my hand will hurt, but normally I don't even last four pages.

Some more photos of it, and its writing:

I want to live here, with the garden on top of the house.

Or maybe on the right there, with a garden and a little fence and maybe a goat.

She lives in the forest in a house between the roots of a big old tree. She likes feathers and playing.

Her father likes fishing and cooking, her mother builds things. Mostly furniture.

Late night doodling.

[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

Other people suffer from enjoy it too, right? An abundance of art supplies? I could do without of course, but I so very much like them....

I got a few more Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens. I like them a lot. I think I need a lighter brown though. Not sure yet, have to try all of these out first, hehe.

In other news, I made a new little website over at http://inkblobchronicles.com (and a matching twitter-account on ( @inkblobs). I will post my dailies there mostly. Some still here, but I like to have a dedicated space for those dailes. I will keep the site as low-text as possible.

I drew this daily in my pocket moleskine sketchbook and feel a little torn. I like the pre-printed dates in the planner, which works as an extra stimulant to draw every day. On the other hand, my colours bleed / shine through a lot which causes a few annoyances on my side. And on one side I can get over that, like how I get over the pre-printed lines. On the other side, I just like it more when it doesn't show that much.

The added benefit of using an 80-page pocket sketchbook: it fills up much faster which works as a great motivator too. One of these days I will actually fill up an entire sketchbook ;)

So, for now, I think I'll switch to the sketchbook. As my friend said, I can always change my mind again.

[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

I had a sofa day. Not the entire day, because I did do some drawings, just most of the day.

Nano and I went for a firm walk in the afternoon, and then crawled back on our spots on the sofa to watch MacGyver.

I also made a drawing about a recent event in the hospital, where certain body-parts got squashed between a very uncomfortable machine. I prefer not to repeat that.

These past few days I've made a few autobiographical drawings with myself as a cartoon character. I also did a few of Nano, because she plays a big part in my life. I used to do these drawings / cartoons (I might dig them up and scan, no promises however!) and stopped doing them when I started to do 'serious' drawings. I now feel I can do both, so I do :)

Today we visited a few monuments in the city of Alkmaar. We nibbled some cheese and one stand had free poffertjes. Though the official recipe uses buckwheat flour, most poffertjes-makers these days use plain wheat-flour to make them. As did these. I can't tolerate wheat very well but couldn't resist nibbling on one little poffertje with lots of butter and powdered sugar. And then I had one more. And another.

The following tummy-ache did not make me happy. But eating poffertjes did. It made my week, aaah!

[gallery link="file" columns="4"]

Today turned out pretty good. My new (2010) moleskine daily planner arrived. With around 1/3 of the year still ahead of us, I decided to purchase it (with discount, haha) to try out daily or semi-daily sketching / drawing about my day.

I drew a little cartoon me on the first page and filled august 15th -- my birthday -- with a happy drawing.

For today I grabbed both pages, as I couldn't really remember what I did yesterday (not much, I suspect). We went out and bought me a new jacket, much needed since my other jackets have magically grown to large. I also bought a teapot at IKEA where we also returned some unneeded stuff from the kitchen-rebuild. Finally have a proper tea-pot now!

I chose the stainless steel with thermos properties because I like to keep my tea hot. And I don't always drink it fast enough.

I also bought a 5 way opener. I recently found one at a cooking shop and bought it for myself, since it would replace 4 items in my drawer (yes, I did get rid of those other items). I really love it, it helps a lot with opening jars and cans and such. I got one for my mother too, because she's had some trouble opening cans and such. I hope she'll like it.

Inspired by AnnaDenise and Kathrin J-M I wanted to try some drawing in my moleskine planner.

At first my brain objected: I couldn’t possible draw through _pre-existing lines!_

Que ‘Eye of the tiger’ and I did it anyway.

Sometimes you just have to do what your brain objects to.

I recently purchased a new rucksack.

Yes, another one.

Some people buy shoes, or clothes, or purses, or gadgets, or games. I buy rucksacks.

Because of my RA I can't carry regular bags easily and shoulder-bags pretty much kill me. No joke, I seriously ended up at the ER once (with Christmas) because I carried one and it gave me horrible tendinitis that left me in so much pain someone had to drive me to the hospital. I easily get tendinitis in shoulders and neck, and a rucksack seems to work best in preventing it.

This one weighs less than a kilogram on its own, has its own rain-cover and it came with a separate pouch you can either hang on that loop on the inside, or attach to the waist-belt.

Bonus-points if you guess who I have hanging on it. *[RA]: Rheumatoid Arthritis