Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Adventures Were Had, Anniversaries Recognized, and Coffee Sipped.

This week I had a blast hanging out with my guy and my friends because they scooped us up for a quick jaunt around the midcoast! We stopped by JJ's Schooner Dogs in Rockland (I strongly recommend the 1/4lb all-beef hotdog with the hickory smoked bacon bits and some of Johnny's homemade pickled red onion and/or his homemade sauerkraut!), had lunch, and we even taste-tested the forthcoming Snapperoni (a red snapper hotdog mixed into a cup of mac & cheese topped with those same hickory bacon bits)! It was a blast, and I strongly recommend popping down there if you're in Rockland during the summer months.

I had so much fun, in fact, that I forgot to take any pics lol! Thankfully my guy had me covered, so here's my 1/4lb All-Beef Hotdog with Hickory Smoked Bacon Bits & pickled red onions and his Kielbasa with all the fixins!

Kielbasa with mustard, pickled onions, homemade sauerkraut and more!
Credit to Z.

The 1/4lb all beef hotdog with bacon bits & pickled onions!
Again, Credit to Z, who was the only one with the presence of mind to take any pics lol!

And if the delicious dogs at JJ's weren't enough of a splurgey trip of awesomeness, our friends packed our overfull selves into their car and took us to Camden and led us through the sugary wonderland that is Uncle Willy's Candy Shoppe! This fantastic little candy shop is exactly what you'd imagine from an old-fashioned candy store! The main floor sold handmade chocolates (their peanut buttercups are enormous, the fudge & divinity look exceptional, and the dipped nuts & espresso beans were gloriously shiny thickly-coated), as well as a lot of fun gummies and licorices, plus there was a small cooler filled with glass bottles of soda (including local "favorite," Moxie).

Upstairs at Uncle Willy's has a wall of Jelly Bellies, candy bars I've never even heard of, and a wall of bags of chocolates and candied nuts, among many other things. There was even a fill-your-own Pixie Stix kiosk!

I got a 1/2lb bag of Sixlets because sometimes you want spherical not-M&Ms that vaguely taste like Double Bubble on the outside. Z got himself a candy bar (Zagnut maybe? [Edit: It was a Big Hunk!] it was peanut nougat with peanuts in it) and a bag each of Boston Baked Beans (red, candy-coated peanuts) and something that was essentially the same as Boston Baked Beans but with added crispy bits embedded in the crimson candy coating. Our friends picked up some candies of their own, and we headed along a scenic route to ooh and ah over Mt Battie and the absolute beauty of Maine's lakes and ponds. Somewhere in the middle of Camden, one of our friends handed Z & I our first taste of violet candy. 

I've had candied violets before, so I knew some of what I was in for, but Z had never experienced the sheer bizarre nature of eating something that your whole being wants to tell you is probably straight perfume and not a treat. It's not unlike tasting Moxie for the first time, to be honest, because it's such an unusual flavor if you've never had it. 

The candy is very very different from the candied flowers, but only in so far as, to me, the candied violets having a more subtle flavor. The little pale violet tablets have a mint Lifesaver texture but the flavor is... well... it's extremely floral. It's like eating an entire bouquet of candied violets. It really lets you know you're eating a botanical.

And once you get the initial reaction under control and just surrender to the absolute floral assault, you may just find, like Z & I, that you absolutely love it!

To be clear, Z adores Moxie, too. I like the smell, and the initial flavor isn't bad for me, either, but man... that aftertaste on Moxie... it's so unappetizingly bitter to me. Like an earwax bean from Bertie Botts.

There's no earwax aftertaste to the violet candies. Just some faint floral notes that fade slowly like a nap in the sun.

I bet they'd be amazing crushed over some vanilla ice cream.

This trip was on Saturday, and I still have a palmful or two of the Sixlets. No word on the status of the candied nuts, but they were good enough that I'd bet they'll be gone soon if they aren't already ;)

If you're ever in the midcoast Maine area, those are definitely a couple of spots to check out, and afterwards, if you're still craving a small adventure, I'd give Birch Point State Park a peak or dip your toes at Crescent Beach in Owl's Head. I grew up going to both and I have to say, they're lovely places to enjoy the sea, if a bit crowded sometimes.

After Saturday came Sunday, of course, and that saw me getting the longer parts of my buzz shaved down by one of my older siblings (THANK YOU!!! That one tuft was tickling my ear so bad!), and then came Monday.

Monday was what it was, as you probably saw on my blog. I also did not sleep last night. I finally fell asleep around 4:30AM, which was a real pain, but that's life sometimes.

Today, I was lucky enough to catch a ride with my mother and return a bunch of bottles, then I took that money and turned it into oddly religious cheddar popcorn and Peanut M&Ms. When we got back, my mom took Evie outside, and I realized it was our cat's Gotchaversary! On this day 11 years ago, my mom & younger sibling brought home a very cautious and weirdly foot-obsessed cat. Today, she's more interested in demanding half & half and cuddles. And beating the absolute tar out of our neighbor's barn cat.

Poor Sky caught those paws again today, and when my mother swooped in to defend the poor lad's honor, Evie hissed at him!!!

What a cantankerous turd lol. He hasn't really threatened her at all, either. He's easily half again her size and a successful hunter, so I doubt she'd fare well if he decided to defend himself, but he never, ever does, and usually after we "ground" Evie by bringing her back inside for the day, he'll call mournfully into the windows until she comes and sneers back through the screens.

She needs to chill lol.

This coming week I plan on working more on those stupid straps for my Secret Project (the interminable Mushroom Purse), drawing or painting something (there's still time for you to put your 3 bucks in on whether it'll be an Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Geometric, or Location based picture!), and possibly having more adventures. We'll see how naughty Evie continues to be, regarding the other cats. Thankfully the last time I saw Orange Boy (a newer fluffy orange cat who I once saw limping) he seems to have healed all the way up from whatever misfortune befell his foot.

Thanks for wading through this wall of text this week, guys. That's about all the news updates I've got for y'all!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

Guess who forgot about blogging? I DID!

Today was... weird.

I woke up late. Showered late. Got all the bottles and cans in the house together late. Walked with a trash bag filled with returnables all the way uphill both ways to the redemption center.

It was closed.

I had to walk home with the bottles.

Ever walked around carrying 7 dollars worth of returnable cans? It's heavy.

I felt like an idiot, though in my defense, they're usually open til 4pm on Thursdays.

So I headed home, bottles on my back, circulation cut off by the ties on the bag, and luckily my mom was willing to give me a ride to the other bottle place, and even more thankfully they were open. So I dropped off the bottles, got my pocket change, and all was hunky dory as the old beans say.

And then it was time to give the cat Walkies.

And Sky showed up again.

Now, for the uninitiated, my cat goes for walks on her harness and our neighbor has a big gray barn cat named Sky. Sky is shy with people but apparently obsessed with my cat, so he'll continuously approach her making cute little kittenish meows.

And then she punches him.

Every time.

Lately, he's taken to baiting her into attacking by plopping his ample bottom onto her deck or her hollow underneath the birdfeeder. Basically, he's trying power moves on an 8lb cat who has no idea that her hot pink harness makes her look like a dingus. She is immune to his bulk, but not his sass, and he is not immune to her front paws.

Today he climbed her favorite tree.

Right in front of her.

Evie, predictably, said ABSOLUTELY NOT and chased him, causing a standoff where there were two chubby cats gripping onto the tree's trunks while my mother tried to calm them down.

"Standoff"; Watercolor on paper; 2022

Above is an artist's rendition (my own) of what I saw from my bedroom window. Evie was further up the tree, tail fat as a bottlebrush, and Sky was lower, growling with his frankly adorable kittenish voice. My mother was baby-talking them from three feet away, which is the closest any of us have really been to Sky, who is shy.

Evie has not yet attempted to throw hands with the orange boy kitty who flounces around the house at night and sings us the song of his people.

It's weird how quiet these cats are when they're calling to each other.

The dogs in this neighborhood go for it, all bellows and bays at the top of their lungs. The ducks cackles can be heard through shut windows and music. The chickens are unmatched. Even the recent addition of the sheep can be heard baaing from the end of the road.

But the cats are fairly quiet. If the window is open and I'm being quiet at midnight, I can sometimes hear Sky or the Orange Boy marrrooowwwwing their way around, but it's half-volume. I find it weirdly respectful.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired and had completely forgotten to post this blog until right before going to bed, so here ya go :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Art Is Hard.

I've been working on a bunch of art ideas, none of which are coming to fruition, sadly, but hey, that's life. Sometimes your art goes smoothly & well, and sometimes you're hurling sketched-upon notecards around your room like shuriken in frustration.

Today has been a shuriken day.

It's not due to any sort of horrible nightmarish scenario that I'm struggling to make art. I'm just having an off month. Happens.

That being said, today was another nice warm day (I think it reached 50℉/10℃!) and we had a thick fog roll in, so the cat got to go out again. Yesterday, she came face to face with poor Skye-Kitty from next door, who she loves to flirt with and then attempt to batter (poor dude). He wisely didn't come back today when she went out, but she did settle on the grass and look out into the fog, wistfully, as though she wished he was there (presumably to punch in the face like she always tries...).

So I made a little homage to that!

"Trouble"; colored pencil sketch on notecard; 2021

The cat in the foreground is, of course, the disastrous Ms. Evie, and the indistinct blob in the background is Mr. Skye-Kitty.

I hope I can make a larger version of this some time, maybe in watercolors, using their actual colors, because I didn't have my hot pink colored pencil with me when I was drawing this, and that's what color Evie's harness is lol.

Sadly, that's the only art that's come out even close to acceptable lately. And I'm not talking just "oh, I don't like it because I'm the artist and we're not allowed to like our own art", I'm talking "is that an elbow or a chair?" bad.

Then again, I do still have a *lot* of Christmas presents to finish, so I think that's what I'll focus on!

I hope you're all doing alright!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Today Has Been Very Long

My day started at 5:30AM with the buzz of my laptop fan.

This was not a good thing to hear because it meant three things:

1. I had fallen asleep with the laptop on my lap again
2. I was awake at 5:30AM
3. Microsoft must've pushed the update and restarted my laptop...

Now, frustratingly enough, I was right about all three things, and it meant that Windows had oh-so-helpfully force-closed all the programs I was using in order to restart.

Which included the massive art project I've been working on since October first.

18 days of work were completely corrupted and unsalvageable.

So why wasn't I more than slightly annoyed?

That would be because the Project Resentment had already set in.

At a certain point in large projects, I realize that I haven't prepared thoroughly enough and my work starts to suffer. At that stage, I start to slowly come to despise the work itself, everything I've done, and everything I have left to do. The Resentment started some time last week, so as you can imagine, I was pretty pissed at every perceived mistake.

Often, if I don't finish the project quickly when I recognize the Project Resentment, I'll just destroy it myself. I'll delete the whole thing and all of my research and start over.

Now I didn't have to do that because my computer did it for me.

So instead I rolled my eyes, opened the programs I'd need and headed downstairs while things loaded up.

The cat needed her pill at 8AM, so I stayed downstairs drinking coffee and playing on my phone. Once the hour struck, I woke up the cat where she was draped over the back of a recliner and held her still while my mom jammed a pill into her mouth. She pouted for an hour, but was otherwise fine. She hasn't coughed in several days! She has the zoomies again! She played for a full 10 minutes this afternoon!

She spit her pill out tonight and we had to jam it in her face a second time and now she hates us!

Pretty sure she growled at me for the first time ever.

Sorry, lil brat, you need the pills so you will recover from this stupid infection we've known you had for years and yet the vet never wanted to do anything about it...

Anywho, it's been delightfully chilly the last couple of days - we had temps of about 51℉ (10.5℃) and while it has been drizzly and damp, it's also felt very fallish. I'm wearing a sweater, guys. A turtleneck sweater. I've got thick, fuzzy blankets on my bed.

And of course it's all going to end tomorrow and come back next weekend, but hey, we can't always get what we want, right...

I like chilly weather.

I will say there's two parts I don't enjoy about the shift from summer-to-autumn, though:

1. the effect rapidly shifting temps has on my sinuses
2. the effect rapidly shifting temps & humidity have on my window

I'm apparently allergic to change - every fall and spring I go through a phase where, around 7:30PM, I just start stuffing up and sneezing. This happens everywhere, not just at home, so it's something to do with my body and the world in general. Best guess? I inherited my mother's terrible sinuses which can't withstand anything at all and I'm super sensitive to the rapid temperature changes. The lining of my sinuses stretches and dries rapidly, triggering a sneeze.

As for the window, whenever the glass gets wet for several days and then dries out in cool temperatures, it makes these awful digestive noises. It seriously sounds like someone's having gurgling heartburn at the end of my bed with their mouth open, face pressed to the glass of the window. Wretched. Especially after mainlining all the seasons of Buzzfeed's Unsolved Supernatural shows.

Still writing that spooky ghost hunter story.

Still writing the wrestling story, too.

I think I've rambled enough, though, so I'll let you go with a warning that I may seem equally loopy and exhausted on Thursday since we're still pilling her until Friday or Saturday, so... early to rise for a few more days.

Thursday should contain art, however, and next Monday I'll have more shawl & secret project updates for Fiber Monday :)

That'll do it for me, tonight!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Just Don't Have Any Focus lol

Yesterday was... not my best day. I fully intended to finish the stocking, get some writing done, etc, but... I woke up with a pounding atmospheric headache that never got better throughout the day. I felt run-down, overstuffed, and unproductive. I did a little art, but I never got around to doing the stocking, so I'm sorry about that!

Last night as I was laying in my bed, letting the pounding in my head match my heartbeat, I listened to the cold rain pouring outside and just... let myself relax.

And what do you know...

I slept like a rock.

And woke up actually feeling alright!

So you'd probably guess that I got some crocheting done today, right?

Lol of course not!

I started off with lofty aspirations! I was going to do some work today! I was going to clean up my room and write a page of my novel and finish that dang stocking and wash my window while it was still 36℉(2.2℃) and do art!

I did art at least lol.

I, in fact, came up with a bunch of future palettes to play with, and I finished about 5 complete rounds on the now infamous bonkbubble piece!

But that's literally all I did besides suck down coffee and lemon tea (oh god it's so good) and generally was otherwise unproductive.

It was a pretty decent day, however, and I feel like sometimes I'm just going to be less productive than I want. I'd like to get more done tomorrow than I did today, which I feel has a good chance of happening, since I did more today than yesterday!

Still, that's two days that never really seemed like they got started.

Hopefully tomorrow gets rolling with a cup of coffee and a spark of inspiration :)

Despite the rain last night, it's still a winter wonderland outside - just slipperier in some places.

We had half a dozen Mallard ducks under the feeders with a huge flock of robins puffing themselves up for warmth in our scrubby swam ash trees, and the doves have been frequenting the clothesline, where they line up and mutter quietly to each other. I don't know what they're plotting, but at least they're cute while they're doing it.

My grandmother may be going home from the hospital soon, but we're not sure when her cat will be joining her. The cat, who resembles a sweet-eyed bowling ball with legs and a muscular monkey tail, has continued eating my cat's food, regardless of how high we put it because she's figured out how to jump. To her credit, Evie is finally letting her objections to the new cat's intrusions be known - she pounced at her (okay, from like 4 feet away, Other Cat was in zero danger!) while Other Cat was trying to get cuddly with my mom, who is my cat's favorite.

There's also been a train horn blaring every few hours all day. My mother is bothered by this. I find it soothing, though it is exciting, too, because I'm pretty sure that's a different engine than I'm used to. I'm used to more of a "HONNNNNNNKKKKK" and this is more of a  "Hoooooonnnnkkkkk", which, I'm sure you can tell, is quite different!

I might be going a bit mad.

It's Quarantine. We're all mad here.

So yeah, I'm not going to pretend that the schedule is set in stone, but here are my tentative plans, pending energy, focus, and life events:

• Thursday: post some art, or at least another palette update!
• Weekend: Maybe actually get around to reviewing tea lol
• Monday: Hope to have the stocking done, we'll see.
• Next Tuesday: More Blather

I hope you're all safe out there in the world, whatever you're doing, and I hope you can all

Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which It's Been A Day

It's late on Tuesday, and I'm pretty sleepy. I've had a long day of cat guarding, writing, and crocheting. My grandmother dropped by with her dog, and my cat is terrified of the dog, so she crept upstairs into my room and hung out with me, sitting in my window and looking to me for assurance. I had to carry her back downstairs so she could eat and drink and go to the litter box after they left because she would not believe my mother and I that the dog had finally gone lol.

After the catsitting was done, I came back up and wrote a little more of my novel, and played around with yarn for a while. It's been a fairly slow day, to be honest!

This week will probably include me talking about Talkin Shop a Mania 2 tomorrow, posting art on Thursday, and maybe talking about a video game idea I've had on Saturday. 

The weather today, by the way, was pretty good, if a bit cool (mid-40F/5-7C) and surprisingly sunny. Poor Evie kitty spent her morning on the back of a chair soaking in the sun's rays, so I'd imagine the dog showing up really startled her out of a solar stupor. Poor baby.

She's still looking for the dog, btw.

Anyway, that's basically all I did today and all I plan to do this week (besides writing a bunch more of my book lol), so...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk: Witches Galore

Oh man oh man   o h   m a n!

I am beyond thrilled with how this week's witches came out!

"Chu'mana"; Snake Witch; 2020

Did I base this cute lil magical danger noodle off of an image of an Emerald Tree Python? Yes. Yes I did. But I raised her head so she's looking more alert :)

"Benzaiten" Music Witch; 2020

Oh my gosh, guys, I'm so proud of Benzaiten and her cute lil face and her cute hair! Not too thrilled with the legs/feet, but that's what practice is for!

"Niradei" Tropical Witch; 2020

Oh Niradei, your face was supposed to look more Polynesian, but my dumb fat fingers couldn't hack it yet. I will improve you one day! Also, her skirt is supposed to be made from fishing nets, but I was too impatient to actually make it look right. I like how you can still see her creepy reflection a bit, though, and her flower is cute!

"Makuu" Fire Witch; 2020

Makuu here was supposed to have a skirt, but I... forgot it while inking. Oopsie. Ah well - it probably would've burned up in the fire she's dancing in anyway lol. I like her creepy mask and headscarf combo though!

"Orazia" Time Witch; 2020

I lowkey love how Orazia came out. She's my Italian Time Witch from the far flung "future" of the 1980s lol. I especially love her thigh-high flat boots lol. She'll be done up with the most obnoxious neon palette some day :)

"Yaz" Summer Witch (with tiny pet Watermelon Dragon!); 2020

I'm kinda crushing on Yaz here. She looks so cool! And yes, you can't exactly tell that's a Watermelon Dragon in black & white, but when I color this bad girl? Yeah, you'll know what I'm up to. Also, I love that I gave her a wand holster on her Spandex shorts and I'll finalize her arm tattoos some day :) She's carrying a towel, not a yoga mat.

"Venancia" Hunter Witch; 2020

I really like this drawing, but I couldn't zoom out to show you the whole thing because it doesn't capture on my phone camera. There's a moon above Ven, who is threatening the man in the foreground. He's holding a (slightly wonky) sword, and he's terrified. I think this one will fare the best with coloring, since I'd be adding in a dark forest, illuminating the spectral stag, and giving Ven's body an ombre effect (lightest at her face, darkest at her hands and feet).

Now that I've shown you my hard work (and it was hard to figure out what to draw this week!!!) I get to tell you about my cat!

My cat is a 100% indoor cat - she's missing teeth and has zero survival instincts. She's very sweet, and we love her, but she wouldn't last 24 hours out there. Which is a bit of a problem, because our girlie now has a crush.

Our neighbors, the ones with the chickens and the ducks and the dog that never stops barking because she's so high energy, have a big gray cat named Sky.

Sky is very much an outdoor cat (which I worry about a lot, knowing about the bobcat and the coyotes that live nearby!) with outdoor cat skills and a shy nature. He's a big gray floof of adorableness, and we all love him, even though he poops in my mom's gardens.

Our cat, Evie, is absolutely obsessed with him. She watches him out the windows with an intensity we'd only ever associated with closed doors and unattended but out of reach chicken. She wants this boy.

So I managed to catch them flirting yesterday!

Taken just before he saw me and ran away, disappointing poor Evie.

Ah, young love!

Alright, that'll do it for me!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk - Feline Escape Artists

In Which I Have Sketched A Kitty!

Oh man, guys, I love my cat. She's adorable, she's been super snuggly lately, and her tongue-bleps are adorbs. She's just so cute! Love the kitties.

Except for one small problem.

Evie loves to try to escape.

I ordered a pizza today and had to go toss her in my mom's room or she'd have bolted when I opened the front door! She was... not happy with me when I let her back out (don't worry, it was literally 3 minutes, I timed it). So I gave her a little bacon as an apology.

Her desperation to escape is fairly ridiculous, since 1) we have large predators around here who could eat her in two bites, 2) she is literally afraid of the wind and we're having 20mph (21kph) gusts right now, and 3) she cannot climb down from trees when she goes up them. This is why she is not permitted outside unchaperoned. Poor baby.

But her eagerness to experience the summer firsthand inspired me! So have a picture of Captain Killstreak, the talking cat from my coffee-shop-wizard-story, trying to sneak outside:

"Escape Attempt" pen & graphite sketch; 2020

Captain Killstreak is a lilac point Scottish Fold/Himalayan mix. He's floofy, stumpy, grumpy, and cute. In Tim-the-magical-barista's defense, he simply adopted a tiny stray he found in the alley behind the coffee-shop he used to work at - he wasn't looking for some kind of designer kitty! Still, the little guy is a terror, murderizing any bugs who get in the apartment and constantly trying to get outside. Once Tim starts understanding Cap, he feels a pang of guilt over getting him snipped and chipped, but thankfully it was early enough that Cap doesn't really remember, and he doesn't miss his bits (he's noticed that Toms tend to have a hard time thinking clearly, after all...).

But enough about a story that's months away from my workstation!

How has your guys' week been going? Have you had any artistic bursts?

If you haven't yet, go try to doodle something! It's fun!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday 252: Purrmaid Complete!

In Which My Semi-Aquatic Feline is Finished! 

I mean, look at that cutie! Her lil face!

I'm pretty pleased with how her face came out, though it did take me three hours to figure out how to make her nose look decent! I'm not an embroidery master, guys. I'm nowhere near an embroidery master. I think it's cute, though :) She'll make someone happy in a couple of days ;)

Today is a little rough, I'll admit. I have several gifts to finish, then I'll have to wrap them and I just feel overwhelmed. I do this every year. Why am I like this?!

Deep, calming breaths.

It will get done. All will be well. And then tomorrow and Christmas Day will be really cool.

I should get back to the other gifts I'm making, though.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Fiber Monday 251: Purrmaid Week 2

In Which I'm On The Home Stretch!

I've been working hard on the Purrmaid, guys! In fact, I'm nearly done!

Here I'm working on the butt of the Purrmaid with a nice self-striping sock yarn!

I really wish I had a bunch more of that green/white colorway sock yarn that I used for the tail because it's gorgeous and would make truly wonderful socks. Sadly, I only had just enough for the Purrmaid :(

A slightly blurry shot of the finished head, body and tail!

I'm very proud of the job I did on the hands - They really do look like grabby little paws! And those ears! I was squeeing the entire time I crocheted them up and sewed them on.

Her lil toes!
Also, she's so tiny! Look at the size of that box of bulb pins next to her!
And that's the tip of my small sewing scissors on the other side!

I do have one last step for this little cutie, though, and it could make or break this project...

I need to embroider on her face.

Oh boy. You guys know I lack steady hands and the ability to keep eyes level...

This could be bad - or just really wonky and hilarious.

Stay tuned til next week when I show you if I turn her into a butterface...

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Fiber Monday 250: Purrmaid Week 1

In Which I Attempt a Purrmaid!

I've been following Hooked By Robin on YouTube for a while now, and I just found her pattern for an amigurumi doll called a "Purrmaid". It's exactly what it sounds like - an adorable mer-kitten batting at its own tail, and I was so charmed that I had to start my own!

Now, I didn't know what yarn to use for this, so I used the first two skeins I could easily detangle from my Horde (a Gordian knot of yarns that somehow got mishmashed together during my last [failed] attempt at cleaning up). Those happened to be sock yarn, so we're making a teeny, tiny Purrmaid, and I'm all about the smol.

Here's about half of the head finished

This purrmaid will be made on, as I mentioned, two different random sock yarns I found in my stash and a 2.75mm hook (US size C/2, I believe). I only went as far as the end of the second video (Rounds 1-31), but it's already about half as long as my hook! Adorable!

And the self-striping is kinda cute, too!

I don't know how well these two yarns will actually go together, so I'm reserving the right to dive back into my Horde to find a more appropriate sock yarn to put on here instead of the green/blue/cream concoction I'm using for the tail. It's a pity I didn't have any white sock yarn...

Regardless, this is gonna be heckin cute and I look forward to finishing it as a proof of concept.

The terms/stitches I've needed so far are:

• Single crochet
• Single crochet (increase)
• Single crochet invisible decrease
• Magic ring
• color change

And Robin explains everything so concisely that even I, with my severely limited attention span and ear-to-brain learning capabilities, understood completely.

Definitely hop onto YouTube with some yarn, hooks, stuffing, and a cup of coffee or three, because this is a fun lil project to be sure!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk 235: Study in Sorcery Con Leche

Today's subject: a Sorcery Con Leche study

I set about my morning as I often do - with chillhop and other calm music (and some coffee shop jazz) to get me in the mood as I flit about the kitchen and try to make the perfect balance of cocoa-to-coffee for breakfast. Of course, as soon as I turned around to bring the morning mocha back to the table, guess who had beaten me to it?

Thankfully, she let me set the mocha down before I took the pic...

She sat there through my entire first cup of mocha (I've had 3 today, I'm a terrible person), which meant I could not draw for about 45 minutes. It's a big mocha.

Thankfully, since the mochas are half-caff today (I didn't want to overdo the caffeine and I knew I'd be having a few cups), I'm not completely jittered out of my mind.

Although she certainly makes me feel crazy sometimes.

Eventually, however, she got down and crawled into one of her couch tents (how an 8lb cat can take up two whole couch cushions I'll never understand...) and I was able to finally start drawing.

Just as my mom came home for lunch. Ah well.

I still managed to start a bunch of sketches, though I'm not overly fond of any of them.

I plan on doing several of these "studies" where I just... draw a particular character over and over again until I don't hate what I'm looking at. Since I'm one of those people who always dislikes what they've drawn (but only when it's people, weirdly enough), I will settle for not instantly wanting to throw something out when I look at it.

If you're wondering about my process, here it is:

Basically, make a wire-frame form and estimate the position for the facial features.
Maybe add some clothing details if you're super ambitious or have very particular ideas.

When you're more or less happy with what your wireframe is providing, you can add more details.
I should not have inked this yet, but this is a study, so this will help me rough it out.

I will probably make a few more pages of Tim the Barista before I'm done.

On the back of my page, I made some notes and a new script for maybe next week:

SORCERY CON LECHE EP2
P1) LOGO
P2) TIM staring at CAP, CAP staring at TIM
P3) TIM gets up

• CAP: "Hey, I'm talking here! Talking cat!"

P4) TIM walking away

• TIM: "Knew I should've called that AC repair guy."
• CAP: "For f**** sake!"

Not particularly inspired, maybe, but I'm working on it :P

As for the notes, here you go:

• TIM'S PERSONALITY
• Generally pretty chill, but not about coffee. Then he's a jittery beast.
• Tim's a pretty grounded guy (no pun intended), so all of this magic stuff is a bit overwhelming. He just wants to make coffee, guys. Why are there wizards and dragons and why is his cat suddenly talking?!
• CAP'S PERSONALITY
• Kind of snarky, a little acerbic, used to magic and weirdness because he's a cat and they're all blase about magic - comes from centuries of utilization as witches' familiars...
• Cap is also obsessed with video games and secretly plays when Tim is not home. He also secretly applies to new jobs for Tim, whose loyalty, he feels, is misplaced with his current coffee shop.

That's all I have for now, but I promise you, things are going to get crazier than a talking Scottish Fold (with probably a Chicago accent, if I had to guess).

I think that'll about do it for me today, guys.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk 234: Sorcery Con Leche

Thursday Art Walk brings you:
Sorcery con Leche

Last week I tried out a way to make a short comic, and it didn't work out so good. A combination of poor planning, lack of practice, and not actually knowing how to make poses work made for a less-than-stellar showing, so I figured I'd work extra hard today to show you that I can, in fact, do sequential art. Okay, it was mostly to prove it to myself that I'm not garbo at comics. It's literally been about 7 years since I last made comics... oof.

The first step in any comic is writing a script!

My incomprehensible scribblings.

My script was for a 3 panel comic, the fourth panel being my title card. The script goes like this:

• Panel 0 - Title Card. "Sorcery Con Leche". Maybe add a cup?
• Panel 1a - Tim standing and drinking coffee, Cap sitting at feet
• Cap: "Tim"
• Panel 1b - Tim sitting and drinking coffee, Cap sitting nearby.
• Cap: "Tim"
• Panel 1c - same as 1b
• Panel 2a, b, c - Cap looking up
• Cap: "We need to talk"
• Panel 3a: Tim spit take (standing)
• Panel 3b: Tim spit take (seated)
• Panel 3c: Tim spit take (standing, chair knocked over)

You may be wondering about all the letters after the numbers. See, I had three different possibilities on what I could maybe do with this comic. Scenario a, scenario b, scenario c. Since it's still just a 3 panel comic, and since the basic beats are the same, I put all three in the script. The basic beats are:

Tim at rest with Cap speaking up to him.
Cap at rest looking up at Tim.
Tim does a spit take.

You can kind of see scenario A playing out here, with stick figures.

Scenarios B and C

A clearer image of B and C

But how to lay out the panels? Well, I didn't have sticky notes around, so I had to make do with some non-sticky note cards. Sadly, they were a bit big for my page (who'd have thought that legal size paper would still be a bit small for a proper comic?) So they're a little crowded.

The layout, but vertical because my phone doesn't listen.

The layout horizontally, sketched onto the page.

Now, obviously, I want to ink this all in at some point (hopefully later tonight, because I've got the fever now, and the only cure is more comics), but at this juncture, it would've taken too much labor to go around looking for my Micron pen...

But what's this? Someone has a job for me to do?

Ah, I have a duty to attend to, beg your pardon...

The princess requires her royal tent.

Even though it's already 80 degrees in the house. Fahrenheit, mind.

Back to the drawing. At this stage, I had to move upstairs since my grandmother had come over with her doggo, and he is, perhaps, a bit excitable and therefore not well-suited to tasks requiring focus and fine motor skills. I set up a table upstairs and set about sketching the undersketch for the comic.

I went with scenario B, since it seemed the easiest and my ability to draw dudes standing up is... meh.

Needs work, but I'm getting there on the title card.

Definitely need to work on this to add features, like... faces? and features?
Again, this is a very rough undersketch to let me know where everything belongs.

Cap's face needs to be rounded a bit more, but I'm actually pretty pleased with the
perspective shot here. Yes, it's rough, but I feel like I can see better what I was
going for! This is my favorite panel.

Rough gesture drawing/wireframe for the spit-take!
I've knocked his laptop over, his coffee has spilled, and his hand is gripping the table.
Cap's face will be annoyed when I draw it.

Now, speaking of kitties, as you might imagine, our Princess Puffy Paws (not her name, but who calls cats by their real names?) is not overly fond of excitable gargantuan doggos, so she bolted upstairs when he came in and began whining and barking, as dogs do when they're in strange places and want desperately to sniff and play. She never comes into my room, so when she refused to go into the room where I was drawing, I had to let her come into my actual bedroom, which is where she is still settled, staring nervously at the open door, waiting for him to come in and startle her.

He's been gone for probably half an hour now.

She's giving me a peeved look as I write this. I've told her multiple times that the downstairs is safe again, but I don't think she believes me. I'll have to go downstairs and make a ton of TV racket so she knows it's fine.

Poor kitten. She has no idea what to make of big dogs.

So that's been my day. I hope yours is treating you well!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC