7/08/2024

Plyco (Online Store)

I ordered some plywood panels (craft bundles) from this store, recommended by a fellow artist. I can confirm that they're good quality and good priced; way cheaper than similar products in specialised Art & Craft stores. 
 
Plyco is not a craft store. They sell timber, veneer and plywood for professional purposes (building, flooring, cabinetry, table and kitchen tops among other uses). What matters to me is that they have craft bundles from different timber and thickness that are perfect for painters. 
 
The good thing about their website is that it shows whether the different kinds of timber are in stock or not, when they will be, and the scheduled dispatches. You'll get your order sooner if you buy your product one or two days before dispatch day; otherwise, you'll have to wait a bit longer. Shipping fees and panels are excellent value for money.
 
Not a place you want to order from if you're in a hurry or have an upcoming project that you must do within a time-frame. For the rest, very good quality, prices and shipping prices. Timber arrived properly packaged, too. They also have several shipping options, which is great.   

On the flip side of things, Plyco's customer service is not great. They have a bot on the website. I sent a message through the bot that was never replied to. I rang them on a Saturday. The guy on the phone apologized for overseeing the dispatch of my order. I mentioned that I'd be happy to upgrade. I was told to call or email customer service on a week day. I did email them. No a reply whatsoever, just an impersonal request for payment for the upgrade. As the dispatch window had passed, it  took10 extra days to have my order dispatched. I found funny that, I forgot some items on the cart in one of my browser, but I purchased them through another browser; then, a more personal sales email reached my inbox. Also, they'll auto-subscribe you to their marketing newsletters, something that I really find annoying. 
 
Overall, happy with the pricing and quality of the products, info on website and dispatch procedure, but not really impressed with CS. 
 

HP 150 Wired Mouse, Model 240J6AA

I bought this mouse because it was super discounted and I trust the brand. The design is simple, elegant (boring as well) and professional; nothing fancy about it. 
 
Simple and intuitive, it doesn't need any set up, no plugging, no software, just your fingers. It works perfectly on paper, cardboard or any smooth surface as well as on my mouse pad. The scrolling is smooth and natural. Clicking sounds are average, so not a quiet mouse. 
 
Size is medium to small. Not as small as a travel mouse for example, but not as large as a gaming mouse or professional mice for people with large hands.  I have small hands and I find this mouse comfortable. See my photo side by side with a small mouse.
 
I like wired mice because they don't use batteries and are more environmentally friendly. The cable is long enough for my workstation setup, actually a bit too long. I wish the cable was retractable.
 
Perfect for my everyday use. In my case, I have it on my painting table, where the mouse will get splashes of acrylic paint and mediums. I would not get upset if the paint damages this mouse, to be honest, because of the price I paid for it.  
 
Good packaging with specs and booklet written in English, Mandarin, Korean and Japanese. 

So far, so good. I will update this review if needed.

Material is platicky but you cannot expect gold if you buy brass, right?
 

6/30/2024

Creative Visionary Program - CVP- 2024 (Online Art Course)

Art to Life (A2L) Creative Visionary Program is one of the best online art teaching programs in the world outside the academic world. CVP (as it's usually called) is sworn-on by both professional and hobby artists who had a change of career or lifted their art game as a result of taking this course. CVP is often mentioned in art circles as the before-and-after game changer. Although there is a strong bias towards abstraction and acrylic painting, it helps both figurative and abstract artists. 
 
THE TEAM
Nicholas Wilton, the founder of Art to Life and the program mastermind, is a former reputed senior illustrator (with internationally renowned books covers and projects) but also a tenured abstract painter.

Wilton is the founder, creator, mastermind and main teacher. However, he's surrounded and helped by an amazing team of coaches and teachers (Anne Artz, Caroline Millar, Stacey Phillips, Insa Hoffmann, Kate Rhodes, Marji Thompson, Noah Woods, Amy Livezey), ambassadors, customer service and tech support people (many of them former program students) so that the student experience is enjoyable but also helpful. There are also some professional artists guests during the live calls as well as recorded interviews with some others. Guest speakers this year were Joh Ritt, Rob Szot and Adam Rosendhal among others). We cannot forget the amazing customer support and operations team lead by Brandon and Moirah.
 
OVERVIEW
The program is held only once a year and is preceded by a generous free week-long workshop and several painting promotional calls. Unlike many other courses where you learn to follow instructions to achieve your instructor/s' style, CVP focuses on teaching you the principles that make any painting or visual artwork successful; also many things that aren't taught in Art School but are the professional artist' daily bread. Of course, you also get tips and suggestions on how to develop your visual language, endless encouragement, demonstrations on how to adjust and improve a painting, replies to your queries and tons of practical information, practice exercises and prompts.
 
The program goes for 12 weeks, with a rest week, so 11 weeks. The core of the teachings or CVP principles are
Risk, Soul, Value, Colour, Design and Texture.  There is also an Intro Module explaining how the platform works, presentation of teachers, coaches, ambassadors and guest speakers as well. Module 1 (Risk & Soul) has Week 1 Discover, Week 2 Desire, and Week 3 Play. Module 2 (Design & Value) has Week 4 Value and Week 5 Design. Module 3 (Colour Value) has Week 6 Colour Value and Week 7 Colour Aspects. Module 4 (Texture) has just Week 8 Texture. Module 5 (Your Series) and has Week 5 Process, Week 6 Momentum, Week 7 Balance and Week 8 Launch. There is also an end of the course call and two extra bonus calls devoted to art business a few weeks after finishing the course with tips about  developing your art business and selling you art. There is a section with bonus material for each week, a help and support hub, a video look-up tool,  an Art Help section with bite size videos, art guides, image adjustments and what's not. 

The lessons are hosted on the Kajabi platform, which is great. The community forum is hosted on the Circle platform (app available). Information is clear on how to access each portal and how each portal works.
 
I found the course amazing at times, boring and full of platitudes at others. However, it has congruency, you really learn and/or improve your art practice and art making, and you cannot leave CVP without looking at the world, Art and your art with new fresh eyes.  
 
I do not regret taking the course, quite the contrary, but I think my expectations were as high as the price tag. One of the best things is that the community forum is hosted outside Facebook, and it is all private and very dynamic. The creative energy there is amazing. The same can be said of the live calls, all of which I found terrific, inspiring and fun.  
 
Things I Missed in CVP 2024
 > Lack of cultural diversity in the coaches and guests. 
> That people from different levels were all mixed together, professionals, active and retired, hobbyists, young emergent artists, career changers. This clearly benefits newbies not so much professionals. 
> I didn't expect calls or lessons to continue at the end of the program for sure, but having at least one weekly interaction with coaches, ambassadors or teachers would have been great and very encouraging as the course is accessible for a year. However, business matters most and these people would be helping those that joining the follow-up membership Academy or The Studio.
> A week for module is just unreasonable unless you are a retiree. I'd suggest devoting two weeks to each module, with the same number of calls rearranged within those two weeks and distributed differently during that time. This is especially important for people, like me, who had a demanding full-time job. 
> Week 9 is full of recycled stuff, some videos repeating the same information without much content added except for the live calls. 
> The coaching call on materials done on week 8 should have been the first coaching call on Week 1 because it's a lesson on materials, paint viscosity and transparency, how to extend colour, properties of different mediums and mixed media materials. So, it makes no sense to me waiting for 8 weeks to have something as necessary and basic at the end.

THE MATERIALS
The program has a long list of materials recommended for the course, listing both basic and optional. Yet, you don't need some of the basic ones listed in the list. Also, you don't need to paint on canvas or panels, because good quality watercolour paper will do the job during most of the course; you can have the panels for your final series. This only favours A2L shop, Wilton's shop, that offer packages with a CVP kit (for sale only in the USA). Some of the additional materials were never used in the classes or calls, so you don't really need them.

PRICE TAG
Price tag is high, but especially so if your currency has a bad exchange rate with the Australian dollar. They offer payment plans up to 6 months, with 12 months options offered on a case by case basis. 
 
I really enjoyed the course and it really helped me, but the price tag is too much because many things they teach are taught online by professional artists at a fraction of the price or for free on YouTube. The price is equivalent to an intercontinental month holiday  with flights and hotels included. There are no scholarships or sliding price options, which is a shame. 
 
TEACHING PLATFORM (KAJABI HOSTED)
The quality of the videos, both technically and teaching-wise, is stupendous. You can download the PDFs, audio and audio transcripts of all lessons and live calls.The quality of the group calls and coaching calls was from excellent to outstanding, always fun. The pop up calls were Q&As.
 
A2L improvements I'd like to see on the Course Platform.
> Allow videos to be downloaded, because the audio+transcript is helpful to a limited extend for a Visual Arts course. Watermarks with logos or small photos would show clearly who's the author of the video, and I doubt that most people attending the course would want to give for free what they had to pay so dearly.   
> No bite-sized videos for texture week. Stacey Phillips' masterclass had plenty of information to summarize in this section.
> Some of the videos were unnecessary long with things that could be demonstrated, taught and explained in half the time.
> I'd like to be able to bookmark or favourite my fav calls or lessons so that I can revisit them and go straight to them quickly.
> I'd rather have an A2L devoted to newbies and a Mastermind just for alumni or people who are intermediate or professional painters instead of having all levels in one course. 

> I'd love that the lessons were released earlier on for the Southern Hemisphere, as the time differences favour the Northern Hemispherians. 
> I suggest structuring the two colour weeks in just one. I found two weeks too much as there were things that were very single and didn't need of much explanation and others were repeated over and over; or the explanations were unnecessarily long. Yet, the time devoted to composition was minimal and quite basic.  
> Devote more time to design. Because it was not done properly, many of the uploads on the sharing portal lacked any sort of composition quality.
> The bite-sized videos are grouped per week, but some of them are misplaced. Besides, these videos have no linked list/menu within a week. If this wasn't enough, some of these videos are badly organised within a week; so, things that should be explained first to understand what follows, are placed after others that need of the former to be explained to proceed. An example: "What is harmony?" video in week 7 appears after harmonizing with glazing. 
> I'd would rather have the bite-sized videos and the image adjustment videos together with the lessons, like within the corresponding lesson lateral menu.
 

COMMUNITY FORUM

I loved being able to share and socialize on Circle. I didn't installed the app, so I just used the browser version. Being able to share and communicate without the dangers, abuse, unauthorised use and vigilance from horrendous Facebook is just a joy. For the rest, Circle is a very intuitive platform, easy to move around, with amazing capabilities for very large groups of people, and able to host linking relevant video-call recordings from the learning portal.
 
 A2L improvements I'd like to see on the CVP Circle Forum.
> Have different Circle chats/feeds for each week. The  current chat is an endless overwhelming dump of anything and everything: exercises, colour palettes, journaling, pieces being worked on, support questions, final pieces, suggestions, queries, progress of artwork, and what's not.  Another option is not organising the subchapter by week but by subject matter, e.g. exercises, questions, feedback, work in progress, final pieces, etc. All of this would benefit the flow.
> Let us decide whether we want our photos downloaded or not. At the moment, the photos can be downloaded by other fellow participants without the artist's consent. 
> I'd like clear information of what happens to the participants' photos once the chat id archived. Can they be used by third parties without A2L consent? Can A2L use them without consent? Are the images published on the chat subject to commons?  I had to privately message the team to get that info.
> Allow us to follow/unfollow people (and vice versa)
> Allow us to reduce the size of the photo shown, the canvas size, on the uploader. 
 
SOME OF THE NUGGETS I LEARNED 
> The power that community support has for artists that do not have that in their real life.
> Loud and white conversations in a painting.
> The power of value and colour value.
> How to use a wet palette.
> Creating chromatic blacks.
> Creating lovely greens out of yellow oxide and black.
> Mother paint used to harmonize colours.
> Collage glueing system.
> How painting energy shows in the body and how this is the channel that puts things on the canvas.
> Being called an artist by other artists.
> That art is a solace from my daily hard job.  
> Grateful that I was able to have this awesome experience despite the financial struggle.   
> Learning that alumni have massive discounts on the following year if you decide to joy.

L'Oréal Magic Retouch, 75ml, Dark Brown

I use this product regularly, between professional tinting  and when my thick very-noticeable greys pop up all rebel. The product is very easy to spray and has a good focus sprayer. I usually spray it twice; I let the first coat dry and then apply again. Result, no grays! This product is especially good for the part line, not as much for temples or hair line as it can stain my skin. However, I easily remove those by rubbing a bit of beauty oil on the stained spot .  
 
The product can stain your clothes, so I usually put a plastic cape on my shoulders. I don't apply this when I'm dressed to go out as unnoticeable unpredictable drops might stain them and ruin them if unprotected.

The product washes out completely with a single shampooing.

I always apply this product with a surgical mask on, because it has some residual "vapours" after spraying.

6/21/2024

ClearWipe Lens Cleaner Alcohol Pre Moist Glasses Cleaning Wipe, 60 Count

I've used these wipes for years. I come back to this product,time and time again, even after trying similar products from other brands. I keep using these because they clean my lenses beautifully, leaving them spotless and without any fabric trace. Besides, they effortlessly glide on my glasses. I also use them on my phone camera lenses. I like this package size as it's more economical and lasts me longer.

Fanta Pineapple Zero Sugar Soft Drink 6 x 250 ml

This is the first time I try this Fanta variety and the last one. I love the small size packaging, which makes the tins perfect to carry in lunch boxes or in my bag when I have to do errands around and  don't want to spend money on drinks. The flavour tastes, to me, of those ampoules with medicine that my mother use to give me when I was a kid.  A very chemical non-pineapple over-sweet flavour.

6/10/2024

YESDEX Wearable Unisex Blanket Hoodie

The packet came beautifully wrapped with a gorgeous yellow ribbon around it.
 
This is a large oversized hoodie, larger than others that I own. I'd say it's more a man size than the average hoodie. I'm 5.2" and this reaches half my calves. Something I don't mind in winter. Yet, it seems more a xl version of the hoodie. The main issue with this is not the length, which I don't mind at all, but the sleeves length. The sleeves are super long and, although the cuffs have a great hold and pressure, they cannot hold the excess length in cases like mine, when the arms are those of a small lady not a man's. Said differently, unless you are a man or a tall person, the excess fabric will get into the way or your cooking, dishwashing, or craft making.
 
I love the front pocket and the fact that the neck doesn't have a zip. Very cozy and shiny acrylic fabric in a neutral colour that allows me to go outside without looking a circus performer.
 
The most important thing is this hoodie is very warm made of a wonderful soft acrylic fabric. It saves me energy, because I don't switch the heater as much as I would when not wearing this hoodie. I have slept with it a couple of times and I get the most glorious warm cozy feeling.  
 
As the label says to wash it before use, I did that. Of course, it lost a bit of its shiny new lustre, but it looks as new, no shedding, no shrinking, and came of the washer really fluffy.