Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Painted!

It's been a hot minute since I did a proper watercolor! I'll admit, it wasn't what I'd planned for, either. I had wanted the image to be a pencil sketch, not a painting, after all.

But it just wasn't coming together. In fact, nothing I tried seemed to work right. I just kept putting pencil to paper and producing garbage.

The first time I actually succeeded in making something un-sucky, though, I went and botched it. See, I drew a desert/mountain landscape in my sketchbook, and then I added color. That's fine, my watercolor pencils are good wet or dry, and I started laying in colors - darker towards the foreground, lighter into the distance. All was well until I backed away from it and realized that what I'd taken as good layering of pencils was instead really patchy and scribbly in a bad way.

So I may have uh... used a water brush to blend things.

In a standard sketchbook.

Yeah, that piece is now a ripply mess. I had to start over.

Thankfully, I remembered that I have a hot press watercolor block, so I started to try recreating the image on a much smaller scale and much nicer paper.

The layering still kind of came out sucky when it was dry so I grabbed my water brushes again! This time, the landscape came together in a much more dreamlike and flowy state.

I waited for it to dry, signed it, then decided to photograph it.

"At Distance" watercolor pencil, 2023 [LOCATION]

I wasn't quite satisfied with the photo, though, so I headed down to the basement to pop the 6"x8" (15,24cm x 20,32cm) piece in the scanner only to find that somehow the hinges had completely detached and the machine had a jam in it somewhere. After much squinting and shimmying, I managed to put the flatbed/printer back to rights and slid my art onto the glass before jogging back up to my room.

Now, hinges aside, I have a major complaint about this scanner. It's too bright. Everything gets super washed out by it. I really should just pop a piece of black construction paper in there with my paintings because it can be very very hard to get things situated properly, color-wise. That being said.... sometimes it does things that surprise me:

Scanned Version of "At Distance"

See, it's super washed out, but I kind of... like it? It's so bright and while a lot of detail gets lost, it's so much more vibrant and you can see the edges of the colors more and it looks more like a sun-drenched dreamscape!

What do you guys think is the better version? Do you have any suggestions to help make scanning easier and more effective?

Next week's guaranteed category is my first Word in a long time! We'll see how this goes!

If you want to add to the pictures I put up, you can request a category via Ko-Fi!  Just buy me a coffee and leave a message with it telling me which category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, Word) you'd like to see, and I'll draw or paint it and put it in the blog!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Have Gotten Some Work Done This Week!

Make no mistake, I've missed several writing, crochet, and art days this week. I have good excuses, I think - insomnia, feline interruptus, and just plain getting distracted (please note I started writing this blog at 7PM, if that gives you an idea) - but boy have I done a lot.

I have been working on a 3k by 3k pixel piece in Paint.net, and I'm maybe 1% finished with that.

I finished the shawl yesterday and started looking into my next pieces to crochet.

I experimented with polishing some of my rocks again (the weather was forgiving until yesterday/today)

And I wrote nearly 2100 words this week, bringing the total up to just over 15.7k words!

Yeah.

Heck of a chunk of writing. One of those writing chunks was a whole chapter!!!

All of this while only managing between 2-7hr of sleep a night.

And I've cut my caffeine consumption by 2/3.

I know. Crazy.

Regardless, this has been a super productive week, and I'm really hoping to keep up the hard work - possibly with some more art thrown in.

My plans for this week are, of course, to work on my art until Thursday, crochet until Monday, and then blab again on Tuesday.

If I write another 2100 words next week, that would also be incredible. I also hope to get one of the rocks I'm polishing smoothed out enough to showcase. Currently I'm still figuring out the various grinding wheels/sanding disks/etc that I have access to these days for my toolless Dremel.

I still struggle to understand what each element in my new kit does.

Regardless, I've got work to do this coming week, and I'm proud of what I accomplished in the last seven days, but for now, I'm very tired.

It's nearly midnight.

If you want to direct my art, you can recommend a category to draw from by sending me a coffee over on Ko-Fi with a message telling me which category you'd like (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Deadbert, Location, Geometric, Word), and I'll draw it up and add it to the blog!

That'll do it from me tonight!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which We Are Finally Done With The Blue Shawl!!!

You read that right, folks, in a nearly three hour marathon of work, I have finally completed the blue shawl!!!

It's probably hard to tell in this shot, but it nearly spans
my twin mattress in every direction!

A more refined shot of it crossed over itself

This thing is at least as wide as my armspan and does indeed reach down to my tailbone.  I finished the top by making a 3dc, ch2, 3dc shell in the 3rd chain of every chain space of the final actual row. That was the longest part of the final jog to the finish.

There's probably a couple yards of thread left - not enough to make anything bigger than an ornament or something like that. I'm very very pleased with this result, and once it's finally blocked and the ends are sewn in, it'll make a fun addition to my shawls.

If I had been sensible, I would not have made a mesh shawl with such a small gauge of fiber and such a tiny hook, but no one could ever, ever accuse me of being sensible lol.

The final count of time spent on this shawl was twenty hours, one minute, and around twenty nine seconds. That's a timer of 20:01:29!

Here's where I tell you how much this would cost if I charged minimum wage for this very shawl: $276.35

It's a nice shawl, to be sure, but I'd probably never find a buyer for such a simple garment at that rate. This is why crochet you find in department stores makes me cringe. Since crochet is to complex to automate, that means a human being had to make that $25 handbag, and they had to do it by hand, and they probably got paid pennies to do so.

It makes it very hard to sell handmade items when mega corporations are wage-slaving the craft so they can pump consumers for profit.

How do crafters price things? I honestly have no idea how much the shawl would be worth.

Regardless, I'm really glad to be done with this project, and I can't wait to start on the next pattern.

I did have one more thing to discuss before going the hickety heck to bed, and that is this: I have finally found someone who actually understands those vintage patterns I'm so in love with.

The YouTube channel is called Just Vintage Crochet, and the lady who runs it is an absolute delight. She has a calm, clear voice, she explains things clearly, and sometimes, she randomly crochets things up from vintage patterns without knowing what she's making until she's done. If you've ever wanted to learn how to read properly vintage patterns, absolutely check her out! I maaaaay be trying out a pattern or three from the channel eventually.

As for me, I'm going to rest up. Tomorrow I'll be back to blather. How are all of your own projects going, folks?

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Did Art :)

So last week I randomly generated a number between 1-7 to determine which category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric) I would draw from this week, and I got Geometric. 

Then one of my lovely readers, Z, bought me a coffee over on Ko-Fi and chose another category for me to draw from - Animal.

That means that I have two finished artworks for you!!!

"Bunnyboi"; digital; 2023 [ANIMAL] [Coffee]

I am.... so happy with how this little sketch came out! It's so cute and soft and sweet and I'm so impressed with the way I finally got some control over color and line. It's taking some time, but I feel like I'm really figuring Krita out.

Actually, the next image was created with me finally figuring out one of the things that bothered me so much about Krita and its color-picker. See, the default on Krita is the Advanced Color Picker, which is basically the square, circle, or triangle gradient that you click on to make your colors. I... don't like that, to be honest. It feels unnatural to me.

Turns out there actually is a way to manually input Hex codes into Krita, it just took a little digging on both Google and Krita to find. With the ability to take random colors on Coolors.co and plug them into Krita, I was able to make this week's Geometric piece:

"Lace Panes" digital; 2023 [GEOMETRIC]

I rolled some random colors, picked some random brushes, and scrawled out this fun piece for a Geometric fill, and to be honest, I'm not upset with the way it came out. Knowing now what I've learned from this piece, I think Geometric pieces will be a lot easier now. Turns out if you zoom in on the area you're going to fill and then carefully outline it with a freehand select tool, you can absolutely go to town on every single cell of a piece without overwriting the outlines! I look forward to making some fun stained-glass-like pieces now!

As for next week's Guaranteed Category, we've got... Location! So next week I'll 100% have a Location image finished.

If you want a say like Z had this week, you can send me a coffee over on Ko-Fi (it's not super expensive, I'm pretty sure it's just three bucks US) and leave a message with your donation telling me which category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, Word), and I'll make a piece based off of that category for next Thursday!

How are all of you guys' art projects coming along?

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Work

I have been a busy beaver the last couple days - ground some rocks, wrote some paragraphs, did some crochet, sketched, embarked on an ill-conceived art project, and even went for a walk!

The weather has been super weird - going from nearly 70℉/21,1℃ to being closer to the mid-40s(6-8℃), dry to wet, sunny to foggy - and with that weirdness comes the dreaded Insomnia. See, I require a very cool, dry room in order to sleep, and that's... just not happening lately. Either it's damp or it's warm or it's both. Tonight, I'll do my best to zonk, but it could take a bit. I'm jangly and weird when the air pressure changes.

Now, as for the coming week, clearly I've got art to finish for Thursday - both the Guaranteed category (Geometric this week), and a Suggested piece (Animal), so watch out for those.

Next Monday I should be done with the shawl. We've heard that before, but I really do think it'll get done this time.

Next Tuesday, I'll be back to blather!

Now, as for the manuscript, as you might be able to guess, not being able to sleep does mean that writing gets harder. I've missed a few days, wrote only a spare sentence here and there. Tonight I wrote a little over 200 words and I'm on the next chapter! The total words this week was a paltry 554. I'm so far behind, wordcount-wise, but at least the story is progressing.

It's fun writing alternating points of view that keep missing one another. It's cat-and-mouse but one wants to hide and the other just wants him to be okay!

Anywho, if you want to have further say in what I make for art this week, there's still time to shoot me a coffee on Ko-Fi and indicate which category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, or Word) you'd like to see!

I'm getting ready for beddy, so y'all stay cozy and

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Continue To Work on The Blue Shawl.

I have reached the point where, despite working for nearly 2.5 hours this week on the shawl, there's not a huge difference in what it looks like this week. I'll have to go hunting for one of my many and sundry rulers/measuring tapes in order to measure it out, but currently it's pretty darn wide but not very deep. I don't think it'll ever reach all the way down my back, which is too bad but not unexpected. These are the hazards of using up leftover yarn lol.

As for the total time spent on this shawl, we're at just over 17 hours now. And it doesn't quite reach my waist from my shoulders. *sigh* I should've known that something made of thread and a small hook would be an eternal slog, but boy, this one's kicking my butt.

I've started three side projects - one is blue, another is multicolored/brown, the last is white. That is all I shall say about them beyond this: I doubt at least one of them will be finished because my attention wavers like a timid twelve year old giving a monologue during a play they didn't want to perform in but was handed the lead role because no one else could do it.

I also have a few other projects I'll probably be starting, including something that will require.... cabbage. Of the fabric variety. Basically, I'm gonna look for scrap fabric around town (I'll see if anyone's left anything viable in the local fabric store's cabbage bin) and start teaching myself how to sew patchwork. Specifically French Seamed Patchwork.

Because I'm insane.

And also because it just seems fun! And cheaper than buying yardage...

Anywho, there's no picture of the shawl this week because it's only a couple of rows longer and I don't have a good background for it right now (I usually use my bed and my sheets are about the same color as the shawl lol).

I think I'll put my yarns away for the night now and start thinking about tomorrow's blog :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Tippy-Tapped My Way To Art

I brought a cup of water upstairs last night, fully intending to make a watercolor or two, but instead I started playing around on the Art computer again, so all of my art is digital this week!

It also got delayed because this afternoon, a power transformer caught fire near my house and my dad and I were watching it shoot flames for an hour or so. So you know, uh, I was a wee bit distracted. That being said, the art is finished!

"Garden Myopia"; digital; 2023 [LOCATION]

This was a really fun piece to make, and I'm so happy it came out like this! To me, it kind of looks like what a garden would look like if I took my glasses off lol. But it's very restful and lovely, if I say so myself.

"Rocket Rocks"; Digital; [MINERAL]

I am way happier with today's Guaranteed pic (Rocket Rocks) than I thought I would be. I randomly generated the colors and the rest came together quickly! I'm really happy with how the shading & blending worked on this one!

So yeah! That's this week's work!

I just rolled next week's guaranteed category and it is.... GEOMETRIC! We have finally broken the Mineral curse!

If you want to have a say in what else I make, feel free to send me a coffee over on Ko-Fi with a message telling me what category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, or Word) and I'll draw it!

I'm gonna go back to watching videos with my boyfriend and working on more art :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC