Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which There Is A Lot Of Cold and Cheese...

I've been hard at work drawing today! Feels good to get something I said I'd do done. Which is a horrible sentence, but hey, I drew! I don't care!

And what did I draw?

Well, a couple of things, to be honest.

See, it's suddenly freezing (literally) cold again. It was all of 31℉ (-0.5℃) when I got up, and there were these horrid little flurries coming down. The birds outside were very confused.

Someone else was furious...

"What the Heck, Spring?!"; colored pencil on legal size printer paper; 2021

Poor Dedbert is not happy that his nice warm days have suddenly been interrupted by fluffy white nonsense fluttering down from a gray, dreary sky!

Thankfully, though, the snow isn't sticking around, and we should get back to springtime sooner rather than later!

Now, my other piece is somehow even sillier, and it also has to do with something white, though this something is delicious rather than precipitous. In fact, it's so delicious, it's begun to infuriate my partner with its awesomeness.

It's cheese, guys.

We're both obsessed with cheese, to be fair.

My partner is also obsessed with wombats - the adorable furry tank of a marsupial that digs burrows in Australia and whose closest cousin is the adorable, yet incredibly dumb, koala.

So I combined those wonderful things :P

"Triple Cream?!?!?!"; colored pencil and gel pen on legal size printer paper; 2021

This is Wommie. He is 100% obsessed with how perfect and delicious brie is, and he's just discovered triple cream brie - which is, in his opinion, overkill. I mean, he's still gonna eat it, don't get me wrong, but he's a bit overwhelmed at the thought of that much cream!

A minor disclaimer here, though - 99.999% of the wombat population cannot and should not eat brie, since they're herbivores and tend to have a hard time digesting dairy. Wommie is special. He's downright magical.

He also has a hard time with his R's, but that's because of the way his mouth is built. It's made for eating roots and grasses, not pronouncing silly human words!

Anywho, I'm ready for a break! If you've made something today, go ahead and tell me about it!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I've Been A Busy Bee

Good evening, folks, it's your friendly neighborhood couch potato! I haven't been lazy today!

Instead, I have:

• Done some cardio (danced like a moron to City Pop)
• Worked on my sibling's birthday present
• Started rewriting Part 2 of my novel because I realized one of the Big Important Plot Points... kinda sucked and betrayed the character.
• Got the plastic spoon my cat became obsessed with out from under the stove
• Got the cat wrangled into her harness so she could go for walkies with my mom
• Detangled a crapton of yarn from Gordon
• Ate cheese

It's been a lovely day, too, except for the wind! While the high was around 60℉ (15.5℃), the winds were just as strong as yesterday. They've dropped off almost entirely, now, and it's a pleasant 56℉ (13.3℃) out there. Sun and clear skies as far as the eye can see, too! Just... fantastic!

My plans for the week are:

• Detangle more of Gordon
• Write more of the novel
• Art on Thursday
• Maybe food if I remember lol
• Fiber updates Monday
• Blather next Tuesday

If it seems like I'm minimizing my commitments, I am. I'm trying to focus on writing and crochet a bit more, though art is still a very necessary outlet! I'm also planning to exercise more, since I'd like to be able to ride my bike without my fat-encrusted heart exploding. The pandemic and my own lack of motivation have been very unkind to my health, so I'm working on that!

I'm also looking at more watercolor pencils, since I miss the medium. If you see any deals and you know my socials, let me know!

That'll about do it for me today, it's just a quick lil update!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday - Procrastination Station

 

In Which I'm Working...
Just not on what I'm supposed to be working on...

I have been the busiest little bee when it comes to crochet this week!

Just... not the projects I was supposed to be working on (Lady Sibyl shrug I've been working on since 2018 says W H A T?!).

See, I get distracted easily, and when I fight that distraction too hard, I develop project block, which means that now I can't work on literally anything until I find a way around the block. It happens with writing, drawing, crochet... even reading! Yeah. Try and figure out that one :|

Regardless, I got very, very distracted this month, and now I've got about a dozen UFOs (Unfinished Fiber Objects) in my room. I'm working on categorizing those, but mostly, I've been distracted by a Very Old Problem and a Very New Toy.

New Toy First!

I BOUGHT A DROP SPINDLE!

That's right, folks. I'm one step closer to fiber self-direction! Now in order to make my own yarns all I need are materials which.... uh... I ain't buying sheep or alpacas. Maybe I'll learn how to sow, grow, rhett, spin, and dye linen? Maybe? idk.

Regardless, that is a cheapy drop spindle from Amazon and a package of silk mawata I'm looking forward to experimenting with. What's annoying is the silk was cheaper and easier to get than the spindle, but I can live with that :P

That's a project for another day (and believe you me, you'll be hearing alllllll about my botches with this new thing lol).

Instead, I present to you The Old Problem:

Meet Gordon.

Gordon, short for "Gordian Knot", is a pound of blue sport-weight yarn I bought ages ago. Probably 2012 or so. Wow. Wow I totally lost track of how long it's been. I guess I'm not exactly a beginner, am I?

Anywho, Gordon has been an incomprehensible tangle of blueness for ages and I'm more than ready to have him in working order.

Which he is graciously allowing.

Apologies for the blurriness of that photo - I was on tip-toes trying to get it all in frame.

That's not a tablet, guys. That's a laptop in the middle of Gordon's loop.

Hand for scale

Yes, that's how much yarn I've wound up from Gordon. His messiness means that I cannot use the fantastic ball winder I now own for him. I'd have no way of taking the unfinished ball off of the winder, passing him around the mass or through it and then reattaching the ball back onto the winder. It's just not a possibility. I have, however, learned one of Gordon's deepest, darkest secrets.

He's not truly tangled at all.

He's just awkwardly and unbelievably twisted on himself.

So I have him rounded out on my bed, where I put on a playlist of really fun vaporwave/mallcore ambience playing in the background, and I wrap yarn while slowly wrestling with Gordon.

Eventually, I may even get him put to rights and be able to use him, because that's been the goal for 2021 - USE THE YARN I'VE GOT.

Which is hard when 75% of it looks like Gordon. Or worse.

But if I can prove to myself that poor Gordon is not an overwhelming foe I cannot defeat without a knife, then I can untangle every single skein I have. Eventually.

For now, though, since Gordon is literally the only sport-weight yarn I own, I'm going to look for some nice patterns. Maybe a vest. It's a truly shocking cobalt blue, but I think it'd look quite nice as a fancy vest.

I just like vests, to be honest.

Well, that's what I've got going on. Apologies for the lateness of the blog - I've been running all over creation trying to put my bike in the shed, lower the treadmill (I... desperately need to up my stamina, hence the treadmill), burn some of the brushpile, look up videos on how to spin from a mawata (it sounds simple enough...), etc. Basically I'm pooped lol!

It's beautiful outside, though, despite the 21mph (33.8kph) winds. It's a sunny 56℉ (13.3℃), and it's finally drying off. I could do without the barking dogs, but it's spring and that's what dogs do.

Regardless, I've got some quality time to spend with Gordon now, so I must bid you adieu!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming - Two Eyes Nonogram

 

Hey Haven't Done One of These In A While!

Once upon a time, I had a new game on her every week. I'd play the game and then review it and I'd let you all know what I thought. Mobile games, PC games, even the occasional console game... I'd cover what I loved (or didn't) about a game every week.

Except I'd never finish the games. Well... except one or two.

I Finished Two Eyes - Nonogram.

This game is lovely and a perfect time-sink. Free to play from start to finish with an option to pay for zero ads (which, admittedly, could improve your experience), and with gorgeous art and lovely music, this game was well worth a download - especially since I love nonogram-style gameplay!

For those not in the know, a Nonogram game involves you filling in squares of a grid to make an image, guided only by some numbers. The games usually have a tutorial (sometimes unskippable) which teaches you how to use those numbers to figure out what you're drawing. They're also often story-based, where the pictures you're filling in are the illustrations. These tend towards the fairytale side of fiction, so if that's not your cup of tea, you may find yourself simply in it for the gameplay, which is still quite rewarding!

Two Eyes, which is published by GAMEFOX (I've played other games of theirs!) and is available on ios and android, tells the story of a wolf and a deer slowly coming to terms with the fact that they are reincarnations of a deeply loving couple. It's very Greek Tragedy and well-told, though you can kind of tell it's a translation (sometimes the sentence structures are a bit rigid and unnatural, for instance), but in the end, it's a sweet little story, and I was, as the kids say, there for it.

The art, as you can tell, is spectacular, but I will not spoil you for the pixel art aspect - that would be cheating, since the pixel art is the gameplay!

I will, however, tell you that the story is broken into which character you're following (Wolf puzzles or Deer puzzles), and every story is broken down further into chapters. There are story-advancing puzzles and non-story-advancing puzzles, and both are fun! The story-advancing puzzles are arranged in a large 36 puzzle grid and range from 10x10 to 30x30. After you complete one character's story, you can finish the other character's story to see it from their perspective (the titular Two Eyes), or you can skip to the bittersweet finale.

The finale is the hardest part to get through with a triad of brutal 6x6 grids of 30x30 puzzles to get through. Your reward, however, is seeing the end of this lovely little story of enduring love.

Now, I mentioned the ad-free purchase option earlier. In my opinion, having an ad after ever two or three puzzles is a very fair tradeoff. For me, these ads were always easy to exit out of after about five or ten seconds, and I only accidentally fatfingered them once or twice. It was not economical or necessary for me to pay the oh-so-steep (sarcasm there, friend) price of two whole American dollars for the luxury of not seeing ads for a local guy who fixes basements for a decent price. Definitely pay for the ad-free version if you find the ads obnoxious, though, because the money goes towards making a bunch of beautifully drawn nonogram games like this one!

I can strongly recommend Two Eyes Nonogram to anyone who loves casual, untimed puzzle games.

That's all from me today!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Thursday Art Walk - Derp

 

In Which Today Embodied "Derp"

I slept like a brick once I got to sleep last night. At first, I was just in a light cotton blanket, and to be honest, my torso felt amazingly cozy and warm... but my arms and feet were FREEZING. So I switched to my blue fleece blanket. I was deliciously cozy for the whole two minutes I stayed awake...

But apparently I did overheat a bit, because I was so dehydrated when I woke up that my brain was pulsing.

Thankfully, I was able to remedy this with a tall cup of water and a cup of coffee, and I got on with my day.

You might expect, this being a Thursday, that meant art, right?

Uh...

I kinda spent half of today thinking it was Wednesday.

Starting when I got up at 11AM.

I treated my dehydration headache with, like I said, water and coffee, sat with the cat for a bit, checked my Pokepelago islands in Pokemon Moon...

I lounged about pretty comfortably until my mom came home from work, and then I made us some sandwiches for lunch. Nothing fancy, just a couple toasted cheese sandwiches.

I still thought it was Wednesday.  In fact, I thought it was Wednesday when she headed back to work and I decided to pick up snacks for Sunday!

It wasn't until I was signing the receipt for my bottles of Jarritos and Mexican Coca Cola (plus some local chips and some peanut butter cups...) that I noticed that it was, in fact, Thursday.

And then I had to walk home, knowing I hadn't done any art.

You'd think that after getting home, taking off my mask, putting away my purchase, and washing my hands, that I'd remember to do art, right?

Nah.  I'm dumb and lazy, so I wasted a few more hours on Pokefarm Q hatching poison types for the Type Race (Team Acid Downpour ftw, yo!) while watching Ask A Mortician videos and listening to Vaporwave.

But... this is an art blog, right?

I did art... right?!

Yyyyyyesssss...... kinda

What I did was a sketch.

100% in pen.

On an index card. So it's also super tiny lol.

"Derp"; pen on index card; 2021

I think both the subject material and the title are pretty indicative of the day, right?

I started with the eyeball and worked from there, if that helps. I might play around in Paint.net and see what I can do in there eventually.

For something without any kind of undersketch, I'm pretty pleased with my lil derpy lizard thing!

What do you guys draw to warm up with or if you want to scribble something out quickly?

And don't forget to...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday - skulking in at the last second

 

In Which I Am LLLLLLAAAAZZZZYYYYY
But Also Not

Well, look.

I'm a lazy person.

I always have been.

But today was not as lazy a day as it sounds! Sure, I didn't move much or go out to enjoy the sunny 57℉ (14℃) day, but I did... a lot.

And it's that A Lot that is why there was no Fiber Monday yesterday.

See... I have been working on a project for a while, and I'd produced a 3" long, 50" circumference tube of Fine-weight yarn on a 2.25mm hook with a nice lil v-stitch pattern... and I hated it.

I despised it.

It was taking forever, I was running out of yarn.

I wanted to make a whole thing in a very specific way, and I couldn't. So I did what any frustrated fiber artist does: I bought more yarn and I frogged the project.

Probably 200yd of it.

Alllllll over the place.

And then I started over, using a really pretty crop top pattern by shylercrochets on YouTube as a base.

So I won't be able to share more than progress shots with y'all, since the pattern is hers and not mine. I do recommend all of her vids, though, she's a genius.

But all that is very Fiber Monday-ish, and today is, ostensibly, Talk About Tuesday.

I told you about the weather, about my flubbed Fiber, and about my general laziness...

Here's the plan:

• Thursday - art. What kind? Who knows!
• Saturday - I finally finished that game so maybe I'll get off my butt and write about it?
• No promises for Sunday - they're pretty busy these days!
• Next Monday - a photo at the very least, come on, me!
• Next Tuesday - blather

That all sounds... doable if my brain doesn't decide I need to just throw the blanket over my head and hide from life again.

In the mean time, though, please accept my scatterbrained apologies for being an inconsistent blogger, and...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which There Is A Palette Update!

Hey y'all! I did some work on the Bonkbubble! I'm up to 30 rounds on it, hoping to get to 40 next week, and I have 8 new colors for you! I can tell the stragglers are going to be from the Arylide Yellow camp - there are spots of those colors so far away from the others that I have to zoom all the way out to see where they'll connect!

The colors I've found this week are:

• Jaguar 23232A
• Sand Dune 7D7168
• Vivid Violet 7D4092
• Finch 747454
• Cerise EB416C
• Wild Strawberry F83697
• Mongoose AC8871
• Yuma CEBA82

I'm pretty pleased with how things are coming along, especially after having to switch computers! The new screen is smaller than the old one, which makes it take a little longer than it did to get the outlines right on some of the bubbles. I may have figured out a workaround (at least for the outlines I already have!) but we'll see if it works long-term :)

I haven't sketched yet today, but I plan to. It probably won't be something worth throwing up on the blog next week, but I'll still give it a spin. I'm also looking at maybe picking up a desk with a built in drafting table. I have a desk, but it's... short. It's designed for a kid or young teen and my fat thighs just don't fit under it. It basically just serves as a night stand/junk storage, which is... honestly, junk storage is 2/3 of my life problems right there :|

So I'm looking for a nice desk that I can have a computer on one part and a drafting table on another. I hope I can find one that isn't obscenely expensive, but we'll see lol!

That'll about do it for me today - I need another cup of tea and maybe a walk in this lovely weather - it's currently sunny and only lightly breezy at 59℉ (15℃)! It even feels just about the way it is! When I had my coffee this morning, I watched the ducks waddle around next door and just... enjoyed feeling the sun and fresh air.

Yeah a walk sounds really nice :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I've Been Busy Today, How About You?

If you know my family, you probably know that my dad is the technologically adept person - a bona-fide IT-Rex if you will. My mother is effectively a Luddite in that she rarely uses technology if it's not 100% required for her job. I fall somewhere in the middle. If you handed me a computer case and the components that go into it I can probably figure out what goes where via Google-fu and a judicious application of YouTube tutorials.

So today my mother wanted to scan a photo onto her computer, which meant that today, I had to figure out how to teach my mother how to use the scanner.

The first issue came when because we had no idea where the photo actually was - she spent most of today digging through things (including a fairly embarrassing photo of my Jr Prom which I will not be uploading lol) to find it. She found both it and a minor spider infestation.

We handled the arachnid incursion (I may be exaggerating - there were about 3 small spiders in a fairly small amount of space lol) and moved on to our second issue:

The scanner was, for whatever reason, not on her computer.

That was easy enough to fix, and we moved on to part 3 of the troubles.

She did not know how to activate the scanner or what parameters to use.

Again, easy to resolve!

I helped her find the right utility, picked a high dpi, and showed her how to use the Preview function so she wouldn't waste 10-45 minutes just trying to get things right. When it was manipulated properly, we got it scanned in and I saved the photo where she wanted it.

All of this took several hours total. Now the photo has been sent where it belongs, and my mom can now use the flatbed scanner down cellar with little to no issues!

And as soon as all of that was done, she wanted help flipping the futon mattress in my dad's room. Which was futile because it just slouched down to be just as bad-looking as it ever was lol.

So I'm a little tired, physically, and a little tired in the sleep-deprived sense because Somebody just had to have coffee after 7pm last night... Somebody is me. I'm Somebody.

So I'm just sitting upstairs on this rainy-but-not-cold day and thinking about technology.

It's currently 52℉ (~11℃) but it feels, with the gentle breeze and rain, like 46℉ (~8℃) so it may be a bit warm for me to be wearing long sleeves and fluffy pajama pants, but here I am, doing exactly that.

My plans this week are simple:

• Art on Thursday (either hand-drawn or an update on the Bonkbubble, which I have not forsaken)
• Possibly gonna finish that phone game for Saturday, but I'm not holding my breath lol - it's still 72 30x30 squares to fill in less than a week!
• If I remember to upload photos, I hope to have a Sunday Blog out, though Sundays are a bit tricky sometimes!
• Next Monday I'll try to remember to upload pics of my projects!
• Next Tuesday I'll be comin atcha with some blather and planning!

I am also hoping to do some writing tomorrow, but we'll see how that pans out :)

I think that about covers what I'm up to this week, so get cozy and...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday - Cyberstruggles

 

In Which There Almost Wasn't Even This Much Of A Blog

You may have noticed that there was a big ol' outage with a certain shitty web carrier today.

I didn't get anything uploaded and it's a little late to start now :|

Still, I did get a lot of crochet work done, and I got working on some art, too, while I was at it! No clue as of the blogging as to why the network was down, but it was. And it was super annoying.

I do hope to have more of a Fiber Monday blog up next week, but we'll see.

Actually, I do have a couple fiber-related things to report!

A) I ordered some silk hankies (mawata)! They're gold and should get here with the new Universal Remote so that I don't have to cross the room to fiddle with the volume anymore...

2) I'm going to try to build a drop spindle this week! Wish me luck because I have NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING LOL

III) I started another new project but that's not really news so much as just another day of the week lol.

That'll about cover it for me on this gray and frustrating Monday!

Go Enjoy Something (provided your internet is functioning)

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Made A Lil Drawing!

Considering the date, y'all are probably expecting some kind of prank, right?

Well I guess that's my prank - not posting a joke art :P

April Fools?

But I did draw a little something to share with you folks!

"Owl Be There For You"; mechanical pencil, ballpoint pen, crayon; 2021

These two are so freakin cute!

I've been playing a lot of Pokemon Moon lately (what can I say, I like bats!) and named my Rowlet after Dedbert, so here they are, meeting each other. I mostly call my Rowlet "Junior" anyway, so he and Dedbert are sharing their favorite crescent-shaped treats - Rainbow Pokebeans and crescent rolls!

I love how easy Rowlet is to draw, since he's 90% ovals, much like Dedbert is 90% circles!

Actually, now that I think about it, most of my favorite creatures can be reduced to simple geometry... new idea? Maybe. We'll see.

I think I might do some more fan art at some point, but for now, just coo with me at how stinkin cute these two are :P

As for me, I need to finish this massive cup of coffee and then vacuum a bit, so here - rock out to the best boss music in Moon - Guzma's Theme while you

Go Enjoy Something!

FC