Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which This Week's Theme Was: LOCATION

Today is another gorgeous day! Sunny and clear and breezy, and it's 72℉/22,2℃ with 52% humidity. It's just lovely! I spent most of today painting a lovely little image on my small, heavily-textured paper, and I couldn't be happier with how it looks.

This week's theme was "Location", which meant that I had to go about figuring out what I wanted to draw or paint. I usually work from references, but today I just started laying down random patches of blue to make a sky, then snagged my paint stick of Daniel Smith's Buff Titanium and laid down some land masses. From there, I built up my colors and shading, and the very last things I added were a light house and my signature!

Here is my work for the day:

"Landscape By The Sea"; watercolor on rag paper; 2022

I finally got the scanner working again! Seems like we just had to get new internet...

This painting was so much fun to make, and it came together so organically! I did zero sketching, and instead I layered paints from my Emooqi black metal palette as well as my Daniel Smith Buff Titanium, and it just... grew into itself. I love it. It's even more wonderful in person! It's also now available on my long-forgotten Redbubble shop!

From today til Wednesday night at 9PM Eastern Time, I'll be taking requests for next week's art topic via Ko-Fi! Leave a tip with a message containing what you'd like to see: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Food, Location, or Geometric! For an Extra Coffee (another $3 USD), you can tell me whether you'd like to see it in Pencil, Colored Pencil, Pen, Marker, Watercolor, or Digital! I will do my best to fulfill any requests made this way, regardless of how many I get!

Hopefully you can see why I got so excited about today's piece. It was a blast to create, and I must recommend the "slap it down on your 5"x7" paper" technique I used, because it was fun and the end result was fantastic.

Now Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Had A Busy Day!

Today started a little weird - I woke up around 8AM and couldn't really fall back asleep. I got up around 9:30 and then started making my morning coffee and taking care of the little morning chores and such. Then I got distracted by the internet, as usual lol. By the time my mom got home for lunch, I was in the shower, and after I came out there were jalapeno poppers, which is always a welcome treat. When we finished eating, she took the cat out for her daily walkies and I started to load up my bag.

I filled a pencil pouch with 2 HB pencils, a sharpener, erasers, and a lineart pen and then tossed it into the cool geometric reflective bag/purse that Z gave me for my birthday. I also packed a small sketch book for drawing, and just in case, I packed my travel watercolor kit from Peter Pauper Press and one of my Arteza notebooks. Then I sauntered down to my local library and started scouting out locations to draw from.

"Lamp Sketch"; HB pencil on sketchpad; 2022

I sketched that while standing in front of the lamp in question. Pretty much as soon as I got situated and ready to draw, the wind picked up and the clouds began to gather. Since I'm on the coast, that can either mean it'll feel really nice for a bit.... or it's about to pour cats & dogs. I didn't want to get my art soaked, so I packed up and took a bunch of reference photos.

It's about quarter to 9PM now, and I'm pretty sure I'm hearing thunder, so even though it never rained wile I was out there, I'm glad I trotted home afterwards.

When I settled upstairs after my lovely jaunt, I noticed that I had taken another sketch a while back, but it had faded due to friction (as sometimes happens with graphite). I would like to paint this sketch, too, someday. It's pretty much the opposite of the lamp image above in real life, colorwise, being mostly reds and blues instead of greens and grays.

"Thai Tugboat"; graphite on sketchbook; 2022

As for the reference photos I shot, there were some of the Location (today's prompt, courtesy of Z), and some potential future botanical references if anyone puts their 3 bucks down on Vegetable in the next week ;)

Library Lamp Post with Ivy-Wrapped Window and Red Granite Column

Ivy Detail (plus I think the back of the microfiche machine...)

The plants nearby, plus the trashcan because oops

Really Cool Looking Tree!

Love how the flowers face Up but the leaves drip Down!

The Peonies are actually That Magenta in real life! Even more so!

I know it's a weed, but I love purple vetch

All in all, though, the town smelled incredible today. The Rugosa Rose are all in bloom, the cypress spurge have gone by so their stinkiness is no longer a factor, and no one was burning willow, so it was just roses and the occasional waft of fried food from Main Street lol. The walk was wonderful, too. I wore a bandana around my neck mostly to have something I could mop up colors with if I needed to, but also to protect my neck from the sun (more fool me, the sun vanished!), and I can't recommend linen pants (trousers, not underwear, guys) enough - kept me from overheating in the slightly humid 70℉/21,1℃ weather.

Do I recommend going for walks with art supplies? YES. If you have anywhere remotely walkable and peaceful nearby, grab something do draw on and with and go. One of these days, I'll get my energy up and I'll bring an actual chair with me down to the waterfront and chill out with my art supplies and a bottle of water (or two).

So from today til next Wednesday, if you buy me a coffee on my Ko-fi account and comment "Animal", "Vegetable", "Mineral", "Geometric", or "Location", I'll use that as my prompt for next Thursday's art!

That'll about do it from me for tonight - I'm gonna try to doodle with watercolors for a bit and then go to bed.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

It Is So Nice Out!

Today's been Very Much A Day, but at least the weather has been lovely. It's been warm and sunny all day long. The breeze is cold, but can you really beat a 49℉/9,4℃ day where the grass is green and the lawn is getting starry with wildflowers?

Even if those wildflowers are dandelions?

"Dandy"; watercolor brush pen on watercolor paper; 2022

I'm still figuring out the best ways to use and blend these brush pens, but I'm fairly happy with the way the flowers & leaves came out!

I was working on the confetti-ish background when my mom's mom stopped by to visit and needed help with some medical stuff (as far as I'm aware, she's going to be alright!). That took some doing, and then the cat needed out, so I got her ready while my mom enjoyed her coffee. After walkies, we ate some ginger snaps and I finished up the painting.

Confession: this painting is, for some reason, uncentered. It's far more on the left-hand side of the page than the right-hand, and I don't really know what I was thinking. Also, the brown shadow for the ground is too high up and not rounded enough, so it looks a little clumpy. I should try this again sometime!

I was thinking of maybe taking a walk today but... honestly, I'm already worn out and my back hurts, so I'll probably just stay in unless my mom decides to take bottles back or something.

I might sketch some more and see if I can start next week's drawing, too!

Regardless, that'll do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Have A St Patrick's Day Picture For Ya!

I am beat lol.

You may wonder - what exactly did I do to get so tired?

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I'm so tired from... shopping two days in a row and taking my cat for a couple of walks. Like, yeah, I walked around town yesterday, and yeah, that was after a shopping trip that turned into a semi-surprise hangout with my guy and a delicious Thai lunch. It was really fun! I loved spending time with my guy, then trundling back home and pounding out that Wednesdaymania blog from yesterday!

I'm also out of shape and still having trouble sleeping, hence me being pooped again lol.

But tired or not, I still managed a fun little painting for you guys!

"Lucky Spring" Watercolor; 2022

I'm still experimenting with different weights and colors and tones and I know that Oxalis don't grow like that and their flowers are rarely pink-tipped, but... I'm really pleased with how most of those leaves came out. I'm pleased that the watercolors I used actually went where I wanted (for the most part) and look how I wanted them to look (largely). I'm really quite pleased with this little sketch!

Would I do some things differently? Yes! I'd actually sketch it first if I did it again, then lay in the sky tones (which I'd do wet-on-wet, rather than trying to blend out the markers, which works... sort of).

But I still think it looks good!

I hope all of you guys are staying safe and having a good St Patrick's Day out there!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Sometimes Projects Change...

I've been working since the first of October on a special project. In it, I planned to have 31 pictures drawn, painted, sketched, etc. In each picture would be an animal, a plant, and a mineral that are native to my home state.

If that sounds overambitious, it's because it was.

Especially without a proper understanding of exactly what plants, animals, and minerals exist here...

So I reduced the number of pictures from 31 to 4. That seemed far more doable.  That was last week. It took me until last week to start really painting.

And then I learned something else:

I cannot draw minerals yet.

I'm not going to show you my failures. They hurt to look at. They are in the trash, and I cannot learn by observing them, only through failing, trying, failing again, and trying some more.

That brought me to this week. The last week of October. With nothing to show for it.

How frustrating!

So I started painting.

"Sweets'; watercolor & pen on watercolor paper; 2021

You may be able to tell from the blurry image there that I'm not too thrilled with this one... It's too simplistic, too wonky, too a lot of things, but I do like those colors, so that's good!

The watercolors I used for all of these, btw, are all either from my Emooqi set or from my Arteza watercolor pencil set. This one is all Emooqi, though the black is just some Pigma fineliner.

Next, I decided to go a little more naturalistic...

"Three For One Special"; watercolor and Pigma micron; 2021

I love pumpkins, though not as pies, so just painting a trio of lil pumpkin bros chilling on a table was fun! This paper is also Emooqi paper, which is why it has that odd diagonal ripple to it. It holds water weirdly and cannot possibly be a rag paper - it feels like sketchbook paper to be honest, but if that's the worst part of my Emooqi set, I'll take it!

But it's still a little simple, yeah? A little plain and obvious. What about something horror themed? Something... spooky.

Something downright Shakespearean?

"Toil & Trouble"; Watercolor and Pigma Micron; 2021

I am... so proud of this piece.

Each of the ingredients you see are included in the Witches' brew at the start of Shakespeare's Macbeth - which while not vegan is considerably more vegetative than I thought.

Eye of Newt, for instance, is mustard seed. Wool of Bat relates to holly! Tongue of Dog is just a petal from an herb, same with Adder's Sting, though Fenny Snake and Blindworm are both actual reptiles. I also have the leg of lizard and owlet's wing on there, though the owlet in question is a moth, rather than a baby owl.

Finally, I decided to go for a less chaotic image and tried that Emooqi paper again, this time using only pens and watercolor pencils:

"Witchgarden"; watercolor pencil and gel pen; 2021

This is the witchgarden - a collection of plants (and one fungus) with witchy names! The branch is a witch hazel, the pink stalk is "Witch's Moneybags" (Sedum telephium), the green stalk is Witchgrass (Panicum capillare), and the yellow feathery plant is "Witch's Hair" (Desmarestia aculeata), and that little yellow blob is "Witch's Butter" (the fungus),which is a jelly fungus that grows usually on trees. Of course, you can also see the glittery black widow spider I added at the end!

I didn't like the bubbles/circles at first, but now they're really growing on me!

So what do you guys think about my October project? Did I meet expectations, or did I fall flat on my face?

I hope you've all kept creative this season!

Next week, I hope to have some other art, too!

That'll do it from me tonight - I'm pretty tired and I have some writing to work on tomorrow.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Very Sleepy

What is going on lately? It seems like no one can sleep in the last couple weeks, and weird, unforeseeable events keep cropping up! I have only managed about 5-6 hours a night lately, and my brain feels like soup. Also, my cat has taken to sleeping most of the day in my (sadly underfilled) finished-project box in my room, which is weird since she usually ignores me.

First things first - what weird stuff has been happening?

My grandma wants my mom & I to pick up an organ about 2.5-3 hours away from here with her and her psychotic dog. I love my grandma and normally I'd be happy to help but that dog, that distance, and that instrument are all Much Too Much, tbh. Thankfully this one may have resolved itself - if she can get the organist's family to load the organ for her (they're already helping him move it from the basement, after all...), she won't need us Friday. The original plan was to head out today in the bright-and-early, but thankfully that didn't happen.

My mom decided yesterday was the day to take back bottles despite Mondays always being a zoo at the redemption centers, of which only one of the two dedicated locations in town was open... in theory. In practice, it was closed the first time we tried - understandable (it's a mom & pop place with few employees in an alcoholic area, of course they need a lunch break!!!) - but they were also closed when we came back and we checked the other joint but they were closed on Mondays. It's still Tuesday as I type this, btw lol. Eventually we swung back to the first place and yay they were back open! But they were also chockablock filled with patrons. Luckily they had their best folks on it and everyone went through quickly.

My younger sibling moved into a new apartment and I and my partner inherited some really nice, really sturdy handmade night stands. The one I've got is being used to house my art supplies!
There are some health issues with my parents, but they're already under control thankfully!
Other Family Health Issues are also cropping up, but again, they're being handled, so it's just me being stubbornly anxious lol

The cat got into a slap fight with her supposed boyfriend (my partner and I think I interrupted them establishing dominance and/or flirting, since my cat ended up on her back with her paws up but her claws sheathed, so uh... that was a stressful walk that ended abruptly. When I brought her back in, though, the neighbor's big gray cat followed us and sat on the deck calling out to her with charming little meows (that's not sarcastic, he sounded totally adorable) and she'd chirp back through the window. All night. And then he came back in the morning!!!

Norm MacDonald died today and that sucks a lot. He was insanely funny.

I finally got that sepia fineliner! It arrived in a large padded envelope, which I appreciate from a safety point of view but dudes, it's literally one Pigma Micron, the Standard Shipping Envelope was a bit much. The mail person handed it straight to my mom while we were trying to take back the bottles lol.

