Talk About Tuesday

 

It's too hot

I'm not a summer person. I don't like heat, I don't like humidity, and I don't like the sun.

Unfortunately, like a lot of folks right now, I'm experiencing Summer with a capital S. It's not anywhere close to as hot as it is in the PNW right now, we're only at about 90℉ (32.2℃). With humidity it feels around 97℉ (36.1℃), and it's slowly rolling between partly cloudy and sunnier than an optimist's disposition and twice as obnoxious to my pessimistic tush.

I've drank 2 liters of water today, had a bowl of cereal, ate a handful of cold, wet baby carrots (they were from a leftover veggie tray and still pretty good), and of course had my morning coffee (which was probably a mistake since hot beverages are a bad idea lol). I also took a cool shower (cold showers can cause shock! Just pick a temperature that's juuuust warm enough to be comfortable and don't go any higher!) and dressed in all breathable clothing. Natural fibers like cotton and linen are your friends!

You may have guessed already, but blogs will be slow to appear in hot weather. My laptop heats up quickly and uncomfortably in this heat, and my phone just hates the blog format. My bedroom has no AC, so I'm just cycling the warm updrafts from downstairs and across the hall as opposed to actually cooling down. It's 76℉ (24.4℃) downstairs, but up here has to be at least 82℉ (27.8℃). Thankfully, due to the downstairs AC, the air up here is nowhere near as humid as it could be, so I'm fairly comfortable so long as I take breaks from the laptop and spread out my limbs every so often lol!

But yes, tis very toasty this week. Looking forward to whenever it breaks and hoping it's not a traumatic event like a wind storm or something. It'll totally be a massive weather event, though. It always is.

Three days of light to moderate rain with thunder wouldn't be so bad, though. It'd give me a major chance to focus on my writing, which always goes better with consistent precipitation, weirdly enough.

This week will probably consist of a lot of research into how different people handle different elements in watercolor. I'll watch people make neon signs seem to glow, how they make shadows deeper or lighter, how they approach foggy landscapes or rain, etc.

It's been years since I took a class, and those classes mostly consisted of color theory and avoiding unintentional focal points.

No schedule this week because I have no idea what I'll be up for or when - there's a lot going on.

I will try to keep working on things, though, and I hope you do, too (within reason - don't exhaust yourselves!)

Keep an eye out for the following symptoms as you endure the heat:

• dizziness
• sudden chills
• you were sweating hard but now you suddenly aren't
• muscle cramps/weakness
• lethargy
• diarrhea
• nausea
• sudden/severe headache

If you feel any of that - if you feel off at all - get to shade, get something cool to drink and sip it slowly, place cool cloths or bottles against your lower back, the bottoms of your feet (if you're not diabetic and don't have Reynauds - don't do things that will physically hurt you!), under your arms, etc. You are overheating and if you can't get these symptoms under control in say 30 minutes you should probably go to Urgent Care or (if your symptoms are bad) get to the ER. Heat exhaustion is no joke and since you're probably not a ham, you should not bake yourself.

If you don't have AC/access to AC, make sure you have airflow through your whole living space - one open window on either end helps especially when you run a lot of fans. Block as much sunlight as possible with shades/curtains/tacked up towels or pillowcases/etc. Find cool tile, vinyl, or wood floors to put your bare feet on. Take a cool bath once a day and dip your feet in cool water. Anywhere you can feel a pulse, you can press a cool cloth for some relief.

Please, please, please take care of yourselves, and don't let your pets or kids outside without you - they can burn themselves on sidewalks, cement, fences, etc and none of them can really recognize the signs/symptoms of heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

If you develop little clear bumps on your skin, that's heat rash. Yes, it's usually red bumps, but it's still heat rash. Go cool down.

If you don't think you're thirsty, take a sip of water anyway.

Take care of yourselves out there,

And Stay Inside and Enjoy Something!

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Try Out Some Stuff!!!

Buckle up friends, because this is a saga of me trying to buy art supplies online for the first time in about a decade.

I used to paint with watercolors a lot. I picked it up in college while doing some art requirements and fell in love with how luminous the paints could get, how every aspect of the environment and medium could change the outcome of a painting, how fun it was to layer and adjust different areas of a piece... I just loved everything about watercolor!

Except for how hard it is to do it on a tv tray in a bedroom without a sink nearby.

So when I started seeing ads for water brushes I was ecstatic! Finally, a way to paint with watercolors that wouldn't get everywhere if I, in my eternal clumsiness, knocked an open container of water onto my floor!

And I saw a sale on a site called Arteza.

And I had, for once, a little disposable cash...

It seemed like fate - for the price of a medium cheeseburger pizza with jalapenos from Dominos, I soon had a six-pack of water brushes in various sizes and shapes plus a three-pack of small, hard-cover, ring-bound watercolor notebooks ordered!

The website said 5-7 business days.

It took quite a while for the order to ship, and then I saw my mistake.

Arteza uses DHL.

Not FedEx, not UPS, not even USPS.

DHL.

oy.

So I've never had a good experience with DHL - ordered stuff from Etsy that shipped and then never arrived, ordered things from ebay with the same results, and even had some school books back in college that arrived water damaged.

My excitement waned.

My order shipped separately. The brushes had a slow but smooth trek up the coast to me, but for some reason, the notebooks stalled out in Georgia for about a week.

My excitement was already nearly gone when my dad handed me a tiny six-inch-cube (15.24㎤) box.

A box with a lot of dents...

Names & Addresses redacted of course...

I was unsurprised, given my history with DHL, but hey, at least it didn't seem punctured and nothing rattled when I shook it? But really, that size seemed... suspiciously subpar for a six-pack of brushes on a cardboard backing...

WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOOXXXXXXX?!

Inside the package, I saw a bunch of crumpled brown packing paper. I appreciate the dedication to securing the card in the box, but it seemed... excessive.

Oh thank goodness, they seem alri... hold on, what?!

The brushes were all blisterpacked neatly, but the card seemed... bent.

Really?

Yeah. They bent the card in half to use a cube box when a flat box would've been just as good and just as cheap...

My excitement built again for about a day when I checked the tracking on package two and saw that it hadn't moved an inch out of Georgia for about a week. I had no paper to practice my watercolors on. I didn't even know if my watercolors were still good! It had been probably about ten years since the last time I painted.

Then, one day, I checked the tracking again and... success! The package was in my hometown waiting to be delivered by my local postal carrier! My local post office dudes are sometimes a mixed bag, but they're usually pretty prompt.

The thing is, they also tend to send packages and mail out at different times of day, so as you may have noticed on Tuesday's blog, I was literally listening for the mail truck the whole time I was typing lol!

And suddenly there it was!

I abhor overpackaging. I simply detest it. That up there? That's optimal packaging for a trio of sketchbooks prepackaged in plastic wrap! There's not a whole lot that can get damaged in transit with books like these, so seeing such an easy-to-unwrap-and-dispose-of packaging was a treat after the Tiny Box nonsense of the brushes!

And they're in perfect condition!

I am beyond pleased with these notebooks. They feel sturdy, the paper is thick, and the smaller size makes them super portable! At last, I could test out my old watercolors and my new water brushes!!!

But not my old palette, since that broke...

True facts: Anything smooth can be a palette if you're brave enough.

My ancient set of Marie's Watercolors from when Ocean State opened nearby...

I'm cheap. I am just a cheap person. I hate to spend money when it's not explicitly necessary and I don't want to buy paint if I don't have to. Thankfully, Past Me did Present Me a massive favor and held on to my watercolors even after I ran out of good paper.

My setup!

I have a tv tray in my room that I use as a table, and I've got a folding chair pulled up to that. But the table is flat and I like to paint at an angle, so I decided to use the awesome tray my partner got me as somewhat of an easel, and I gotta tell you - it works amazingly well!!!

Observe! A functioning art station!

I swatched these paints out on Wednesday using my new brushes and I loved every second of it... except for putting the paints on the palette. See, most of my earthtones are dried up so I had to use a plastic yarn needle to get in there and pull out some pigment. I'm planning on taking the watercolors out of their tubes permanently and putting them in some containers I bought at the local cheap shop. Saves money, and I still get to use my paints because watercolors are, by their nature, water soluble. They're still useful, just stuck!

But how, you may ask, did the brushes work?

In a word: Beautifully.

It took me a second to figure out how to unscrew the ends and fill them, but once assembled, it's pretty intuitive. Some brushes require more pressure to squish the water through, others are fairly consistent, and if you have patience and a napkin on hand, they're self-cleaning. Just squish and swish! Squish the barrel a bit to get some more water in the bristles, then swish it around on the napkin to dissipate the pigment!

The paper held up well, only doming slightly on the violet, which I added way too much water to. It's hardy paper, which is perfect for a notebook! 

The colors!

For those who may have a hard time reading my Sharpie chickenscratch, the colors are as follows (vertically):

• 102 White
• 215 Lemon Yellow
• 218 Gamboge
• 676 Yellow Ochre
• 301 Orange Yellow
• 324 Vermilion
• 336 Rose
• 315 Crimson
• 684 Burnt Sienna
• 687 Burnt Umber
• 509 Green Light
• 568 Sap Green
• 570 Green Deep
• 455 Cerulean Blue
• 443 Ultramarine
• 430 Violet
• 445 Prussian Blue
• 793 Black

And as I mentioned, several of these colors have solidified, rendering them hard to put on the palette.

Today was the first time I tried to paint with these watercolors, and because I can't find my watercolor pencils, I decided to work without a sketch today! Instead, I laid-out my image using a layer of Lemon Yellow, which was far, far fainter than it looks in this picture:

Comically lighter than this, in fact. It's barely visible!

From there, I just worked in layers of different colors, adding droplets from my very fine brush and mixing colors on the plate.

My supplies for the day - I never did use that marker...

All in all, however, I am proud of how the image came out - especially since it was the first figural painting I've done in such a long time!!!

"Flora" watercolor on watercolor paper; 2021

I'm very proud of the work I've started here, and I can't wait to add more to the notebooks! I hope to fill at least one before fall :)

And that is the story of how I ordered art supplies and everything turned out alright in the end (despite DHL's best efforts...)

Do any of you have silly art-supply-buying stories? Are y'all working on anything in particular right now? Let me know!

For now, that's all for me!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Still Wait.

So my water brushes arrived last week. The box was... not in the best shape. It had obviously been kicked around a bit, and it was this tiny cubic thing, which I thought was weird, since I knew the brushes were packed on a card. And they were.

They'd just... bent the card to stuff it in a box that was obviously a bit too small for it. Why not just ship it in a padded envelope or a rectangular box? It weighed next to nothing, I can't imagine the shipping was that expensive!

But thankfully the brushes themselves seem to be in good shape. I haven't yet received my watercolor notebooks (they're due today!) so I haven't tested them yet. Gotta admit, my enthusiasm is waning rapidly due to the shipping nonsense. Why did my package of notebooks stay in freaking Georgia for a week before moving on? Why would anyone ship via DHL? So many questions!

On the other hand, I'm still looking forward to testing out the ol' watercolors for the first time in literal years.

Griping and shipping woes aside, this hasn't been a terrible week for me. I mean, yeah, it was so hot the other day that I couldn't do more than stare into space and groan (which, let's be real, is not that hot for anyone who lives where summer means 90℉ (32.2℃)

Hold that thought... books may have arrived just now...

HECK YEAH THEY DID

And in a lot better shape than the brushes, I must say. And in packaging that fit them!

Anywho, that means I can start swatching tomorrow! Why wait? Because I prefer to do my art when it's quiet and we're pretty close to the time my dad gets home and starts watching The Walking Dead at top volume across the hall.

Not exactly conducive to artistic endeavors lol!

But that is a worry for Future Me. Present Me needs to figure out what the coming week will be like!

• Thursday will have me posting the results of my experimentation, my opinion on both the watercolor notebooks and the brushes, etc!
• Sunday might involve a noodle bowl review... If I get up on time lol!
• Monday should have my work on the latest crochet projects!
• Tuesday should see me back here, blathering away!

All of this is, of course, contingent on the weather - if it's too hot to think, it's too hot to work. If it's too hot to work, there is no blog.

I'm excited to start working on stuff now, so I'll probably go write some more lines in my novel and plan what I'll do for my swatches!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

I'm maybe a little too excited lol

So much is happening right now, you guys, you don't even know! Well... you don't know yet...

First things first: today is another alright day weather-wise. Yeah, it's too humid, and yeah I just had to run outside to tell off a crow trying to kill my mom's favorite chipmunk (Chippy's okay! The crow is not happy with me but I let him know he is welcome to all the suet he wants he just can't eat the lil fluffbutt), but it's not hot and it's not particularly sunny. In fact, it rained last night, which is really, really good!

It's about 64℉ (17.78℃) and 88% humidity, overcast, and still as can be. Perfect day to sit inside with coffee and books and art.

Speaking of which, here's the second bit of news:

I ordered new art supplies! They haven't shipped from Arteza yet, but I ordered a set of watercolor notebooks and a six-pack of various water brushes. I've never used a water brush before, but I love painting with watercolors and it's been literal years since I last had the chance. Mostly I can't due to lack of space and the hazards of having open containers of water near laminate floors with rugs that aren't readily cleanable...

But hopefully these brushes and pads mean I'll be back to painting again! I was always better at painting than sketching or digital art, in my own estimation, so I look forward to getting paint on my fingertips and watching cityscapes appear before my own eyes!

My third bit of news is not exactly something y'all don't already know about, I'm sure.

I loved The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild when it first came out. I've played it start to finish multiple times and even fully leveled-up the Master Sword and overcame the Ballad of the Champions and everything and have been thoroughly craving more and more ever since.

Then Nintendo posted that eerie teaser for the sequel a couple years ago and... silence. Then Virus happened and there was even more silence, which S U C K E D.

But today at E3? We have a release year. We have a trailer! We have...

Maybe Link flying through the air in a Skyloftian outfit?!

Oh my god I'm HYPED!

I literally cannot wait!

Is that Time Travel? Is the arm the new Sheikah slate? Has the world truly been fractured and sent back Above or is that straight-up Skyloft?! Wait, did Link just teleport a la Twilight Princess?!?!?! I NEED TO KNOW I NEED TO PLAY I NEED IT GUYS!

So I might be a little keyed-up lol...

But I do still plan on blogging on Thursday (who knows, I might have art supplies by then lol). And I do still plan to do more crochet for next Monday. I might talk about other video games on Saturday, though I'm not sure.

Whatever I do, I'll enjoy it, so I hope you all can...

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which Some Progress Is Better Than No Progress

Guess who did the bare minimum on their crochet project this week after getting repeatedly distracted by literally everything on earth? This dingdong!!!

But I still managed a couple of rows:

It doesn't look like much, but we're now at 100% length!

As you can see, it's pretty!

And it's a long boi lol

And I'm starting on the decreases soon!

Turns out this big boi is about 19.5" long (49.53cm), which is honestly a lil longer than I thought, but that's good because the bread bowl is also a longboi lol.

Also I'm about 51% done with this project now!

It's about 10pm now, which is honestly about 12 hours later than I should've posted, so apologies about that, but I'm super duper excited about something I'll talk about tomorrow (hopefully before midnight lol).

Alright that'll do it for me tonight! I'm gonna go play a Pokemon game and waffle about on the internet until I pass out :P

Go Enjoy Something!

FC 

Thursday Art Walk

 

I Have A Sketch!

Today has been a major art block day. I have a pile of crappy papers next to the bed covered in junk scribbles, but I finally have something to show for it.

"Creature 01"; mechanical pencil on legal pad; 2021

That lil critter up there is a fusion of a South Indian Marble Tree and a lion. Why? I... couldn't think of anything to draw, tbh. I'd love to pop that lil sucker into my digital art program and color it! The branches should be a deep reddish pink darkening to red at the tops of the bell-shaped flowers, the fluffy bits inside the flowers should be white, the body of the lion should, of course, be a golden brown, and the mane should be dark green with rosy veins! I really hope I can do this boy some justice, tbh.

Now... why the South Indian Marble Tree?

Because I wanted to do something based off of a living thing, and that was the first living thing with a photograph that popped up when I hit "Random Article" on Wikispecies lol.

And why the lion?

Because that was the first non-human, non-building being that showed up on Google when I typed in "South Indian".

Inspiration isn't always pretty, but it is useful!

Anyway, I think I'll try a few of these kind of picture, and I hope I can actually figure out how to color them up all pretty-like lol!

Anyone have any video tutorial suggestions for Paint.net or Krita? I still can't get Krita to do anything that makes sense, tbh...

Whatever is going on, I hope you

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday - Wednesday Edition

 

In Which It Is Too Hot

I live where the air, 3-5 months out of the year, hurts my face with cold. I live out of pants and flannel shirts 9/10 of the time. I hate being barefoot.

So for the 3-4 months of summer we get up here, you'd better believe I'm miserable.

It felt only slightly cooler today than yesterday, which, if you'll recall, got to about 90℉ (32.22℃). Today felt that hot - especially in my room, which has no AC. I have my window fan gobbling up cooler air from outside now that it's near midnight (maybe if I type fast and ignore my growing urge to pee I can get this blog out before it's actually Wednesday?) and my ceiling fan spinning that vaguely less hot air around, but man does it still feel to hot to live up here.

I spent a good portion of today downstairs. I even went into the basement to grab some bottled water and it developed condensation halfway up the stairs. I wish the internet wasn't balls in the basement or I'd have stayed down there.

And then of course the internet fluffed off at some point in the afternoon. Maybe around 4? It didn't come back until like quarter to five, though, so that sucked because that's my usual blogging time.

I have a small amount of grumpage, yes, why?

But seriously, I'm not built for hot-and-humid days with no AC.

Today was better than yesterday in a couple of ways though! Namely in that my COVID Vaccine Arm cleared up.

Yeah I got my second Moderna jab on Wednesday last week, and for the next few days it felt like someone had grabbed both of my arms and tried to pull them out of the sockets after hitting me in the back with a steel chair. I felt a little nauseous and very tired, but I prefer that to drowning in fluids and choking on my own sloughed-off lung lining, so jabs it is.

And the fact that I got to have sushi last Wednesday as a treat for getting vaccinated was pretty great too.

But not even a single day after I started to feel better, body-wise, a new symptom appeared in the form of a goose-egg-sized-and-shaped patch on my upper left arm (the arm I got the shot in).

It didn't itch, but it was really red and sore to the touch like a bruise, and weirdly, it was about three inches away from the injection site. Odd.

But it was there, and I was on the verge of freaking out until I looked up some of the weirder side effects and learned that, yes, anywhere from 3 days to a week after getting vaxxed, you can in fact develop this reaction. The suggested treatment was simple: ice if you need it, painkillers if you need them, allergy meds if you need them.

I took the allergy meds mostly bc the lilacs are in bloom but they helped and now my arm is more or less normal! Still a small patch that's a little raised but nothing hurts and it's not red anymore.

In less health-related news, though, I have high hopes for Thursday since it should finally not feel like Satan's butthole then and I can draw and maybe pick up some snax. Those are my goals. The total sum of my goals for this week are

1. draw
2. get snax

That's it.

That's all I wanna do :P

Then again, it's midnight, and I should really be asleep, so who knows what else I'll come up with tomorrow during the possible thunder showers and gross heat?

Whatever the weather brings, I hope you guys are doing well and can

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday: Filet And Blather

In Which I Am Working On A Thing

I am a sleepy potato. It's been about 90℉ (32.2℃) and about 50% humidity all day. If you live in certain parts of the world, I'm sure you're laughing at me, and believe me, I do the same thing to you in January when you're complaining that it's half this temp and you're bundled up while I'm still walking outside in short sleeves, but please remember: in the cold months, you can add clothes to keep you warm. I cannot strip my skin off when it's hot, no matter how much I'd like to.

Gotta admit, too, that I'm not really crocheting today. I just wanted to show you the progress I've made on this design I'm making for my mom's new bread bowl.

Don't let the zoom fool you, this sucker is LONG!

Around 19" long (48.26cm)!

And it's not even half finished

so it could be about an inch or two wider before I'm done!

As things stand, though, it'll be just the right length

So I hope my mom likes it for her bread tray

I really enjoy doing filet crochet, to be honest.

Even if my tired monkey brain has a hard time counting the right amounts, and even though I seem to drop a block once every couple of rows, and yes, even though that means frogging for ages before I can hook back to where I was when I noticed the error...

But it's just a lot of fun, yeah? I love seeing the design take shape, block by block, in a way that I can't really get with colorwork. There's no extra ends to tie in (though if I ever find myself brave enough to take on the Godzilla Shawl, that will not be the case...), I have an easier time counting out multiples of 3 than multiples of 2 for some reason, and I really enjoy practicing my foundation double crochet stitches! This project has been a blast so far.

Yeah, I also had to take a break last Wednesday because I got my second jab, and boy was I sore afterwards. I'll try to remember to tell y'all about that tomorrow, but for now, I'm just gonna go enter some contests and go to bed because it is exhausting to be this overheated. Yes I'm wearing a tank top. Yes I'm wearing ridiculously tiny shorts. No it's not cool enough. No I don't have AC.

I may also be a wee bit cranky due to the heat :P

However this blog may find you, I hope you're able to get comfy and!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC