Thursday Art Walk - A Palette For You

 

In Which I'm Working On Something That's TOO BIG

I keep doing this to myself: I start working on a piece of art in Paint.net and... it balloons out of control. I cannot stop myself. I must do this.

I'm working on a new bonkbubble piece (kind of like last week's piece, but 100% digital), and I'm using a Semi-Limited Palette! What does that mean?

It means that I filled one whole row of the palette with colors from that random palette generator site I talked about that one time (Coolors) and now I'm spreading out dots in each color across a vast canvas. Seriously, it was 120 inches by 120 inches at one point (304.8x304.8cm). It's too big. Everything's very spread out. And yet I've already had four intersections! Which means I've mixed an additional four colors!

The original palette is here with hex/rgb colors for other artists to try out!

• Aero Blue
• Hex: BFFFF1
• RGB: 191, 255, 241
• Saffron
• Hex: EAC435
• RGB: 234, 196, 53
• Wild Blue Yonder
• Hex: B2B1CF
• RGB: 178, 177, 207
• Raisin Black
• Hex: 1E1E24
• RGB: 30, 30, 36
• Dark Liver
• Hex: 403F4C
• RGB: 64, 63, 76
• Opera Mauve
• Hex: B37BA4
• RGB: 179, 123, 164
• Tumbleweed
• Hex: D8A47F
• RGB: 216, 164, 127
• Dark Olive Green
• Hex: 46782C
• RGB 71, 104, 44
• Viridian Green
• Hex: 0FA3B1
• RGB: 15, 163, 177
• Purple Navy
• Hex: 414874
• RGB: 65, 72, 116
• Arylide Yellow
• Hex: DBD053
• RGB: 219, 2018, 83
• Rose Madder
• Hex: DB2B39
• RGB: 219, 43, 57
• Shocking Pink Crayola
• Hex: F26DF9
• RGB: 242, 109, 249
• Imperial Red
• Hex: FF0035
• RGB: 255, 0, 53
• Bone
• Hex: D7CEB2
• RGB: 215, 206, 178
• Oxford Blue
• Hex: 0B132B
• RGB: 11, 19, 43

I also have four color combos which have no names so far:

• A7A25E
• E48888
• DB984A
• ED5A6C

I'm pretty pleased with how things are going so far, sheer size notwithstanding (I've got it scaled to 1k pixels per inch right now, but that will be changed by the end, I promise lol). I did have one annoying moment where I miscounted somewhere and ended up having to shift over 70 dots up by 25 pixels (time consuming but not difficult), and I keep adding too much around each dot as I go, but that's pushed me to figure out the shortcuts on Paint.net!

If I press S four times, I get the magic wand selector, then I hit M to move the pixels, which I can do with my arrow keys for pixel-perfect movement! Made an error with my brush? Just hit E for the Eraser, erase my mistake, then hit B to go back to my Brush!

My only annoyance is that I legit can't figure out how to change the brush shape or if that's even possible. I'll finish the BonkBubble painting first, then figure out more things.

I'm also using a placeholder layer for when I need to combine colors, which I do by going to the mixing layer, and make a Brush Size 20 dot of each color at an Alpha/Opacity of 127 each. Then I use the Eyedropper tool to pick up the overlapped color, reset the Alpha to 255 (maxed out!) and add that new color to my palette. That's how I got the four colors up there. You can experiment on your own with those colors to see which ones I combined for them or just wait for the finished work!

Sorry I didn't have any progress shots for you, but I can't figure out how to save a work-in-progress without having to flatten all the layers (which... uh... wouldn't really work for me. Eventually I'll be deleting the background layer and the blending layer, but I need them for now!) and I'm still pretty new at this. Hopefully it'll be done next week!

Alright, I'm gonna go back to listening to some Synthwave and radiating bubbles :)

If you use that palette to make some art, please put a link in the comments or show me on Twitter (@TheFilthyCasua8)! I look forward to it :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Really Tired

I'm not having a great week, guys. I'm feeling very run down and I'm having a harder time than usual focusing on things, which is why I didn't get my Fiber Monday blog up yesterday. I'm having some pretty significant discomfort (nothing to be that concerned with, don't worry!), and I'm just... always tired. All the time. This isn't that unusual this time of year, as you may notice from going back through the blog, but still, it sucks when it happens.

Today's goals are simple: 

• Write 100 words (I'm halfway there!) in my novel because I know I can't focus more than that
• Finish another round on my new Massive Bubble Art Project
• Play a day or two of Stardew Valley (my character married Elliott the Writer and now I'm trying to reach the bottom of Skull Cavern)
• Eat my last peanut butter cup

As you can see, I've got a packed day going :P

My goals for the rest of this week (and up to Monday next) are:

• Post an Art (not sure what!)
• Discuss Teas
• Maybe talk about the Death of Flash and How Much That Sucks (the Adobe program not the DC Comic Book Character, though Flashes dying tends to have a net negative effect on the overall storylines and writing in general of DC comics...)
• Actually post some crochet next week lol

I think that'll about do it from me today - I have cat photos to look at and crops to water :)

Go Enjoy Something!

And I hope your week goes way better than mine :P

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Made Bubbles Again

My original plan for today was to make a nice picture of a mushroom. Nothing special, just one of those amanita-like spotted mushrooms everyone who makes mushroom-based designs seems to love. Then I realized that I haven't bought snacks since probably June and the craving for toaster pastries overwhelmed me.

So I started making a quick and dirty bubble art sheet with my highlighters and colored pencils.

"BonkBubbles" colored pencil and highlighter on printer paper; 2021 

I like how this one turned out, but I think I'll like it more once I scan it (the scanner is not synced with my new laptop and I just don't have the patience for that today, sorry!) and maybe do a little manipulation in Paint.net. I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but maybe I'll also draw a little mushroom and then scan that in, cut it out, paste it over the bubbles... we'll see!

As for my walk, it was... fraught.

I'm an impatient person when I want to do something. Doubly so when there are other people involved. I hate shopping, and I extra hate that I have to literally walk uphill both ways from the nearest shop. That's not an exaggeration. I actually have to walk uphill in either direction. It sucks. I don't like it. 

Well, unfortunately for me, I had to take an even steeper side of the hill this time because there was a crew pruning trees along my usual route. I had to go about a third of a mile (approx 0.49km) out of my way, which brought my round trip to about 1.5 miles (2.42km) instead of about a half mile (0.81km).

And it was snowing.

At least it was a reasonably temperate 28 degrees (-2℃) with no real wind to speak of, but it's very hard to see where you're going when you have to wear both a mask and very, very, very thick glasses.

So I came home in somewhat of a mood only to trip over the cat and then be let down by a lot of the stupid stuff they're releasing with Resident Evil: Village.

Major bummer.

This is where the idea of the BonkBubbles came from. Usually, I just go through my pencils or markers or whatever one by one, laying down a strip of each color in succession with the end goal being something incredibly rainbow-toned, but today I did things a bit differently. I cracked open my highlighters and laid down dots of each color (six yellow dots, four pink, four blue, five green, and six orange), and then outlined each in every colored pencil of the same color family. I would do one ring for each dot before starting from the beginning again with the next pencil. So yellow dots got yellow rings, green dots got green rings, etc.

Here's where the Bonk part comes in. Whenever I was running a ring of one color and it "bonked" into another (because the space is limited), I would then outline the shape I bonked in that color. Eventually I ran out of shapes that were outlined in green or blue and could only use yellow, pink, and orange. Eventually I bonked into yellow with orange. Eventually I bonked into orange with pink.

Pink, therefor, despite only having four origin points, took over completely, which shocked me, since I thought for sure it'd be either yellow or orange!

I liked that experiment, so I'll probably try something similar with my permanent markers at some point, or just a pure colored pencil sheet! I'd also like to try something similar digitally, but I'd try to do color mixing on that one, so if I was "bonking" a yellow bubble into a blue one, they'd mix colors and I'd end up with a green outline from then on. That could get really interesting!

I think that'll about do it for me today. I am le tired. But FC it was only 1.5 miles, you shouldn't be tired! I know. I'm not tired from the walk. I'm just tired (it's overcast and cloudy days make me tired lol). I'll maybe start that digital bonkbubble art later :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday: Cyberstruggles

 

In Which Today Was Very Difficult

This morning, I woke up before 10AM (around 8:30 I believe) and found that I'd unplugged my laptop in my sleep. I've developed something of a (not very healthy) habit of falling asleep watching YouTube videos with my laptop on my lap in bed. My poor laptop was quite old and had already had one battery fail completely. I replaced that battery with one at 76% of its life expectancy and... well...

Something went terribly wrong.

It's my partner's birthday today, by the way, so if you see them around the internet or you read their blog Attack The Stack, then please offer your congratulations! I'm dating an awesome person, so I decided to post on their Facebook wall just how I feel and offer my best wishes etc, and halfway through my deeply heartfelt message...

Everything stopped working. My laptop 100% froze - no hard drive activity, no fans, no amount of ctrl+alt+del or tapping the power button worked. I had to unplug the laptop once more and pull the battery, which if you do any IT work, you know that's a BIG NO NO. But desperate times called for desperate... what? Measures? WHO SAID THAT?!?!?! (inside joke, don't worry about it).

I pressed power again and... nothing. The internet and power lights were on, but the screen stayed black, the fans spun once and stopped, no hard drive activity.

I am not ashamed to say that I absolutely panicked. It wouldn't even be the first laptop I bricked, but it's Pandemic Times and I spend roughly 75-85% of my days on my computer, whether it's listening to music or reading or playing games or checking patterns. I freaked out. Luckily, MLK Day is a holiday for hospital IT guys (I know, it doesn't really make sense, but I'm grateful for it today) so my dad, who is the Computer God in this family, was home. Unfortunately, he was also on the phone and my family has this condition called "I'm Talking And I Can't Shut Up", so he was going to be in that conversation for... quite a while.

I tried everything I could think of while I was downstairs.

Except for the thing he suggested when he walked in and saw me struggling.

"Did you try taking the battery out, plugging it in, and trying to turn it on?"

Guys. It worked.

But! That dear old laptop has a very wobbly AC port and I knew that I couldn't function with it like that, so it was now time for an upgrade.

Which is a longwinded way of letting you know I'm typing this from a very nice not-that-new laptop. Like most things I own that I like, it's second-hand, refurbished, and my dad and I rebuilt it over the course of the afternoon. As you may have guessed, this left almost no time for crochet, so there's no progress from today to share, but I can still give you a picture of how far I've gotten since last week in general on the stocking!

Roku Remote for Scale

So there you have it - a massive, truly HUGE stocking! I have one last design band to put on and I am planning to put my nibling's name on in cross stitch. I don't put info about minors on my blog, though, so I'll show you the finished stocking sans name :)

It's gonna be so freaking huge...

The whole length of the Red Heart Super Saver skein is actually sitting in the foot right now.

Alright. I'm pretty pooped, so I'm gonna finish my last cup of tea for the day (more Meyer Lemon - I'll try to do a review some Sunday of all the teas I got for Christmas!) and get ready for my partner's birthday bash online :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk: Sleepy Bubbles

 

Let's Be Real - It's Been A Week

Everything has been pretty wild the last few... okay, years, but particularly the last week or so has been freaking crazy. In every way. And my insomnia started kicking back in this week, too, so today has been a very sleepy, gummy-eyed kind of day. I got up late, showered late, dressed late, got my coffee late, and started drawing late.

But I still drew!!!

"Bubbly 1" colored pencil and gel pen on sketch pad; 2021

I used my new gel pens and colored pencils for this one, and I'd love to remake it on a larger, smoother paper some day, because it feels a bit more crowded than I'd like and I only got three rows deep in the pencil cube. I'd also like to add in my markers and crayons some time, but honestly, four mediums seems like two too many on paper this size (it's 11x14in or 27.9x37.6cm). In person, the colors are much more dayglo (especially the yellows!) but I kind of like the pastel look it has on film. And the final outline is in a purple glitter gel pen, not black (yay color balance...).

As for why I haven't used the scanner... well... unfortunately the gel pen isn't drying very well, and I don't want to have to wipe down the scanner bed every time I make art. Also, it's not wide enough or long enough to accommodate my sketchbook :(

I think I'll try to get in a quick day of Stardew before settling in for the night ;)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday - Stocking Suffer (lol)

 

In Which I Make A Biiiiiiiig Sockbag

Y'know, when you think about it, a Christmas stocking really is just a big ol' sockbag that you cram full of cool stuff...

(This is gonna be a bit of a story time, kids, so if you just wanna skip down to the pics of what I'm working on first before you get the context, I'd understand ;) )

So my family has always had some really clever, crafty ladies in it. My dad's mom knits, his aunt crochets (though I did not learn crochet from her), my mom's mom knits, and I'm about 75% sure they allllll sewed. I'm pretty sure I wore a lot of clothes made by relatives, growing up.

My grandmother, until recently, has made everyone's stockings. Mine was a pretty white one with an angel on it. Around the time my younger sibling was born, however, the stockings went from normal-sized to... giant. Seriously, they went from "this Pringles can dominates the stocking" sized to "I dunno I put the American Girl doll in here and I think her horse could fit, too" sized. Now, I'm the middle child of one of my Grandmother's younger kids, and I'm in my early 30s, so as you may be able to guess, my Grandmother is getting up there in years and she's quickly become overwhelmed with how darn many of us grandkids and great grandkids there are.

So some of my young niblings are lacking in gargantuan crazy stockings.

This is sad, so me, being very interested in making things and wanting to prove to myself that I can make things, I volunteered to make one. For reference, the, uh, shaft? of the last Big Ol Festive Sockbag was about 7.5 inches (19 cm) across and as long as my arm, not counting the foot, so you may be asking yourself....

IS THIS BLOGGER NUTS?

Yes. Yes I am.

But I have a ton of blue and white yarn left over, and I found a cute pattern for a reindeer head (which... I might use a crazy color for instead of going with the brown I'd originally though I'd do... maybe red & green?) and some snowflakes, and I've already graphed out how to crochet the kiddo's name near the top, so why not? I can do this!

Especially since I'm not using a set of probably 3mm needles.

I'm using a 6.5mm K hook on Medium/4/Worsted weight yarn (Red Heart Super Save, mostly). Currently it's 54 stitches around (because the deer head is an odd number of stitches across, so that's 27 stitches per side) and about... 42 rounds long (the first pic is at only about 18 rounds). I'm working on the heel (which is its own kind of challenge lol). The deadline is, of course, by next December, but I think I can do it faster than 11 months lol!

This afternoon, right around 1PM, keyboard for scale

Right now! Look at that chonker of a sockbag!

I'm pretty darn proud of my progress, especially considering the first attempt I made was... not this big lol. I started that one with a 6.0mm hook and made it only 42 stitches across (for 21 sitches/side) and it was only about 3" long when I started over.

I'll try and finish the heel and get started on the (sigh) shaft by next week!

If you're working on something, good luck on it!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Swatch & Thumbnail!

I'm not very good about the leadup to a piece (as is evidenced by every work of art I've made...) so today is all leadup! I was given a Christmas gift by my grandmother - a pack of 70 colored pencils by a company I've never heard of (Nicole) - and decided I should do my due diligence and test out how they work!

The Pencils in Question

The first thing I did was take every single pencil and swatch them out. For those who do not use, follow, or know art terms, that just means that I tested them! I started from the back of the box to the front, left to right, row by row. I ended up with a messy grid that let me know what to expect on my toothy, soft sketchbook paper from these pencils, and I also ended up with that weird feeling I always get after inhaling the waxy smell from crayons for too long, so bonus? All's I know is this: I don't mind the smell, but it makes my eyelids feel heavy and gummy, so maybe that's an allergy?

Regardless, I swatched out all seventy pencils and discovered there were probably a lot of doubled colors. I don't mind this - I'll probably use up the doubled colors pretty fast (peach, brown, gray, black, etc). I also noticed that the neon colors are... very neon! It's hard to look directly at the neon yellow lol. I kinda hope I find some black paper to test them on...

And then I sketched out a little picture of Dedbert riding a slug up to some snowdrops. Why? Why not?!

The Swatch & The Thumbnail/Sketch!

I really like the way these colors work, and I hope that in the future I can use them for a better thought out project, like a faux stained glass effect or some kind of dreamy scene. For today, I just wanted to test the supplies out. I'll probably test them with the gel pens, my sharpies, and also maybe the pack of highlighters I have. I think that'd be fun to see how they all interact!

The Swatches

The grid I have is kind of misleading because Column A is actually the last row of the box and Column G is the front with Row 1 being the left hand side and Row 10 being on the right. Still, I know what I'm looking at and I suppose that's what matters? It's a very pretty set of colors. They should blend into each other nicely once I find an inexpensive blender or make one from rolled paper. It's been forever since I had one.

"Snowdrops"; colored pencil & ballpoint pen; 2021

As for Dedbert and his slug? I want to try using this scene with a few different mediums, so look forward to seeing this in gel pen, just ballpoint pen, crayon, Sharpie, and possibly more! I will be getting back to my fruit dragons at some point, too, and I hope to start reintroducing the watermelon dragon into my work!

That'll about do it for me today. I'm exhausted and I kinda just want to curl up with some more lemon tea and check out the new safety eyes that came in today for future amigurumi projects.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Today Sure was a Tuesday...

I'm a very boring person. I like being boring - it provides a minimus of stress (which I *still* don't cope with well, but let's not talk about that lol). It also means that I have a certain level of predictability to my own life.

So when I found myself holding a strange iPhone in the middle of the local Walmart while my mother complained loudly about the lack of cat food in stock I was a tad flustered.

Thankfully, it just took tapping a screen once to get someone's attention and the phone was dropped off, I picked up my yarn (I needed red and green for a project and picked up some purple because I had run out), grabbed a Dr Pepper, and tested out a gift card I hadn't used yet. It worked, thankfully, because I hate using gift cards for the first time and having them fail. There are always so many questions that I can't answer. I don't know when my relative bought this for me. I don't know where the receipt is - probably in their purse halfway across the state. Let's be real, people rarely buy cards for themselves.

So the shopping trip, aside from finding someone's iPhone on the floor near the baby aisle, was pretty short. Except there were a lot of little things that weirded me out.

• There was almost 0 cat food
• Ditto on the litter
• It's really hard to look for your shopping party when you cannot see out of your foggy, foggy glasses
• My mask works really well at filtering out scents (which bodes well for its ability to reduce germs) but for some reason my eyeballs still feel the parfum and fragrance in the air and they will tell me all about it, leading to dry, itchy eyes all day long.
• There was a dude in the parking lot who tried to walk up to the car as we tried to leave to get us to sign a petition of some sort. Just... no. If people are already in their car and about to pull up, you do not approach!!!

So that was weird. And yes, I used hand sanitizer when we got in the car, washed my hands several times when we got inside, and I'm leaving the yarn alone for a couple of days while I try to math out the patterns.

Because somewhere, something has gone... s t r a n g e.

One section (which I'm reproducing on either side of this project) is 17 stitches across.

The other section is between 12 and 16 stitches across, depending on what versions I use.

This does not math without some weird, unattractive placements.

But that's for next Fiber Monday's discussions lol.

For today, I have this to tell you:

Stardew Valley is hella fun, books are really cool, and kitty litter is HEAVY.

That's it. That's what I have to say.

Schedule:

• Thursday will be more art (possibly with new art supplies!)
• Saturday might be me blathering about video games
• If I remember to post it, I should have a Tea Blog for Sunday lol.
• Next Monday I'll talk more about my crochet math problems. Hint: it involves working from knitting patterns and also with size issues.
• Next Tuesday will be more blathering like this.

Today's weather was a damp 28℉(-2℃) with sticky snow flurries. Right now, it's actually 32℉ (0℃), and I don't know that it's still snowing, but with the stiff breeze we've got, it feels like 18℉(-8℃). Wind is currently 15-22mph (24-35kph). It's very, very dark out.

My cat has moved exactly twice today. Both times were to new blanket tents.

I have moved... about 15 times today, and I'll move another dozen or so before I sleep because I get restless and weird as the night goes on.

Well, I think that about covers things for today.

Thanks for hanging out and listening to me blather!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which 2021 Has Started... Sleepily

I'll be honest with you - I'd hoped 2021 would be an easier year than 2020. I had hoped I'd be a more alert person with better self control.

I just ate 2/3 of a huge Tony's Chocolonely milk chocolate, caramel and sea salt bar and I feel like I need a nap.

Which is not maybe the most professional I've ever been, considering I have a commissioned crochet piece to work on lol. I'm making a stocking for one of my niblings - snowflakes, reindeer, based off of a couple of patterns I found. I'm using a 6.5mm hook and Red Heart Super Saver - got plenty of white, blue and brown left from the Squirtle I made for my sibling's coworker.

I hope my nibling likes it. It's currently 42 stitches around.

If you crochet at all and have used a 6.5mm hook on worsted weight yarn, you're probably a bit agog at how big the toe of this stocking is. Yes. I started with the toe.

No there aren't pictures lol.

I've basically been sleepwalking since Saturday, which annoys me, because I'd like to wake up at some point lol.

That being said, I have been perusing my new amigurumi books and I've also dug out some of my older books. I might (read: if I remember to take photos) review all of my crochet books and make a project from each this year!

That might be fun, because some of them are from about 1986 and are very retro, so expect a truly hideous granny square scrap project at some point.

I wish I had more to share and show, but I've been bit by the Stardew but hard, and I've even encountered a couple of cutscenes I've never triggered before! Still haven't won an event but I rarely do in year one... (don't worry if you don't understand what I just blabbed, it's mostly for me and other Stardew Valley derps like me :) )

That'll do it from me today - I have tea to drink, stitches to plan, and a nap is calling my name.

Hearing "filthy.... fillllttthhhhyyyyyy" is a bit disconcerting, I have to admit. I should see what that nap wants...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming: Leaf Blower Revolution

 

In Which I Play A Game About Leaves

If you know me, you know Fall is my favorite season. I didn't find this game until November, however, so you're getting a review of Leaf Blower Revolution - Idle Game by Humble North now. In January. Because I'm lazy and I've been playing a lot of Stardew Valley.

But yeah! Leaf Blower Revolution! Available on Steam! Free to play!

A simple, leafy game

I'm a lazy player. That's why I like idle games so much - you start it up and half pay attention to it. You don't need sound. You don't need it to be flashy. This game is a relaxing time-sink, and I've really enjoyed playing around with it.

You are a dude (or lady, or Santa...) who has a bunch of leaves on his lawn. You move your mouse/touchpad around to make the leaves go off screen and get points. You spend your points on things to move the leaves faster, including lil leaf Roombas which toodle around until they stop dead, recharge, then toodle off to move more leaves.

There are multiple menus of upgrades. There's multiple currencies. There's multiple kinds of upgrades. Do you want better skins for your tiny lil pixel person? Spend red coins (which you can earn several ways, but mostly through daily play and soft resets). Do you want a better leaf blower? Spend leaves. Do you want a change of scenery? There's a currency for that!

Basically, it's a very simple game with a lot of customization and such. I'm currently dressed as Santa and hunting down Void Leaves and Apples with my army of red-nosed Leaf Roombas and armed with a frickin Lazer. Life is pretty good.

There's no heavy clicking to be done - all of the effort is put in by just moving your cursor (which is your lil avatar dude) around. You only click on menu buttons. Which is actually a problem, because if I have one complaint it's that most of the menus with scroll bars are very hard to get to cooperate. Sometimes I'll try clicking the down arrow and nothing happens. Sometimes I try to drag the scroll bar and nothing happens. Sometimes neither approach works for a few minutes.

Admittedly, this could just be a problem with my computer - my laptop is getting pretty old and I'm resisting an upgrade because I hate that new laptops don't have any dvd/cd tray :|

What can I say, I'm an internet oldie.

And yes, this game is 100% free on Steam, though you can give the developers money for DLC packs. If you really love simple games about shuffling leaves back into the forest from whence they came in all their 8-bit glory, then by all means, financially support the devs!

If you want to download this game from Steam, it's here. I'd recommend it :)

That will do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC