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

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

Fiber Monday

 

Slow progress is still progress

So it's week 22 and we're still working on this "Secret/Mystery Project". Unless you're a better pattern engineer than me and figured out how to close & carry the bag on your own lol, then I'm the only one who's still working on this 22 weeks in.

I have, however, figured out what to do about the straps!

Good old slip stitches.

That's right, I made 421 chain stitches with my 1.9mm hook and I'm going to slip stitch each row (chaining 1 before I turn and slip stitch down each row) until it's wide enough for my liking. Will it be quick? No. Will it be stable? Heck yes.

This is nowhere near wide enough

But it is very sturdy!

I'll probably do 12-24 rows at 420 stitches for the main strap and then switch to red for a 120 stitch long 6-12 row wide loop for the top of the bag. Just something nice and short to hang the bag by!

And since I do not have any other zippers to sacrifice to the mouth of the purse where the cap & stem connect, I will be attempting to attach something stiff like maybe a plastic cable tie to the inside this week. And then it will just be time for spots and maybe a cute charm! We'll see...

Still, thank you all for coming on this journey with me!

I know this is the first week I haven't included the rest of the bag pattern, but in my defense, it's 10pm and I'm heckin sleepy. Yes, I've only got that much done since this morning. I'm disappointed in me too.

But hey, that's life sometimes. Sometimes you work all day on something and the progress, once you set it down, seems minute.

But especially with crochet, any progress you can see is going to be way smaller than the effort you put in, because you can't see the sixteen times I had to frog it or the six attempts at mushroom lace I failed at or the many many many curses I uttered while stabbing myself in the thumb with the pointy end of my hook because those stitches are super tiny and I can't stop making them super tight. I need to chill lol!

So that'll do it from me for today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which A Mineral Was Painted
And A Story Is Told (Two Days Late)

On Tuesday, I told you all about my previous week, and uh... I may have mentioned something about my dad getting swarmed by ticks and then failed to follow up.

Sorry about that, guys! Totally slipped my mind with the rest of the tales!

So here's the Dad Vs Ticks story:

Once upon a time, my dad and I were both in the local community band. I backed out a few years ago because I didn't have any weekends off to do things with my friends or just to relax during the summer, but he has stuck with it, and he and his trumpet go every week from the first warm week in Spring to about the last warm week in Fall. On Sunday, they had a rehearsal, so he packed up his trumpet and headed out to the rehearsal space, which he explained to me as the middle of a parking lot. I've practiced in weirder spaces, so I buy it.

(lookin at you, weird, creepy, almost certainly haunted and fairly abandoned century-old community building in the middle of nowhere...)

So they're all set up in their chairs and playing along when my dad feels something crawling on his leg. It's summer, so it's bug season. He figured it was a fly or something equally benign, but looked down anyway (because what if it was a horsefly or a hornet?).

It was a big flat tick hook-handing its way up his leg.

Needless to say, he destroyed it by plucking it off the leg, putting it on the hot tar, and grinding a rock down on top of it. Then he told everyone why he was screwing a rock into the pavement and everyone started checking. A few more ticks were found and killed. Weird, since again, they were in the middle of a parking lot with no grass within ten feet.

Here's where it gets really upsetting, though.

They go through a few more pieces of music - practice, practice, practice - and then my dad feels a lot of tickling on his legs. Big whoop, everyone feels the crawlies after finding a tick, right?

Wrong.

There were dozens of ticks swarming the band, and he kept having to brush them off of himself.

Think about that for a second!

They were in the center of a parking lot and being swarmed by dozens of ticks!

And of course the story doesn't end there, no. He was relating the tale to me because he stormed up the stairs, shirtless, asking me to check his back (thankfully tick-free). So we go downstairs to freak out about how bizarre the whole thing is and he stops mid-sentence, looking at the laundry basket over my shoulder.

One of the freaking jerks must've hidden in a pocket of his pants or something because it was crawling up the wallllllllllll!

No thank you.

We killed it very dead - just your standard dog tick, so not really a risk for Lyme (though it could carry other stuff I don't want!).

So that was my Sunday lol!

But you're not just here for the ticky followup to Tuesday, no.

You're here for art!

I didn't paint the tick. I did a bug last week.

Instead this week's topic was "Mineral", so I painted some emeralds!

"Emerald Cluster"; Watercolor on paper; 2022

That was a lot more fun than I thought it would be to paint! I drew it out with a green watercolor pencil and then filled things in slowly with the colors all going different directions like the inclusions and fractured planes that emerald crystals really have.

Lab created emeralds bother me with their purity. If I want a clear green stone, I'll get a locally mined tourmaline. I want my emeralds cloudy and preferably second-hand. I worked from a bunch of reference for this, and I'm actually pretty happy with how the weird purple rock came out. Believe it or not, that sucker was supposed to be a brownish gray, but I grabbed the wrong color and I really like the contrast!

Now you know the secret of the Tickpocalypse, and you've got a fun bunch of emeralds to look at! I think my work here is done til Monday!

Get out there and Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

It's Still Tuesday in my Heart
Even if it's Wednesday by the time I post...

So...

It's technically still Tuesday, but let's be real, I put this blog off all day so it'll probably be close to midnight when it goes up.

If it goes up tonight at all lol.

So what have I been up to that I'm all dopey and avoiding writing anything down?

A LOT, but in a good way!

Since last Tuesday, I've been on a journey northwards and back, my younger sibling got engaged, my mom went to help her mom out for a couple days, my dad got swarmed by ticks, my cat was a velcro kitty for a day but not with me, I managed to figure out a potential stabilization solution for the Secret Project on Mondays, I tried a few new things, and I also ended up having a bunch of new ideas I have no clue what to do with lol!

Let's begin:

Saturday was a long day and one which saw a friend of mine and Z's snagging the two of us and whisking us away on a multi-hour adventure northwards. We stopped at a drive-in and I ordered a 3oz cheeseburger with ketchup and ate that, most of a slice of tortiere (which seemed to be a mashed potato/turnip and spiced ground meat pie), a lot of fried green beans (which may have been fried from frozen since they were a bit limp and watery on the inside but were otherwise good), and a few bite's of Z's Brunch Burger (fried egg, two 3oz patties, maybe caramelized onions?). The drive-in, Belanger's I think it was called, was fantastic. 10/10 would eat there again, even if the tortiere was... weird. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. No idea what their turkey pie is like.

My tasty lil burger with a small preview of maybe the curly fries our friend got?
The bun on this was super soft & fluffy and the cheese was perfectly melted.
They grind their own beef, and I thought the balance of fat to lean was perfect.

After Belanger's we went to a Dairy Bar in another, even further-north town, where I got a conservative small chocolate soft-serve (I wasn't feeling the best that day, since I'd scarfed down a bunch of cheddar cheese before I got in the car for several hours lol). Z on the other hand got a big ol Moxie float with Moxie ice cream. I tried a little of the Moxie and found that while my aversion to beets has gone away, I still think Moxie has an earwax aftertaste. Moxie ice cream, however, lacks the aftertaste, so it's a yes from me. Gives you all the fun herbal/medicinal flavors of Moxie with a creamy vanilla overlay that kills the aftertaste!

I'd love to make Moxie ice cream myself sometime. Maybe a chocolate Moxie ice cream, even!

I came home to news that my little sis is engaged! Congrats! (Though I doubt any of my siblings read these, they're busy!)

Guess what we had for dinner that night at nearly 9pm because no one was hungry til then?

Burgers. They were good, though, so all around, very nice (if beeftacular) day!

Sunday was mostly everyone getting ready for my mom to head up to her mother's place to take care of her while my grandmother gets ready to start treatment for her cancer. The cat could obviously tell something was up, and once my mother was gone, she pulled a velcro-kitty and stuck herself to my poor dad, who was just trying to work from home, which was very hard when the cat was determined to be right where he needed to be and insinuating herself deeper and deeper into his lap until he was forced to sit like a frog or lose the insides of his thighs to her kneading claws.

Poor thing didn't even want to go outside!

Monday came and I worked on the solution to my mushroom purse woes (yesterday's blog), but I also took the cat out for walkies and tried out a thing I picked up while hanging out with our friend on a previous day. I also took pics of the really nice Mexican Hot Chocolate Z bought me for Valentine's because he's the bees' knees!

He picked this up at one of the newest bookstores in the area :)

You can really smell the chocolate & cinnamon

This little puck fits in the palm of my hand.
I'd say for comparison's sake it's about as big around as a soda can.

You whisk the puck briskly into milk, and I promise it dissolves fast.
And that's when the pecan notes hit!

I'm pretty sure they use the pecans as a thickening agent...

Because this is a THICK cocoa.

The hot cocoa was incredibly sweet and velvety thick and smooth like melted ice cream almost. It was, in fact, almost too sweet, so I added a shot of coffee to it and...

I am convinced that's how it's supposed to be drank because it was heavenly.

Meanwhile, someone was pretending she didn't care about going outside.

But cats are like Maine weather. Wait five minutes...

... And suddenly you'll find yourself outside!

But she didn't seem to want to be out for very long.

Me not letting her sulk and skulk underneath the camper and the deck probably had a lot to do with it...

But she got to stalk a chipmunk and squeak at a bird, so she was satisfied.

You know what else is satisfying? Pouring yourself more coffee when you're done letting a bored cat explore the yard and topping it with a Stroopwafel.

Look how perfectly it fits on this mug!
It's like they were made for each other!

Two minutes of rest over a steaming cup and it's perfect.

Just the right balance of soft & crispy & gooey.

Stroopwafel are something I've been meaning to try for a while. Makes sense to me that I'd like them - I like waffles, I like caramel, I love treats that go with coffee. But I never remembered to grab them!

Thankfully, I noticed them while Z & I were shopping with our awesome friend and we picked them up. I can't wait to make him a nice cup and let it cool down a bit with the stroopwafel on top, softening slightly.

It's nothing like a sugar or waffle cone you'd get for ice cream, to be honest, and that surprised me. The crispiness is subtle, the sweetness not as overpowering as you'd expect from something with a caramel layer, and the softness from the steam is nothing like the staleness you sometimes get from a slightly soft sugar cone.

All in all, I've been very busy lately lol! But delightfully so, and I can't wait to keep being busy this week!

Tomorrow will be drizzly and cool (high of 63℉/17,22℃), so I think I'll stay in and sketch.

Thursday should have the fruits of that sketch on the blog! And maybe I'll slip out at some point to snag some snacks and a Jarrito?

Hopefully by next Monday I'll have A) finished my strap or 2) found another short plastic zipper to cannibalize for my purse. If not, I have another potential solution: Zip ties & thread. Yeah, I might just zip-tie a couple of circles, stitch around them in either crochet or just sewing, and call that good lol. Might even be less of a headache than trying to track down another zipper. We've only bought just so many sheets and blankets, which is where the first zipper came from...

But this has already become an obscenely long blog where I just babbled and blathered at all of y'all.

If you want a say in this week's art, feel free to shoot me a coffee over on my Ko-Fi account (the link should be in my sidebar? Idk, is that what it's called?) and tell me Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Place, or Geometric! If I get multiples, I'll do my best to combine things ;)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

< Insert Vague Gibbering Sounds >

Y'all ever have a project that refuses to come together? That's this Mystery Project for me. I've tried about 8 different ways to stabilize the mouth of the purse and I'm beginning to think...

That I'm overthinking it.

I just need to get another white zipper and sew it in.

That's literally all I need to do.

I don't need to make some crazy stabilizing hoop or wire ring.

I just need a zipper.

That'll be good enough.

Then I can focus on stiffening the floor of the cap (which I already planned on doing with probably plastic and another disc of crochet), and finishing the straps.

Oh, you may think, weren't you already working on the straps?

Y

E

S

.

Yes I was.

I've been working on those straps for what, two weeks now?

And I can't figure out what to use!

Originally I wanted a strap of stacked mushrooms in various lace stitches.

Then I thought "well, since that's not working out, why not make 3 lines of leafy vines which would be braided and then use those for straps!"

But then I remembered that 1: I have zero patience and B: I suck at braiding.

So then I was like "oh, but what if I embroider little mushrooms on a 10 stitch wide single crochet strap?!"

Again, not patient. Cannot embroider well enough to do that. The sc strap would take an eternity.

So instead I'm planning on doing a 10dc wide band which will take half as long as the sc band (in theory) and hopefully that will do well. Now I just need to decide if I wanna do red or beige for the straps.

Sorry there's no pics, but man oh man have I been busy (as you'll see tomorrow lol).

Go Enjoy Something, folks.

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Am Bad At Making Decisions

Every week, I ask my boyfriend what I should draw/paint next. I give him a choice of 5 categories:

• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Geometry/Shapes
• Place

And every week I make my art based off of the choice he makes.

This is because, when left to my own devices, I'm very bad at making choices that make sense.

If I were to pick my own subject matter, I'd change my mind six times and make a random set of blobs. Or I would overextend myself on one single project and then bungle it by saving it in the wrong format...

But this way, I know by, say, Tuesday, that I should sketch up an animal. I don't go beyond the five categories because I also have issues with authority and would just do something different in order to be difficult.

Heck, I'm drinking a can of Coke right now and it's almost 10pm because I guess I didn't really want to sleep tonight? Foolish.

This past week, I made a crack about June Bugs being God's Perfect Idiots. It should be noted that I'm only referring to the large black "Brown June Bug" we have in Maine when I talk about these insects. I cannot verify the intelligence (or lack thereof) of Green June Bugs or Striped June Bugs, since I haven't ever been brained by one while walking at night.

Brown June Bugs, being a North American scarab, are big and hard-shelled and lumbering. They are also phenomenally stupid by human standards. These ponderous little critters will slap into your windows at full speed, which is understandable since most wildlife doesn't perceive glass.

But I will never get over watching them brain themselves on giant freaking trees that have been right there the insects' entire lives. They just buzz at full speed sometimes until they're stopped by a hard surface, and then they'll lay at the base of whatever they hit (or get tangled in it with their bristly legs), stunned, for a few long minutes before struggling on their backs. If they're lucky, they'll get enough momentum or buzz their wings enough and flip back onto their feet, but... they're pretty dumb, so that's not always the case.

I once watched a June Bug flail on its back for 40 minutes while I lugged lawn furniture around. Once I got a break, I helped the poor guy get onto its feet... only to watch it stun itself on the door again and drop back onto the welcome mat. Seriously, bro?

And as a broad, clumsy creature that can barely see and runs into things all the time and sometimes has trouble getting back to my feet, I can somewhat relate.

So here's to America's scarab, God's Perfect Moron, the June Bug.

"Phyllophaga spp." pencil on watercolor paper; 2022

If you want to print that line drawing out or trace it, please feel free to use it to practice coloring, painting, whatever you like (though if you repost it anywhere, please, please remember to credit me!).

And now the colored version:

"God's Perfect Idiot"; watercolor on paper; 2022

I hope today's silly blog made you smile, and if you have any other Stupid Animals you'd like to see me paint, feel free to tell me! Or heck, even shoot me a coffee over on Ko-Fi and you, too, may choose what I draw!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC