Thursday Art Walk

 

In which I managed a drawing despite being deep in my Stardew Era again...

So I've been playing Stardew Valley again.

And I've been loving it.

My sleep schedule has not been loving this, though, because I keep staying up til 3 or 4am just trying to do one more run in the desert caves. I'm in the spring of year 2, Kent has arrived, and I won the second egg hunt in a row. I don't know if I'll win anything else lol.

As for art, though, I still managed to pull through and draw something!

"Peachy"; watercolor pencil on paper; 2023
[FOOD, VEGETABLE]

So there we have a lil peach on a lil table with a lil shading and I'm actually pretty pleased with it! I managed to create shading and highlight without making it look shiny (because, of course, peaches are fuzzy, not shiny).

I had a hard time with the shadow underneath (obviously) but I'm otherwise quite pleased with it! Sure, the color is more apricot than peach, but I promise I've seen peaches that yellow before.

At least it's not bubblegum pink, which it very nearly was. I saw the yellow I wanted. I reached for the yellow I wanted. I looked up to watch the cat come into the room for a little box time, and when I looked down at my hand, I'd picked up a very pink pink.

I honestly cannot remember the names of any of the colors I used except that I know I made use of the Peaches & Cream shade for the body of the peach and Magenta for the blush. Everything else was kind of snagged at random. I layered a cool gray with the spring green to bring down the yellow tones in the background, but the light blue of the tablecloth was solo.

I used a round brush for most of the piece, especially the shading and the peach itself. I used a 1/2" square brush for the background, swirling it in circular motions to improve the blending of the gray and green.

This was a fun little piece to do, and if you'd like to make any requests of me, you can do so via Ko-Fi - send me a lil donation with a message telling me what category you'd like me to work from (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Food, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, Word), and I'll post a piece based on that category!

For now, I'm going to go eat some homemade teriyaki chicken, watch an Italian dad make lentil soup, and probably sneak in some more Stardew before I go to bed lol.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Have Done Some Art!

This week I received a Ko-Fi Request for a picture of Dedbert!

"Dedbert Afternoon"; watercolor brush pen and watercolor pencil on sketch; 2023
[DEDBERT, FOOD]

The weather turning warmer means that not only do I crave things like boba (yes that's the wrong straw, but you try getting a wide straw into your beak and see how that works lol), but the camper is now being opened up to be checked for leaks and prepped for the camping season.

For those not in the know, my dad has a cute lil pop-up camper that he restored during COVID. He basically had to rebuild the thing from chassis to roof, even getting new canvases so that it wouldn't smell musty and leak like a sieve. It is now a great place to retreat to, when it's set up in the yard. He uses it as an office when he's fixing things and knows he'll need a rest after. I use it as a studio when the tv downstairs is too loud.

So the other day, the camper was open, and I was looking for a place to get out of the sun and the breeze without sacrificing all of the natural light. I succeeded in banging out a very small piece while munching on a Sweet Chili Dorito flavored meat stick and sipping at a Cherry Coke I'd picked up on my earlier walk.

"Floral" watercolor on paper; 2023
[VEGETABLE, ANIMAL]

"Floral", here, is a watercolor sketch. I put down no lines, I did not linger over any single facet of the piece. The whole thing took about 15 minutes total. Much of my art is made in a similar way. I don't tend to give myself a lot of time to paint because my brain still thinks that art is not something I should be doing, there are... stupid reasons for that. I struggle to value my creative endeavors because people don't tend to be happy with me when I tell them "yes, that can be yours, but I'd like some money first", and I... really want people to like me.

Yeah. It's taken a lot for me to get to the "oh, I can offer my art as a service!" stage.

Anywho, let's talk more about "Floral"!

Do I know the names of all the flowers I painted? Nope. I know that three of them are real, but the blue and yellow one is wholly invented, based off of the pansies my mom picked up. The light purple fluff flower is supposed to be a thistle, the yellow fluff is supposed to be a dandelion. I know the red one is a real plant I just can't remember the name.

If you want to have a say in what I draw or paint next week, please feel free to make a Request via Ko-Fi or hire me for a Commission. All info is in the link sidebar, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have for me!

For now, I'm going to go eat dinner, play some Tears of the Kingdom (I've just finished hunting down the Fierce Deity set, built a house to accommodate the Sword of the Fierce Deity, and I'm tracking down the Tingle Set now lol), and maybe make some decaf while settling in for a YouTube binge with Z!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Have Painted

I hoped this week that getting my painting done on Wednesday would mean the blog going up before 3PM, but... I'm sometimes quite tortoise-y and forget to actually start the typing. for instance, this blog page got opened an hour ago, and I'm just now adding text lol!

In my defense, however, there was another kerfuffle with the scanner(s), and frankly, I am shocked that I'm even conscious after all the running around I had to do.

See, our scanners and printers (multiples because my dad does a bunch of stuff for his hobbies/extra work like managing the music for the jazz band and keeping track of memberships for his small country golf course) are all in the basement, and I don't know how to use half of them because my brain is a sack of pinkish pudding in a bone-bowl 90% of the time. I work from an upstairs bedroom, and the living room and kitchen are between the scanners and myself.

This means that I have to go up and down two sets of stairs with two social spaces between. If someone's in the living room or kitchen (a fair bet after 11AM), then I'm going to get distracted. Even if no one's there, I still get distracted because coffee is delicious and my will is weaker than a tissue paper bridge over an arroyo during flood season. Add to that the fact that my memory is about as good as that of a 1989 computer whose CMOS hasn't been changed in the intervening years, and you've got a frazzled, coffee-soaked artist who keeps forgetting artworks either upstairs or in the cellar.

And then you add in the fact that sometimes the scanner just... won't work.

I've noticed that the first time you try to scan something from the black scanner, it freezes on the computer end, but the scanner is still trying to work, so you can't actually just... restart the scan. You have to get up from the computer, go down to the cellar, manually cancel the scan, go back upstairs, then restart the preview from there, reset the parameters, and pray that the darn thing scans.

"But Casual," you may ask, "Why not bring your computer to the scanner so it's easier to troubleshoot?"

Well....

Uh...

Okay, I'll be real, I never think to do that, but mostly that's because of my abysmal luck with batteries failing at important junctures.

Also I'm terrified of the cellar spiders and don't like to be down there any longer than I have to.

And the lights turn off from the top of the stairs only, so if someone doesn't hear me down there, they might turn off the lights and I'm a wimpy little wiener who's still scared of the dark.

And now you know my deepest secrets...

Anywho, here's what I worked on this week!

"Sketches" Watercolor; 2022

This piece is a small warmup where I was picking which category I wanted to go with this week! The shapes represent the GEOMETRIC category, the little cottage is LOCATION, the squirrel is of course an ANIMAL, the purple spire is an amethyst spear and therefore a MINERAL, the pinkish blob is supposed to be a mushroom which I count as a VEGETABLE, Dedbert is DEDBERT, the word Hope is sketched out for the WORD category.

This week's category proper, however, was ANIMAL!

"Frogi" watercolor on cotton paper; 2022

I took a very loose approach to this frog with only the vaguest outline, and I splashed random colors from my Peter Pauper Press palette on. I quite like the messy background, which I feel gives it an out-of-focus-rainforest vibe!

If you'd like a say in what I paint or draw next week, definitely check out the "commissions" page I have to see the different categories (also listed under the sketch before Frogi!). It's just one Ko-Fi, and they've got a messaging system that I'll absolutely see!

Back on the topic of scanning, though, I think I should look into a sheet of black poster board or construction paper to help me find the edges of my scans. If you're someone who does a lot of scanning, do you have any suggestions to help make things easier for myself? I know I probably don't need to be scanning at as high a dpi as I do, but... honestly, I don't know what I'm doing.

The joys of having to choose between which art you want to focus on in High School. You don't have to scan to play the flute.

Anywho, I'm gonna get back to untangling Gordon the Gordian Knot of blue DK weight acrylic yarn, and hopefully I'll be talking with my guy and watching some author chats with him!

Hope your weeks are going well!

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 I Review A Palette!

 Christmas saw me getting a lot (and I mean a lot) of pajamas, but also some other fun stuff, including a very cool blue sweater and a gift card to a local bookstore from my younger sibling! It has taken me until now to use that gift card, and here is what I got:

The Peter Pauper Press Studio Series Watercolor Field Kit
With 48 Brilliant Colors!

This kit fits in my purse, is easy to carry, is relatively strong plastic, opens easily, and does in fact contain everything advertised (mixing palette, 48 colors, aqua brush, sturdy case, and a sponge). It has a foldable loop on the bottom for easy balancing in one hand.

The mixing palette lifts out on pegs!

Those are some fresh paints lol

A clearer view of the paints

A Swatch using both paints & brush!

So let's talk contents. 

The palette is a palette. There's not a ton to talk about with it - it works and it's pretty decent!

The sponge is a tiny sponge, and I don't hold much hope for its long-term survival, nor am I 100% certain what the sponges are used for, since I usually travel with tissues that I use for cleanup.

The brush... the brush is weird. I've used water brushes before, but they're usually as easy to fill as "unscrew brush from handle, pour water into handle, screw back together, voila". This one is... weird. It has a little black thingy over the opening in the handle when you unscrew it, and that prevents you from just filling it from the tap like the other water brushes I have. It's also very short, so it doesn't hold very much water when you do fill it, which you do by holding it underwater, squeezing the air out of it, and letting the water fill it up. The whole time, you've got your hand underwater and cold and it feels like you're going to break the brush handle. All in all, the worst water brush I've ever used, filling-wise. Actually using it is great, though. It seems to have a more consistent flow than other brushes. I'd say it evens out, frustration in filling vs ease of use.

As for the paints, they're pretty! They're very nice, and they go on very smooth! They do smell... bandaid-y, though. That's odd, but not too unusual for watercolors lol. I think they just contain a lot of gum arabic. No idea about their lightfastness, but since this is a travel set, rather than a proper in-studio set of paints, I'm gonna say they'd be ideal for watercolor sketching rather than permanent art. I will also say that some of the colors are water-hogs. That second lavender on the 4th row down especially soaks up water when you dampen the pans and it ends up not looking like any of the paint reconstituted. Don't believe its lies, it's perfectly fine, it just doesn't swell lol.

The pans after the first wetting/use, also the brush.

One last note on that weird lil water brush: it stains just the same as all the other nylon-tipped water brushes I've used lol. Does anyone else have that problem? It doesn't spread the color, it just completely stains!

But as we all know, the real test of a watercolor kit isn't what it looks like or smells like in a box or on swatches, it's what it looks like when you use it! And here we see my first use of this kit:

"Sketching With Dedbert"; PPP watercolor on watercolor paper with Micron ink; 2022

I think that with a more robust brush, this paint will be fantastic even at home, and on the go I usually have at least 3 brushes on-hand at any given time just bc I'm paranoid about running out of water (a real concern with the weird filling-method on this new one!). I did forget to erase the pencil lines, so sorry about that! But this was a lot of fun, and it's given me ideas on what else to do with my future art!

And that about covers today's art adventure! My conclusion is this: this kit is worth the $20 I spent on it and I encourage anyone on the fence as to whether or not to pick up a Peter Pauper Press field kit to go for it!

Don't forget to Go Enjoy Something!!!