Oh, and today I took two walks! For the first one I walked down to a side street where I know a really cool person is running a business where she sells bouquets of her own home-grown flowers off of an adorable little cart! I love the bouquet I bought from her for my mother!

A Lovely Bouquet Indeed!!!

I also walked down to grab snacks at my local Family Dollar, but due to the supply chain essentially shattering into a million pieces, they're not getting the shipments they need, so a lot of the shelves were, if not bare, getting there. It really sucks for everyone who works there - they're not paid enough to cope with the clientele and their complaints about everything and anything, especially since the employees can't do anything about it. They can't magically un-kill everyone who was working on the supply chain who died of COVID. They can't make more Reese's Pumpkins suddenly appear on the shelf, or alchemically summon more Coke products into the coolers. All these folks can do is try to keep the till running until the worst is over. They're just there to stock what they have and sell what they can.

So uh, basically, what I'm trying to say is...

Don't be a dink to anyone who's trying to work in a shop right now. Whatever problem you're about to lash out at them about? They know. They know and they can't do anything about it.

Sometimes stuff just kinda sucks.

And sometimes your cat pokes her head out of your Finished Project Box and squints at you, bleary-eyed from her 8 hour nap, and sleekly vaults herself to the floor. She'll slink out the door without so much as a backwards glance, and you'll smile.

Because it ain't all bad, folks.

Today's weather was amazing. Yes, Wednesday is gonna be all mud puddles and thunder showers, but today (well, Tuesday, at any rate) was a gorgeous 72℉ (22.2℃) with mild humidity and warm but not hot sun with a gentle yet chilling sea breeze. My walks were beautiful things and I enjoyed them both immensely.

I hope that, whatever else happens this week, whether I'm Truck-Bound with the Crazy Dog off to grab a retired church organ from some guy's basement on Friday or not, I can maintain some of this chill demeanor. If it's cool enough to wear this flannel shirt I'm currently in, I have faith that some of the day will be salvaged lol.

I also hope that you all have a much chiller week than I have!

That'll do it from my rambling self.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

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

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Swatch & Thumbnail!

I'm not very good about the leadup to a piece (as is evidenced by every work of art I've made...) so today is all leadup! I was given a Christmas gift by my grandmother - a pack of 70 colored pencils by a company I've never heard of (Nicole) - and decided I should do my due diligence and test out how they work!

The Pencils in Question

The first thing I did was take every single pencil and swatch them out. For those who do not use, follow, or know art terms, that just means that I tested them! I started from the back of the box to the front, left to right, row by row. I ended up with a messy grid that let me know what to expect on my toothy, soft sketchbook paper from these pencils, and I also ended up with that weird feeling I always get after inhaling the waxy smell from crayons for too long, so bonus? All's I know is this: I don't mind the smell, but it makes my eyelids feel heavy and gummy, so maybe that's an allergy?

Regardless, I swatched out all seventy pencils and discovered there were probably a lot of doubled colors. I don't mind this - I'll probably use up the doubled colors pretty fast (peach, brown, gray, black, etc). I also noticed that the neon colors are... very neon! It's hard to look directly at the neon yellow lol. I kinda hope I find some black paper to test them on...

And then I sketched out a little picture of Dedbert riding a slug up to some snowdrops. Why? Why not?!

The Swatch & The Thumbnail/Sketch!

I really like the way these colors work, and I hope that in the future I can use them for a better thought out project, like a faux stained glass effect or some kind of dreamy scene. For today, I just wanted to test the supplies out. I'll probably test them with the gel pens, my sharpies, and also maybe the pack of highlighters I have. I think that'd be fun to see how they all interact!

The Swatches

The grid I have is kind of misleading because Column A is actually the last row of the box and Column G is the front with Row 1 being the left hand side and Row 10 being on the right. Still, I know what I'm looking at and I suppose that's what matters? It's a very pretty set of colors. They should blend into each other nicely once I find an inexpensive blender or make one from rolled paper. It's been forever since I had one.

"Snowdrops"; colored pencil & ballpoint pen; 2021

As for Dedbert and his slug? I want to try using this scene with a few different mediums, so look forward to seeing this in gel pen, just ballpoint pen, crayon, Sharpie, and possibly more! I will be getting back to my fruit dragons at some point, too, and I hope to start reintroducing the watermelon dragon into my work!

That'll about do it for me today. I'm exhausted and I kinda just want to curl up with some more lemon tea and check out the new safety eyes that came in today for future amigurumi projects.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC