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

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 Have Been Shopping!!!

I'm not a shopaholic. No, really I'm not! I just... have needed things lately. For Art. And life in general, but mostly art lol.

I went for a lovely 3 mile walk on Tuesday and trotted myself downtown. There's a lovely beach down there, and you have to pass a lot of really nice local shops to get there. One of those shops was hiring and because money tastes good and I love the shop (I get my cat's favorite toys there!), I decided to apply there. It's conjoined to the fancy art shop in town, too, so I popped in there, too. After all, you can never have too much watercolor paper, and I was hoping to find some Buff Titanium watercolor.

Well, the Buff Titanium was unfortunately not available (they only had tube paint) but boy did they have a lot of other goodies!!!

The *~* HAUL *~*

Before you lies a delightful assortment of useful art supplies! A roll of masking tape so I actually have borders on my art, a gorgeous pad of cold pressed watercolor paper in size 11"x15" (27,9cm x 38,1cm) with 30 sheets for me to play with, a small block of hot press watercolor paper in size 6"x8" (15,2cm x 20,3cm) which I've never used but has a much smoother finish and is also bound on two sides so it won't warp as easily, and finally a set of 16 pearlescent Yasutomo Niji watercolors! The watercolors were only about 6 bucks and the large paper was only about 19 bucks, so those were quite the steal!

Pretty pretty... shiny shiiiiiiny...

But please don't believe I've not done any artwork since I vanished - I've got two base-colored landscapes I'm working on!

"Impressions Downhill"; watercolor pencil; 2021

"Shabby Harbor"; watercolor pencil; 2021

You might be able to guess I'm not 100% done with these (especially with how faint the colors are) but it's hard to get the layering right when you're outside! I'll be working on these, experimenting with my new paints and papers, and just generally having a blast, I think!

How are your own artistic endeavors coming? Have you worked on anything you're proud of this month?

That'll do it for me!

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

Guess Who Forgot To Post Until Midnight Again?!

I have no excuse. Today wasn't even that hot - it never got above 75℉ (23.9℃) outside, was barely sunny, and never got above 80℉ (26.7℃) in the house. I just... never got around to posting. I didn't even get around to sketching today. It was a very hard-to-focus kind of day.

I lost track of time, conversations, random crap around the house, and I spent three minutes looking for my razor in the shower when I was holding it in my other hand. It's just... it's been that kind of day.

So sorry it took me so long to post!

But I do have at least one image for this week:

"Misty Afternoon 1"; watercolor on watercolor paper; 2021

For having limited lighting, no plan, and having completely forgotten my techniques, I'm pretty okay with how this little waterdoodle came out! I'll be doing other landscapes and hopefully a cityscape some time (hmmm... violet does make a very nice sky, especially when it fades to rose...) - and I have some killer sketch ideas thanks to some friends of mine!

Now, just so I don't keep harping on how much I suck I want to immortalize the few things I did manage to do today, focus be damned.

• I managed my first attempt at darning (which I'll show off next Monday I think...)
• I unraveled two failed crochet projects and started another new one
• I learned about the Colosseum in Rome!
• I dug up my favorite summer top!
• I put away two more skeins of yarn
• I obtained a new skein of very pretty cotton yarn
• I finally detangled one of my Big Spools of cotton thread
• Came up with an idea to draw each of my OC Trainers & their starters... Haven't thought about Flare (Crystal) and Sabore (Red) in literal years. Mick (GO!) I see regularly, and I don't even remember what I named my poor Y trainer. I think my Moon trainer is named Haku... Anywho, I'll try to remember everything and throw them onto a page. May have to include a new OC I've been thinking of, too. I'll have to figure out how to draw tattoos though... And Porygon.
• Also dug up some capris I'll probably need tomorrow (if I don't need pants - I heard it might be something ridiculous like 58℉ (14.4℃) somehow!)

That looks... like rather a lot, to be honest.

No wonder I'm tired.

That and it's technically Friday...

Oops!

Well, that'll do it from me for now...

So Go Enjoy Something!

FC