The Strange Connector - Art & Play

SALE ALERT!!!!

Viceversa, the handmade paper company whose paper and sketchbooks I have fallen in love with and covered on my channel, is doing a 30% sale (code is SCONTO30, which you need to enter at checkout in order to take advantage of the discount).

Their website is: www.viceversapaper.it

PS - this is not a sponsored post or any kind of advertising. I just follow their Instagram profile and was notified through that about the sale. And I love their products. I don't need anything from them right now as I have a ton of their sketchbooks that I am currently working in, so sharing for others to enjoy!

4 months ago | [YT] | 2

The Strange Connector - Art & Play

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to give you an update: unfortunately, the video editing process for my three latest videos (which I have been working hard on and was hoping to release in quick succession over this week and the next) is taking me much longer than expected, and I’m (reluctantly) forced to put everything on hold for now. The final term of my postgrad course has just started and, between the videos, school assignments, and my day job, I have basically been going without sleep for the past four weeks... it’s just not sustainable anymore, I am utterly exhausted!

I’m really sorry, especially because I’m so close to finishing all three videos: I’d only need another week or two to fully complete and upload them! But right now I need to focus on my course deadlines, and I’ve already gone well over the time I had set aside to prepare for my next assignment, which is really stressful.
Maybe I’ll be able to pick up work on the videos again next month, but I’m not sure... so everything might get pushed to July after my course finishes, which I find really frustrating!

I hope things relating to the content of the videos I have been working on won’t change too much in the interim as the prospect of having to reshoot and re-edit any of it is really demoralising, as I have been preparing these particular three videos since basically December (you'll see why when I upload them, they took a bit of sleuthing over a long period of time) and I was so close to being able to upload them!

I’ll see you all very soon, when I can breathe again!!!

Best,

The Strange Connector (& the Feline Overlords)

8 months ago | [YT] | 6

The Strange Connector - Art & Play

Hey everyone! I just created an Instagram for my Strange Connector stuff if anyone is interested (aka my more amateurial experiments learning painting and drawing, random cat drawings and my art that doesn't fit anywhere else in my more "contemporary" practice under my own name, but that I still want to share because it too is my art!): www.instagram.com/the_strange_connector/

8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

The Strange Connector - Art & Play

Currently working on another (more complete) Viceversa paper/sketchbook review video, which has turned into such a behemoth that it’s now becoming three videos. I have spent the past four weeks trying to edit all this down and rearrange it into a more coherent format and… I just cannot.

I really hope I manage to finish these videos before the final term of my course starts, because once it does I’ll be far too busy with assignments and assessments to get anything else done!

I fear these may end up being the three most boring videos on the entire internet - but I have invested far too much time to abandon them now, so I’m determined to see them through. (NB: the boringness is no reflection on the quality of the paper, by the way - more a reflection of my own… ineptitude)

After my first purchase in-store in Italy and my first video, I decided to place an order for some more sketchbooks from the Viceversa website, to see what else was available. To my confusion, the sketchbooks I received weren’t quite what I expected, so I had to dig a bit deeper to figure out what was going on. It’s taken me several months, several orders, and over nine hours of video to edit, to piece everything together - and I’ll be sharing my findings with you (in essence: their website is a little confusing on the type of paper in each of their sketchbooks, but now I have figured out what is what!).

I was so confused when ordering (every order seemed to raise more questions), and I ended up reshooting multiple times as new information came to light and I started making sense of it all. So my footage is a bit… scattered, as a result. But… it is what it is.

Attached: a photo of how many edits I’ve done on the current video so far (and I haven’t even recorded the new voiceover yet).
Also attached: a shot of one of my very glamorous filming setups, just so you can fully appreciate what I’m working with, ahahaha. I literally had to film part of this video on the street outside, on top of a recycling bin, to get good lighting (that’s where the sun was). So incredibly professional. Try to spot the shot when the video’s finally done and uploaded (I did crop the bin out in the final version)…

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8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

The Strange Connector - Art & Play

I should be in bed already, but I wanted to create a quick something before turning in for the night. 

It suddenly occurred to me that I haven't used oil pastels in a year (!), so I decided to experiment with the Marco Raffiné pastels that I bought as as an add-on when I purchased the Marco Tribute Masters pencil set (both in my first Art Haul video, and the latter in the last two videos).

When I swatched the pastels to test them, I realised they remind me of the Van Gogh pastels (maybe they are a tad softer, actually), which I find too crumbly and waxy for my preference. However, I wanted to test them on sand grain paper, as the paper's texture does make a huge difference even to cheaper pastels. 
I am not super pleased with the results, but I am sharing them nonetheless - and I desperately hope I do not incur the displeasure of the Feline Overlords as a consequence of my human foolishness.

Anyway, just so you know because I don't think I will make a separate video for these now… I was able to make the Raffiné pastels kind of work, but personally, I would not purchase them again. On the right side of the drawing, you can see how they become blotchy when attempting to blend, and the grain of the paper fills too quickly for my liking (and also blending hurts my arm, because it's harder than I am used to). However, given that I paid approximately £10 for these on some seasonal discount, they are more than Ok for the price and might be fine for a total beginner or someone just wanting to try out the medium - I just have better pastels. They would likely perform better on a larger scale, and using sand grain paper is essential. I also layered some softer oil pastels over them because I got frustrated halfway through, though I am not fond of those either, as I prefer firmer but silky brands like Mungyo (the artist-grade pastels, not the student variety), Holbein, and Neopastels by Caran D’Ache.

This was a bit of a blotchy mess, but I tried.

Should I attempt an oil pastel painting as a video here at some point? I am a bit embarrassed because it is so amateurish, but oil pastels were my favourite art supply as a kid and I would love an excuse to get back into them, and I am still learning…. !

Oh, by the way re Marco, I’ve been using the Marco pencil set a few times directlty in my art journal since shooting the last video, I mean directly on the Khadi paper, and to my surprise, the Tribute pencils work quite well (but obviously you get the texture of Khadi)! I’m really impressed, especially since the only other brand that for me behave passably on Khadi is Holbein, and the Marco behave pretty similarly in the Khadi fat book! I've switched to using Marco in my journal for now because I want to save the Holbein pencils for more lightfast projects. 

Anyway, -- and this is a SUPER IMPRESSIVE achievement on my part -- last night, as I was getting ready to add some colour to a journal entry and reached for the Marco pencil set, I accidentally dropped the whole thing from a height (!). Every single pencil scattered and bounced off the hard wooden floor - quite a feat for my clumsy hands, if I do say so myself! And I mean every pencil somehow just went fling!! A few tips have already broken, as a consequence. 😭 My heart is aching!!!I Argh.

I might just have to use this as an excuse to buy a new tin box of these pencils soon if I can snatch them when I get paid from work and when the price (the price, not the pencils!) drops, as right now they seem to be quite expensive once again…

10 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

The Strange Connector - Art & Play

Hi everyone!

I just received my order of loose paper from Viceversa. I decided to get a sheet for every type of paper (except the 600gsm version) they offer because I was really surprised by the variety in the four extra sketchbooks I bought for future reviews (I had assumed the paper in the sketchbooks would all be the same, as nothing other than "handmade paper" is stated in the item descriptions).

I can now tell you that the paper in the Viceversa sketchbook I tested in my very first video seems to be their HP watercolor paper, which I'm really impressed by since I usually don’t like HP paper! So, if you're looking for paper that acts similarly to the one in my video, that seems to be the best choice! But the sketchbook descriptions on the website at the moment do not state if the paper you will receive is HP or CP or rough. But if you want loose sheets - that's the one to get.

Just a note: I haven’t tested these loose sheets yet, but I’ll be creating a video on that in the coming months.

I also stupidly didn’t think to add another sketchbook of the same type to my order to check if the paper type is consistent in each sketchbook, as that would be very helpful to know—my mistake! I’ll make sure to do that next time I order. I've already spent quite a bit of money on materials to review from Viceversa, and ordering just one sketchbook on its own wouldn’t be cost-effective since I worked out that shipping is the same up to 2 kg. Which is also good to know for you - if you are ordering from them it’s a good idea to order items up to 2Kg to get the most out of your order!

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 4

The Strange Connector - Art & Play

So, these have finally arrived, and wow, I’m surprised! I’m planning to work on a review for you, but it might not be until the new year since I’ll be really busy over the next couple of months. I’ve also filmed some additional footage of other supplies that I need to edit and upload, so unfortunately, these will have to wait their turn!

But just so you know, the paper in each book—while completely handmade—is different! Each sketchbook features slightly varied textures, tints, and edges! In short, every sketchbook’s paper is unique (and not just in the sense that they all have slight imperfections due to being handmade!), even if it’s not specified that way on the website. This means there will be a lot of testing to do, which should be a lot of fun!

I’m also curious whether the paper is consistently different from one model to another or if it varies with each batch of sketchbooks. That could explain why the website doesn’t provide clear details about the paper in the sketchbook listings, other than stating the paper is handmade. Frankly, for the price and at the sizes available, I am not going to complain! But I do wonder how it's going to behave when put to the test again.

Some of the paper reminds me of Two Rivers, some of Khadi, and some of Fabriano papers - all excellent papers, though in different ways. Now I feel like I need to order more just to find out if each sketchbook model has a consistent feel, as that would be helpful when ordering (especially considering that some textures aren’t ideal for certain media)!

In any case, it looks like very nice paper!

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 4