Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Today Was Productive
(And So Was Yesterday)

Generally speaking, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, I am either a pile of goop or a buzzing hive of artistic industry. This week was a busy bee kind of week, and today's lovely weather (about 25℃/77℉, sunny and breezy and not too humid) definitely helped!

Yesterday I spent the whole day trying to figure out how to work with Redbubble's templates and I'm still not 100% done figuring that out. Instead, I grabbed my hot press Fluid Easy-Block and began painting a lovely prosaic landscape.

I was laying down the sky colors when something... weird started to happen.

The paper started forming tiny little blisters! I've never seen that on hot press watercolor paper before, but this is only my third time using it, so maybe that's just a thing you have to watch out for?

I think, however, that it was my fault.

I think it's because I left the page exposed in my room for too long and it ended up covered in dust. Dust in my home tends to be a bit... greasy. My father is a carnivore at heart, so greasy dust isn't a surprise, but I'd never have guessed that it could deteriorate the surface of my watercolor paper!

The bubbling was strange, but I persisted and over the course of a few reruns of BBC's Crime Watch from the 1990s, I made this lovely landscape that I simply call...

"Moo"; watercolor on hot press paper; 2022

Look at the lovely family of Highland cattle lounging in the high grass! I'm pretty happy with how this came out, though there are things I'd do differently in the future (like actually sketching the picture first...) but even with the weird paper granulation/blistering, I am pretty happy with how the sky came out! I'm also pretty happy with how the grass looks like it has shadows under the cows! Real talk - I painted those shadows first!!!

I want to practice sketching more, so I think that as the weather continues to improve I'll do my best to grab a sketchbook (or even a watercolor notebook and paints) and try to make more art around town. Today was a bit zesty and crowded for a proper walk down to the beach, so instead, I just dropped off my library book and came home. I got barked at by some large dogs in the back of a truck and found out I had just enough change for a can of Coke to treat myself.

I'm sipping that Coke now, typing up this blog, and thinking about the oncoming season.

I have to admit, I'm inordinately excited for sweatshirt weather and art prompt season!

I won't be doing Inktober this year, but if you have any suggestions for prompt lists like Witchtober or Drawlloween, I'd love to be linked to them! Drop a comment here or on Twitter or wherever else you've encountered this blog! 

And if you'd like to have a say in what I draw or paint or what not next week, make a donation to my Ko-Fi account (linked in the sidebar) with a comment that includes the category you'd like to see (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Location, Word, Dedbert, Geometric).

That'll do it for me, today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC