Sample book

When I buy new pencils,paints or markers I usually make a sample book or chart of the colours. I find that it really helps, as you really never can tell how something will look just from the bottle or barrel of the pencil. Some mediums also change quite dramatically once you add water .

So I have lots of sample books,charts and bits of paper all over the place with various colours on them. I decided it really was time to make a 'master' sample book with them all in one place.

I used one of these Moleskines, they come in packs of 3 and are available in black,tan,red and blue ... in the UK you can buy them HERE...

They are also the same ones that I used in the circle journal from previous posts. When painting on the pages I glue 2 pages together as they are a little thin, but for this sample book I used the pages as they are.

When making samples always use the paper or card that is appropriate for that particular paint/pencil/marker.

So for markers a smooth card, for watercolour pencils and aquamarkers use a watercolour paper for alcohol inks use a glossy photo paper etc.

This means cutting pieces of paper in whatever shape you like and gluing those into the book, you cannot colour directly to the pages, markers will bleed through and water activated mediums will cause the paper to fluff up and buckle.

Add the colour samples to the book with names of the colours..

i also added tabs at the side so that I can easily find each section..

I ended up with 30 sections and a very fat book.  I ran out of pages and had to add some more.

Here is a video flip through of the whole book. 

Ian bought me a fabby set of spray ink for my birthday, set #2. I already got set#1 for xmas. So I decided I needed a little sample book so I can see at a glance which ones to use. I started by randomly spraying inks onto sheets of paper inside a cardboard box. Once dry i cut two pieces and glued them to chipboard to make covers.

Then I added a really long concertina of white card inside.




Next I used a scalloped punch to punch a circle out of white cartridge paper, one for each colour of ink.. I put each circle in turn into the box and sprayed with one colour.

I glued each circle onto a page of the concertina, adding the name of the ink underneath.



Next I decorated the front cover with a little collage.



and finally doodled around the inked circles and around the names.




small and cute, only about 2.5inches square, but does the job....and is now sitting on my desk so I can pick it up and flick thru to find which ink to use.