February Miscellany: Mandalas, Highlighters, and Bookmarks

Welcome to this month's miscellany!  February was a short month and a bit frustrating for me in various ways, so I'm feeling a bit relieved that it's over with.  Here are this month's links:

• I am in awe of Eden's gorgeously colourful and detailed mandalas.
• Michelle guides us through painting shaded spheres in watercolours.  For some reason, these really appeal to me, and I actually did something similar on one of last year's ICAD cards, but mine didn't turn out nearly as well as these.
• A review of Zebra Mildliner Highlighters at the Kayte's new blog, Delectable Pens.  I really like the look and feel of these highlighters, even though I really don't use highlighters very often.  I wish I could think of a better use for the highlighters that I do have...
• Doodles and drawings in my sketchbook journal from 2010.  It amazes me how much more comfortable I have become with my art since then, even while some aspects of my style remain basically the same.  Check out some of my more recent drawings here.
• Both Shangching and John the Monkey have posted follow-ups to my earlier post on pens for dark paper, so if you're interested in finding more pens, inks, pencils, and other supplies that you can use on dark paper, you should check out both of their posts.
• This looks like fun: how to make a mini notebook from a cereal box.  I really like how these notebooks use decorative paper or tape to cover the stitches on the spine.  I've made pamphlet-type notebooks like this in the past and the unfinished look of the spine has always really annoyed me - why did I never think of that?
• I really love the look of both iHanna's starry, cream-coloured collages and Quinn's cute leaf bookmark!  I really have to make myself one of those bookmarks...
• Finally, Azizah reviews the new Pilot Juice gel pen - it looks like a great pen, but I'll be avoiding some of its colours.

That's all for this month!  Stay tuned for new posts and reviews in March, including a massive new recent acquisitions post...