Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Show You Progress & Errors!

Alright, I've been following YouTuber Nianiani for a few weeks now and I've learned so much! That picture with the seashells I posted a while back? Based on one of her tutorials. Couldn't have done it without her.

So I decided to try more of her tutorials!

She's got these lovely fruit, flower, tree, and even bunny tutorials but I am very hot. Today reached 87℉ (30.56℃) and it was so humid that it felt over 100℉ (37.78℃). I wanted to go to the freakin beach, but I didn't wanna go outside.

So I decided to try two of her tutorials involving the ocean!

The first attempt was a seascape with trees and a beach and it was lovely! But I literally could not make my paints cooperate, and since she utilizes quite a bit of Buff Titanium (a well-covering off-white tone I do not own yet), alas, I had to abort.

Attempt the Second was simply an aerial view of a wave coming in to shore. A study on the interplay of blue and gold (not Ted Kord & Michael Carter). A... highly complex layering experiment.

That I botched.

Twice.

Now, fortunately, Watercolors are fairly forgiving, regardless of what you've heard. They are forgiving, but they are also hard to substitute, and if your painting calls for pans and you have pencils, you're going to have to become... creative. Especially if you have committed the cardinal sin of painting without swatching your tones first.

Which is what happened to the first two tries I made at this piece.

Which I'm also not finished with yet.

Because I'm not in the AC anymore and my bedroom is a toasty 85℉ (29.44℃) plus an uncomfortable level of humidity. I have no one to blame but myself for being too stubborn to sit downstairs at the couch, battling the cat and wearing headphones. Yes, I'd rather have my inner knees sweat than my ears.

I'm dumb like that lol.

So here they are - my attempts at watercolor!

Try #1 at the Wave; Watercolor; 2021

What went wrong here? Well, you may notice the visible sketch lines in the background, but the other problem is... the blue is too irregular and too small. You'll see why if you watch the vid or see picture #3 lol.

Try #2 at The Wave; Watercolor; 2021

So what's wrong with this? Uh... kinda same problem - blobs too tiny, background gradient not very good.

The Wave; Watercolor; 2021

As you may be able to tell, this is the version I'm going with. Is it perfect? No. But I love that gradient I've got going from the deep water to the shore. I love the soft sand gradient. I am satisfied with the third layer of paint accentuating the ripples of the water. I can work with this.

Bonus: This was actually my first try at the Seascape painting, but I was able to rework it! I'm very, very happy about that.

Now, I'm about 7 minutes into the tutorial, so that should tell you how long this took between all the failures, life stuff (food, coffee, cats), and just waiting forever for paint to dry. Seriously. At one point I had to just... walk away for an hour while one of the layers dried. It wasn't even that wet! It was just that humid.

I hope I can get this finished in the next week or so, so keep an eye out!!!

Also, since I just got an iPad, if you're reading this and know how to do art on one, please let me know the best free app you can think of for painting on iPad!

That'll do it for me, tonight (wow it got late...)

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which A Lot Is Up

I promise you I had every intention of writing a blog for tomorrow (edit: I meant YESTERDAY lol!!!). I had my crochet project at the ready (Return of the Downton Abbey Shrug), was about to take pics and... well... I couldn't focus. Let's rewind.

A lot has been going on, lately, and among these many stressors came my cat making a noise like wet rubber being twisted on itself while vomiting bile. Also having visible breathing issues. So off to the vet she went yesterday and came home with trimmed nails, a rabies vaccine update, and the usual "probably just a cold" shrug. So you'd think I'd have been 100% fine to blog, right?

Guess who can't sleep when stressed?

Guess who stresses about everything?

Guess who also has a room that holds onto heat and humidity and cannot sleep in humid heat?

Yeah. Me.

So I had exactly 1 hour of sleep yesterday. One.

No blogging was done. Barely anything besides compulsive coffee drinking was done, tbh.

Not all of the news and events lately have been bad, though! My grandmother is off to stay with family out of town and having a blast! My other grandmother sold her house and got to move back into her old place where she had a lot more room! My partner's going to have a new nibling in March! And on a more selfish level, I got some new tech to play with as a gift from my dad.

