Guest article by Ink and Media

Instead of throwing away used ink cartridges have you ever wondered what else you could do with them? Wickford based ink cartridges retailer Ink and Media Ltd with the help of Midlands based artist Faith Pearson have fused a love of sci-fi and film with ink cartridges. The result is a series of recycled art pieces that recreate a range of cinematic moments - including King Kong, Godzilla and even a model of the Star Trek enterprise. The scenes were all created by hand and a series of background installations were designed before the final pieces were complete.

This will be the third year I’ve supported Earth Hour... last year we met up with the rest of our family here in Adelaide, and spent our hour by candle light celebrating my birthday and playing cards! Don’t forget to pledge your support here and be counted among the millions turning off their lights for one hour during Earth Hour, 8.30pm, Saturday 27th March 2010.

Just stumbled across Eco Emporia, a UK company selling handmade gifts from all reclaimed materials, such as Beas Beasties (above… so cool!)

With all my encouragement to go green, one thing I hadn’t thought of was offsetting the carbon used by having a blog! I read here that a blog with an average of about 15,000 visits a month would use about 3,6kg (8lb.) of carbon dioxide yearly (caused by the blogs being hosted on their mainframe computers, servers & cooling systems.)

Making it easy to make your blog carbon neutral is the “Make It Green!” team over at kauf-DA. They have a great (and free!) initiative going where they offer to plant one tree for your blog on Arbor Day Foundation in the Plumas National Forest in Northern California. (And you get to sport a swanky seal like this one on your blog!)

It’s free to sign up here and enjoy a tree being planted for your blog!

I have nothing but warm feelings towards Ecojot, a Canadian company who makes adorable sketchbooks, journals, and stationery from 100% post-consumer recycled papers. Sigh, flutter flutter goes my heart whenever I look at my new apple & birdie sketchbook. The paper is silky smooth–not the rough quality you’d expect from recycled–and has little tiny flecks of fibers throughout. Tweet. Their designs are delicious, and they also have very cute e-cards.

What makes them green?

• • Ecojot uses acid-free, processed chlorine free paper & board.
• • The inks & glues are vegetable based, therefore bio-degradable.
• • No new trees are used to make the paper & the paper mill is powered by biogas harnessed from a nearby landfill.
• • The protective packaging is corn-based.

As another year fast approaches its end, looking back I realize how busy a year 2009 has been! I kept my paintbrush and pencil busy with completing just under 100 illustrations… wowsers, that’s a new illustration every three days! The illustrations include three children’s books (Celebrate! by Rubicon Publishing, Riley’s Lost Tooth by Diane Cantrell, and Spotty & Eddie Visit Percé by Lisa M. Chalifoux), a collection of green themed illustrations for ImageZoo, and several more little illustrations for my illustrated diary of Hera’s outfits. Looking forward to 2010!

The holidays have been a little greener for us this year… we used solar powered lights to decorate outdoors, wrapped presents with bright red & green fabric that we will reuse for years to come, and made our own oragami tree decorations from colourful christmas card envelopes. My toddler even got in on the act, helping reuse paper bags by festively decorating them with yummy smelling Honeysticks. Wishing you a happy green holiday wherever you are and whoever you’re with :)

Hera has been thoroughly enjoying her new Honeysticks, one of the earth friendly crayons on my eco-art supply list. You can’t go wrong with crayons that smell like honey! A box of 12 Honeysticks is available for AU$12.95 over at TreeFrogToys.com.au (who, by the way, shipped surprisingly fast and provided friendly correspondence.)

What makes them environmentally friendly? “They are handmade made from New Zealand beeswax and non-toxic pigments so they are natural and safe for children. The beeswax used in Honey Sticks is a natural by-product of honey production. The sustainable process causes minimal impact on the environment and gives the crayons a wonderful scent of honey.” –TreeFrogToys.com.au

For Kids : These beeswax crayons are a joy to use… my toddler loves to smell them, stand them up in a row (they are very chubby!) and scribble to her heart’s content. The colours are bright and easily colour (i.e. obliterate) anything you have delicately drawn below. And because they are so chunky, they don’t break like regular crayons easily do… your kid would have to bash them with a hammer to do any dammage… which I think makes up for their higher price point.

For Professionals : Hmm, any pros out there who use crayons in their work? If so you may want to give these a go, their width makes them easy to hold and colour on their wide edges.

Hera & I had a good go testing out some of our new eco-art supplies this morning, including recycled watercolour paper by Schoellershammer (Available for US$10.95 at Stubby Pencil Studio.)

What makes it environmentally friendly? It is made with 100% recycled paper, yippee!

For Kids : This is great watercolour paper to muck around on, it has a nice texture and works well for watercolours and finger painting (See Hera’s illustration above using Faber-Castell Watercolours.) Tempera and acrylics would also do well on this surface. The pad made it convenient to use, but as soon as the pad got too wet the top page started to split away from the rest (which isn’t unusual for watercolour blocks,) so I’d recommend using masking taping around the edge of each painting to keep the block together.

For Professionals : This paper is labeled as 220g/m2 and “student quality” and accurately so. It reminds me of the Canson watercolour paper I tried watercolours on when I was in college and a poor student… but then discovered how amazing Arches watercolour paper is and never looked back, good quality paper makes a huge difference when watercolour painting! This paper wasn’t too bad to work with, it’s just not professional quality so it’s not as easy to mix and layer the paint cleanly. (See test below using Windsor & Newton paints.) This paper would be good to work with if doing simple clean watercolours (where you aren’t building up layers of colour or doing any fancy techniques,) or other mediums you enjoy working with on a textured surface, such as acrylics or pastels.

Finding eco-art supplies has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, and had a chance a couple weeks back to really do some research and order some environmentally friendly alternatives to some of the art supplies I use regularly. Being a full-time Mom I’m also keen on green art supplies for children… and happily there is more demand for eco-kids art supplies than for professional grade, so I was able to easily find a selection of crayons, paints, markers, pencils & papers to try. I’ll be posting reviews here on my blog of both professional grade and children’s eco-art supplies, and compiling them all on my new list of Green Art Supplies. Am so excited to give these a go, especially my new Canadian 100% Recycled Eco-Jot sketchbook.

If you know of any great environmentally friendly art supplies, or have tried any yourself that you like please let me know!

P.S. To reduce the carbon footprint of ordering these art supplies online, I ordered all my new supplies (save one item!) from the same online shop. Making one order from one location, rather than ordering individual items from multiple locations, is an easy way to care for the environment as it saves on the extra resources (fuel, packaging, purchase orders) used to ship multiple items.