About

Hello there!

First of all, thank you for taking the time to visit my blog! Second of all, what can I say? I love arts and crafts! Ever since I could remember, I was constantly making stuff -friendship bracelets, jewelry, mini wooden furniture, fluffy scarves and felt animals, you name it.

This blog documents little crafts or illustrations I've made or larger projects I'm working on.  I hope to include tutorials for others to follow along, inspiration for projects and things for everyone to have fun with! Right now my primary focus is watercolor painting and calligraphy, but I love trying new types of media/material too.

I also like reviewing different art supplies, materials and books.  It's amazing and wonderful how much variety there is when it comes to supplies and materials, but it can also be super overwhelming   when deciding what to buy! I for one looove reading reviews and people's experiences with different products before making a purchase so I thought I would share my own thoughts.

A little bit about me, by way of a few of my favorite things:


You can follow me on instagram if you'd like @nearillustrates

Thanks for reading,

-N

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The "Best" Nib for a Modern Calligraphy Beginner - Testing Out 5 Different Nib Types

Image
Hello! Welcome back to the blog. Today I'll be talking about my thoughts on 5 very popular nibs and which ones I think are best for modern calligraphy beginners.  To be honest, this is probably the only calligraphy related post I'm qualified to write about, since I actually am a beginner at modern calligraphy. I tested out 5 nibs that I seemed to read about everywhere - calligraphy blogs, art supply websites, instagram, the list goes on and on... well, actually the list stops with those three, but still! That's a lot of places for the same nibs to show up.  One of my favorite calligraphy/illustration blogs, The Postman's Knock ( if you want to learn anything and everything about calligraphy or see awesome tutorials, you need to go there!) discussed these five nibs in a blog post so I had to try them out for myself. Here are the nibs I will be reviewing (listed left to right): 1. Nikko G 2. Brause Steno or "Blue Pumpkin" 3. Brause Rose 4. Brause
Read more

Review: Greenleaf & Blueberry Handmade Watercolors

Image
EDIT (11/20/17): This post needs to be updated! I believe they sell their paints directly on their website now and announce shop updates via an emails newsletter. It's finally here! I'm super excited to write this review for several reasons: 1. I've been eyeing these watercolors on etsy/instagram/facebook for months and was lucky enough to purchase a set last week. 2. There aren't too many thorough reviews written on these paints and I wanted to provide my two cents on them. Before I get started, I have to say, these paints are a little tricky to purchase.  The watercolors are pricey because they are artist grade, handmade and time-consuming to make. Just a handful of these colorful sets are available at a time on the etsy shop.  In addition, they sell out very quickly - only a few minutes after the shop is updated.  So how did I manage to finally purchase one?  My biggest tip is to follow them on instagram , which is where they announce
Read more

Monarch Butterfly Watercolor

Image
November is here, and everything around me feels like quintessential autumn. I decided to do a small watercolor of the Monarch Butterfly, which have such beautiful rich tones on their wings. The finished project is below! Watercolors used: Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolors Brushes used: Winsor & Newton Cotman 111 round brush and one stroke brush.
Read more