I have now officially joined the ranks of Apple users with the gift of a refurbished once-junked iPad! My dad repairs old, ruined tech sometimes for the challenge, and since he doesn't need a bunch of old laptops or whatever, family members get first crack. The latest challenge was an iPad, and he managed to resurrect it, repair it, and reset it so now I have an iPad!

It... has a fairly short battery life for a tablet - it took it only about an hour to drop down to about 78% battery life, and I have no idea what I'm doing with it, since I've literally never owned another Apple product in my life (I'm born & bred a PC pleb).

But my grand plan for this device is less for Pokemon Masters EX (though you'd best believe I'm playing that now...) and more for art. I've long heard that Apple products were the best for art, so if you're an artist out there and you draw on an iPad or another Apple product, what are your suggestions for a good, reliable, novice-friendly, (most importantly) free art app? I have no idea what I'm doing, have no Apple Pen (don't even know if this model is compatible with a Pen, tbh), and want to be able to do digital art. My current tablet, the XP Pen, works fantastically for sketching and basic coloring, but I have a hard time controlling it for details and proper layering (it's quite reactive to the slightest movements, which is good, but my hands shake).

Now, I've blathered about the material and emotional side of life so far, but how's the weather out here? :P

It's been very weird. The last few days were cool and clammy - low-to-mid 60s with thick fog banks! Perhaps that should have clued me in that today was gonna suck, weather-wise. It may have only reached about 76℉(24.44℃), but with the humidity and how still the air was, the house rocketed past 83℉ (28.33℃). It was, in short, miserable.

The cat doesn't care, though. She slept most of today, slowly migrating from lap to lap until, dissatisfied with our upper thighs, she elected to steal my mother's recliner when she got up to make a cup of coffee around lunch time. The cat has not moved since, slowly melting as cats do.

I have no plans worked out for Thursday. I know I'll do watercolor because that's what I've been doing, but I don't know what the subject will be yet :)

Next Monday, hopefully, I'll have some progress to report on one of my longest-running projects! After that, it's back to Tuesday again, where I blather like I did tonight :P

How have all of your weeks been going?

That's about all I've got for tonight :)

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Make Progress!

I got several deliveries over the last week or so, all of which were related to art! I tried very hard not to be overbearing about the wait, too, but...

Guys, for some reason one of my packages got delayed again!

From Amazon, I ordered some really nice Sakura products - some Pigma fineliners and my first white Gelly Roll pens, and I added on a sepia tone fineliner to get free shipping. Now, the sepia liner is apparently coming all the way from Japan, so I 100% understand why it's not due til next month at the earliest and it's not like I need a sepia fineliner right now lol.

But see, my Gelly Rolls were due the 16th, which came and went. Okay, that'll happen during a pandemic. So I check tracking and find out that it's in my town, same as last time, and it's "awaiting delivery scan", whatever that means.

I received them yesterday because they never delivered the mail to my street on Monday or Tuesday.

My Improved Stash of Painting/Drawing Implements

Now, let's add some insult to this.

See I also ordered from Dick Blick for the first time. Bought a ream of 100 sheets of 5"x7" (~12.7cm x 17.78cm) of 100% rag 300gsm/140lb rough-surfaced paper. On the 16th. They shipped late in the day on the 17th and arrived safe and sound at my door (despite the box being a bit crunched) in the early afternoon of the 18th. 

My Block of Paper

I'm going to have to get used to this rough texture, but with that quick turnaround, I might just have to suck up the 8 dollar shipping and order more stuff via Blick. That was a great experience all around.

Speaking of that paper!

"Mountain 01"; watercolor on rag paper; 2021

It holds paint beautifully! It is going to take some getting used to, but I can definitely see myself making a lot of art with this fun, nubbly paper! Now, you may notice I didn't add any outlines, despite my new fineliners coming in (though I drew ripples on the lake with the Gelly Roll!) - that's because I need to practice. A lot.

Black & White Swatches

The Microns are exactly as I remember, which is maybe not so helpful on a paper so textured as watercolor paper, but when I do regular colored pencil or gel pen drawings, they should be great! The Pigma Graphic, meanwhile, is a bit chunkier and easier to control. I'm going to have to practice a ton with the Pigma Brush, though. It's very new to me.

I'm not entirely impressed with the coverage on my 05 Gelly Roll pens, but the 08 and 10 pens cover very nicely!

I do have to cut this short - it's uh...

It's nearly midnight lol.

I've got to get some sleep!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Today Started... Weird

I am a creature of habit. No, not like a nun. More like a flower. I bloom in my own cycle and anything that disrupts that muddies up my whole vibe. So when I tell you today was a weird-vibe day, you can rest assured I am very thrown-off.

The morning started surprisingly early because my mother took our stale bread out for the crows. They were very appreciative and sang her the song of their people. You may take this to mean that I was annoyed to be awakened by crows, but you'd be wrong. I loved it! It was so nice to hear them happily cawing and the younger ones making "feed me, ma!" noises even though I'm pretty sure some of them have already paired off with mates of their own lol!

So the morning is going well - I grab my coffee and settle into an armchair, the cat is curled up on my lap, farting into my thigh like it's a race... which yeah, not pleasant, but I was happy she was so comfortable on my lap when she's usually quite antisocial in the mornings.

Then my mom lets me know her mother's visiting, and while I love my grandma a lot, I'm less enamored of her crazy dog - the big one who we had that saga with over the late winter/early spring and the lack of kenneling.

Okay, I can deal with that. My partner left me a date bar (delicious) and I brewed a pot of lemon tea that I enjoyed with a few nice vids from the Snake Discovery Enclosure Buildoff. Dog wanted cuddles under the tree so my mom and grandma set themselves up outside, letting the cat and I just chill.

Pretty good day so far!

And then a bonus! The paper that I ordered from Dick Blick 2 days ago and shipped last night? Arrived today! It's a nice cotton rag 5"x7" block of 100 sheets! Pretty dang pleased - especially since my fineliners and gelly roll pens were supposed to arrive...

Yesterday.

And then they were supposed to get here today!

And a package did arrive for my dad from USPS, but... they didn't deliver mail yesterday, and we got no mail today, either.

I'm beginning to think they lost my freaking pens... or that I've somehow pissed off our mailman...

Regardless, today started strong, but the disappointment of realizing my stuff isn't showing up until maybe even Thursday was crushing. And also my brain has been zooming all over the place all day, which isn't fun.

It's been very hard to concentrate - hence why it's past 11PM while I'm writing this.

Anywho, the plan for this week is basically just to try and make some art at the very least! If I can do more than that it'll be a miracle, but hey, miracles do occasionally happen, right?

Right?!

Yeah, that'll about do it for me today :P

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Have Plans...

I'm kind of wobbly on a lot of projects I had in the works, to be honest, and I apologize for my rampant inconsistency. I haven't been crocheting a lot, and it shows. I do still plan on finishing some of the things I've worked on, but... I have been bitten by a bug.

You see, I recently discovered the Art Doll world, and that has me fascinated. If you know me at all, you know that fascination almost always leads to some form of action, so as you may have guessed, I kind of want to start learning how to make art dolls. This means I've dragged out some of my old jewelrymaking supplies to use the wire and experiment with armatures.

I haven't made anything yet, but I do want to!

So what do I want to make?

Well, I have a love for dragons. I've loved them since I was a wee lil one reading Patricia C Wrede and watching the D&D cartoon on reruns (much to my mother's chagrin, since she hated that show). I also have a fantasy story I'm plotting out with the intention of writing it, and in that story, the main character has a dragon for an ally, but not just any dragon.

It's a special kind of dragon and I'm going to be experimenting to figure out what that looks like!

And if I can figure this out... I may have to start making a lot of these dragons!

So stay tuned to see if I can get beyond the brainworm stage and actually create this cute lil guy!

I have no pictures of the process yet, since, again, just in the brainworm stage, but as I plan and plot and experiment, I hope to take enough pics to satisfy you all!

So this is just a nice lil written update to keep me honest on this story, this idea, and this blog :)

That'll do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Twist Tongues With Art ;)

Oh my god today was hot.

It was so freaking hot.

It was 82℉ (27.8℃) and I'm so embarrassed because once upon a time I could walk miles in 88℉ (31.1℃) just fine but I got wrecked. I was pouring sweat the whole walk and didn't stop sweating for about an hour. I ended up with heat rash on both arms (it's annoying but harmless and doesn't itch or anything).

I feel great now, though.

I feel awake and alive and good. And the headache that I started to get was brutally murdered by 12oz of water and a chocolate icecream bar.

Still, it's a very good thing that I did my sketching yesterday and my painting this AM lol!

Behold today's work:

"Seven Selfish Shellfish"; watercolor and watercolor pencil on watercolor sketchbook; 2021

Holy cow the more I look at this piece the happier I am with it!

There's a Periwinkle, a Razor Clam, a Mahogany Quahog, a very large Blue Mussel, a Sand Dollar, a Cherrystone Clam, and a Ladyslipper. Also a piece of seaglass and two arms of two different kinds of seaweed!

I'm really really proud of this piece! I'm going to try to remember to scan it tomorrow or this weekend so I can put it on my Redbubble (see my sidebar for link!). I'd like to throw some other art up there, too, but we'll see.

I think that's about as much as I have to say for now - nice picture is pretty picture, and I'm proud of myself. 

How 'bout you guys - you have any work you're proud of this week? Brag yourself up in the comments!

For now, though,

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Napped Too Much LOL

So.

I may have gotten a bit caught-up in my crochet yesterday.

And it may not have gone well.

I made half a shirt and... I misread the pattern. In my defense, I do that a lot with DROPS patterns, and this one was especially obtuse to me. It has been frogged and set aside for the time being, but eventually I hope to have it made.

Today, though. Today I just did not want to get up. Whether it was the indecisive weather (too hot! too cold! super damp!), the skunk outside my house (phew), or the incessant complaining of a very cranky and lonely cricket, I could not fall asleep until well passed 3AM.

Which makes my awakening at around 8:30AM that much more frustrating.

Naps and I do not usually get along. In the past, napping is either "well, have 8 hours during the day and say goodbye to your circadian rhythm" or "you have laid here for 3 hours and not rested at all, also still say goodbye to your circadian rhythm you putz".

Today was... the latter, sadly. I napped all day and slept not a wink. It's why I don't nap.

But don't think I did nothing all day!

In fact I:

• Walked a mile and a half on the treadmill
• Watched a tutorial on how to paint seashells in watercolor
• Read a bunch of articles on various random subjects because laying there with my eyes shut was getting really boring
• Did a bunch of situps
• Frogged that failed shirt pattern
• Made a really satisfying bowl of cereal and 2 cups of coffee (but only 2!)
• Took a shower
• Ate a banana
• Brushed the cat
• Watched a tutorial on how to make digitigrade feet for a fursuit because it popped up on my recs
• Played a bunch of Pokemon games on my 3DS XL
• Caught up a bit on some of the new areas in New Pokemon SNAP!
• Did about 10 wall pushups before the cat bit me in the back of the leg for attention
• Brushed the cat again
• Tried to nap again
• Got distracted by FB and then ended up falling down a comic book blackhole with my partner (Blue & Gold looks really fun!)

See, when I list it all out like that, I was super active today.

Except most of the actual active stuff fit in a 3 hour window.

Because I'm LAZY.

Anywho, my plans for this week consist of watching a buttload of how-to vids on watercolor, colored pencils, and digital art, all while trying to figure out how to actually follow that DROPS pattern I was talking about because I want a nice shirt that I can actually wear around people...

And that about covers my day today!

Tomorrow might be 75℉ (23.8℃), but it'll feel around 82℉ (27.8℃), so I'm probably going to just quietly melt in my backyard instead of biking down to the waterfront for some art-time like I'd hoped, but I'll try for some sun.

I hope you guys are having a more productive week than I am, but if you're not, don't be too hard on yourself. The plague isn't over yet, and it's stressful out there!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Played With Pencils & Water!

Today was miserably dreary. It rained all day, never got above 75℉ (23.9℃), and it felt like late afternoon as early as 11AM.

As you may have guessed, that wasn't great for my motivation.

Neither was my inability to get a good night's sleep, but that's on me for just refusing to try to sleep until after 3AM.

Despite all these factors, I managed to do some art!

"Rainy Cubes"; watercolor pencil on watercolor paper

For once, that photo isn't that out of focus, that's just the lines being softened by my water brushes!

I'm fairly satisfied with this study, though I also hope to layer every pencil on a larger work at some point. This was only about a dozen colors layered in different ways. I also look forward to doing a bubble art with these colors at some point!

Artistically speaking, I'm just not feeling it these days, sadly. I just don't have much energy right now. I'm hoping that I can get some mojo back by taking a walk tomorrow, but we'll see!

As things stand, I'll be happy to finally be able to focus on art and writing more. My legs finally stopped hurting today (they've hurt since Sunday!!!) and it was such a relief to be able to walk around the house without hobbling or feeling like someone took a baseball bat to my ankles.

I think that about covers my artistic life right now. I'm a little distracted by the fact that it's so foggy I can barely see across the street and everything is being painted a sickly mauve by the hidden sunset. It's a positively apocalyptic look. One that I can't deny is also very cool to look at.

That'll do it for me.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

Le Ouch Continues

So I'm still sore as heck.

My left thumb is still very tender where it attaches to my palm. My legs/ankles are still painful, especially when bearing weight or stretching slowly. I didn't sleep well because I could barely shift my weight laying down without leg pain.

So of course I've gotten nothing done today so far.

Hopefully, when I work on writing later tonight, it won't read like a whiny toddler wrote it, which is how a lot of my earlier attempts at the novel read today lol.

At least today has been beautiful - sunny and calm with only one birdur (RIP Pigeon #73) and temperatures of about 73℉ (22.8℃). The yard is alive with a pile of feathers that used to be said pigeon, chipmunks, about a half dozen squirrels, and the whole extended attempted murder of crows we have this year (we're up to 8!).

Aside from physical discomfort, here's some of my plans for this week:

• Gonna paint a little maybe tomorrow/Thursday
• Might check out Blender and see if I can model an egg (a standard simple-shape test)
• I will have to see if it'll actually run on my laptop though
• it probably won't run well
• I also hope to pick up some muslin or other lightweight/soft cotton for a lightweight chemise (preferably with spaghetti straps) because the pattern I have is... stupid simple and really only requires running stitches and backstitches.
• New Snap has an update, so I'll be checking that out!
• I'll try and keep everyone up-to-date on any other eventful happenings :)

I think that might be all I've got going on for now. Aches & pains, plans and dreams, etc.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which Ow

A word from the recently-made-wise: do not knead dough and walk 3.5 miles (5.6km) while dehydrated if you then want to crochet at all.

My hands and forearms ache from the kneading (yes, pathetic, I know, I've never kneaded dough for longer than 3 minutes before). The soft pad of my palm where the thumb connects is especially sore, and any sort of movement at the elbow causes an ache to form along the underside of my arm. This is anti-conducive to crochet, unfortunately.

As for the walking, I managed to make my legs sore from ankle to knee and every time I get out of bed it feels like I've been kicked in both ankles. My toes ache, too.

I need to get back into shape. Thankfully, the discovery that the fabric store, art supply shop, and new bookstore are open now does motivate me to go outside more often and I just invested in a bike lock so guess who might be tooling around the town with a crochet project or a sketchbook in the next... 2 weeks? It said the 10th.

Cue me, waiting as impatiently as ever the second the damn thing ships lol.

So yes, due to ow, I have not crafted at all.

I am thinking up some projects and may actually get around finishing some old ones (we'll see lol).

Tomorrow I hope to talk more about life-stuff, but for today, accept my apology for not crocheting anything lol!

That's all from me,

Go Enjoy Something!

FC