Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Today Was Rough

So after yesterday's ridiculous heat, I was excited that today would be in the 70s instead of the 80s. I was even looking forward to the idea of a rainy day inside, since we were supposed to get thunderstorms (which we did... eventually).

Unfortunately, pretty much as soon as I started to go to bed, someone got into an accident and knocked out power to my block.

At 1:20AM or so.

For seven. Hours.

Seven.

In the first hour or two, we still had internet, so I reported the outage to the power company (which is owned by Spain for some stupid reason... a country over 3200 miles (5150km) away from me.

The linemen are all great, though. They're local folks and they do their best with what they're given.

It's not their fault that the power was out for 7 hours.

Somehow, the freezer stayed 100% cold, though! When I checked after the power came back on, yeah the strawberry cheesecake ice cream was soft, but the lemonade bars were still frozen solid.

I don't do well when there's a crisis going on like the power being out. I prefer to know what's up, and I largely lose the ability to find out what's up when I don't have reliable internet access.

So I had very little idea what was going on, when the power would be back, etc. Especially since when the power first went out after 1, the outage map said it'd be back by 3:45AM...

I texted my folks at 6AM because they were out of town, let them know the fridge would probably be a loss and that the power was still out. Apparently the outage map had updated with a new time, which my dad relayed to me via text: 9AM

Tomorrow.

Uh...

Yeah I just about lost my mind. I don't like power outages - I'm afraid of the dark (my eyes and brain really like making shapes in the shadows...)

He'd misread the listing because his phone still thought it was the 26th. It was due back buy 9am today.

And it came back at 8:22AM.

Which I know.

Because I stayed up the whole night.

I have only slept about 20 minutes so far.  It's uh... It's a low-brain day.

So what did I do during the 7 hours of outage?

The first thing I did was make sure there was a flashlight near me. Then I snagged the book I've been reading - "Everybody Knows" by Jordan Harper.

I read the last two thirds of the book by flashlight light with a cat digging into my lap while my neighbors' generator hummed, distant machinery beeped, the train horn wailed, etc.

I finished the book...

Go read it. It's heavy, it's fast, it's hard-hitting and harder-nosed. Neon noir grit lit at its finest.

Made me set the book down mid-read and cuss at the author (in an "I'm so jealous of how well written this is! How dare you be so masterful!" way) twice.

After the book, I had plenty of time - it was only just past 4 when I was done with the book, so I went down to the kitchen, lit the stove with a lighter, made coffee without cream, and grabbed my sketchbook.

I worked out a little sketch in pencil.

the finished sketch, taken under the light of a Maglight

Once I finished the sketch, I puttered around the house before carrying the sketchpad upstairs and running primary inks with my Pigma Micron brush pen.

I really liked the way the inks looked at this stage and decided not to do colors

With the primary inks done, I set it aside, did some digging around for a non-refrigerated breakfast (pretzels, it turned out). Finally, I gathered a few more things - the sweater I'm frogging into yarn, a pair of shorts I wanted to try repairing, my sewing kit, my yarn ball winder - and brought them down to the living room, where there was more space & light. Then I took another pass at the drawing with the brush pen!

"Power Outage Again!"; ink on watercolor paper; 2023
[DEDBERT]

Once I was done drawing and inking, I set my art aside and took out the sweater, which started coming apart even better. From one section of buttonhole/chest piece and one section of bottom-ribbing, I ended up with three balls of yarn!

Which I then set aside because I was ready for a nap.

I am beat, guys. I'm probably just gonna try to go to sleep.

I hope you all had productive art weeks!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Did A Silly Little Art

One of the things Z & I like to do is watch old commercials. They're a great way to unwind, they're low-intellectual-expenditure, and they're endlessly fascinating. The other night we were watching this block from 1988 and the bumpers for a night time movie came up. This station called their late movies "Night Owl Movies" and the illustration was absolutely adorable. Z said that I should draw the owl, and I agreed.

So this is technically fanart of a 1988 tv movie bumper from WCIX.

"Getting To Know You"; watercolor pencil & ink on watercolor sketch pad; 2023
[DEDBERT, FOOD, ANIMAL]

Getting this done was an adventure - it's been so humid this week that all of my supplies were vaguely damp, which made erasing pencil lines very hard. I also struggled to focus, since my mind was occupied with the heat. I finished the pencils yesterday, but I waited til today to color and paint it. It almost didn't happen.

This morning at around 4am, I was awakened by a bunch of rattling and crashing, like someone had dropped a bunch of pots & pans in the kitchen. Worried that the cat had gotten into some shit, I stumbled downstairs in the predawn haze and saw absolutely nothing awry. Heck, the cat was even eating the last of the previous night's dinner.

Well, it turned out that something had fallen over, but it wasn't pots or pans, and it wasn't because of the cat.

Turns out that the top two shelves in our cup cabinet let go. They're old and made of crappy particle board from 1989, so let's be real, they were gonna go eventually. Still, that was probably about as unenjoyable to discover the hard way for my mom as it gets. We're all sub 5'6" here (that's under 168cm for you metric folks out there), and the cabinets are designed for much taller people. The top shelf was about two feet (61cm) above my head, so that means a bunch of cups, thermoses, glasses, etc tumbled out when my mom went to get her morning coffee...

How very frustrating.

Mom's been wanting new cabinets for the last decade or so, so maybe that'll happen now (lol).

Anywho, that's all from me for today.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Today Was HOT.

I am a delicate alpine bloom at the best of times, despising any temperature above 75℉(23,9℃) and melting in high humidity like so much cotton candy.

Today was absolutely not the best of times.

Today never actually got above 80℉(26,7℃), but between the sun and the mugginess, it felt like around 92℉(33,3℃).

Needless to say today sucked.

But I wasn't about to melt into the living room rug and let the vortex of the ceiling fan whisk away my consciousness like a massive hypnotic aide, no.

I decided, soon after waking up to an oven of a bedroom, that it was time to collect the air conditioning unit from the basement and put it in the kitchen so it wouldn't be disgusting anymore.

Now, I'm not an overly burly individual. I used to be able to do a lot more than I can now, but now I'm woefully weakened.

This is not a small AC unit. This is not a gainly AC unit.

It's not a window AC unit.

No, folks, we have one of those cabinet ones that you stick the hose out the window. The ones that are almost counter-height and weigh as much as an obstinate middle schooler and have handles that are only an inch deep and are about 3/4 as wide as the stairs while being a good 4" deeper than the treads.

So it's not an easy task.

At all.

We're talking a decent logistical undertaking for someone who has been awake for 20 minutes and has only just remembered how coffee works.

Needless to say, it must've been hilarious to watch me heave that stupid thing up the stairs. I had to go up backwards, butt first. I was literally sitting 3-4 stairs above the AC, desperately trying to hold it in place while the wheels debated sliding it away from me, struggling to get my feet halfway between the AC and my butt, and once I reached the top of the stairs, I had to practically lay on my back and scoot it into the kitchen. It nearly crushed me at least once. I nearly dropped it several times.

But I succeeded in putting it where it belonged.

I hooked it up and re-duct-taped the hose (the clips broke because of course everything is plastic and everything plastic breaks in this house), and cranked it to 75℉(23,9℃) before finally collapsing in an exhausted heap in the living room.

So of course, I scrapped the random sketches I did yesterday and instead scribbled out an homage to the effort of moving the stupid AC lol:

"The Struggle Is Real"; watercolore pencil & ink on watercolor paper; 2023
[DEDBERT]

I was tiredly chuckling the entire time I drew that lol.

I hope you guys are all holding up well during this trying time.

For now, I'm gonna go listen to some music and rest. I advise all of y'all to do the same!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which There Are Updates & Art!

First and foremost, my dad was diagnosed with COVID last week, which sucked big time. No one enjoyed that. 0/10 do not recommend. I'm pleased to be able to say he's already recovered and testing negative! Fortunately, my mom & I were masking and washing and disinfecting and avoiding each other as much as possible, so we've both tested negative, too.

Unfortunately, this is Summer in the Northeast, which means weird air quality, high humidity, and air pressure weirdness, and even more unfortunately, my mom and I have trash sinuses.

So of course, we exhibit sinus infection symptoms all summer.

Which are, of course, also largely Covid Symptoms.

Imagine my deep relief when I tested negative. It's been rough.

Since it's High Summer, high moisture, and high temperatures, I've been struggling to get enough sleep, struggling to get enough to drink, struggling to maintain my salts & minerals, etc.

I didn't like my gums' color today so I snagged a G Zero out of the fridge.

I forgot how much I hate G Zero.

I used to love orange Gatorade. Used to chug it.

Now, the sucralose makes me shudder and there's something in the mix that stings my throat (and it is just the Gatorade, my throat does not sting with water, cranberry juice, or coffee). Maybe there's some kind of melon extract. I should probably not risk it again.

So that was a low point this afternoon.

In other news, I managed to do some art!

"Dedbert"; watercolor pencil and micron pen; 2023
[DEDBERT]

I've been toying with a few other pieces today, but they're not coming together like I hoped, so I'll just table them til next week.

For now, though, I've been up since 5AM and could really use a power nap or something.

Also probably another gallon of water to get the sucralose flavor out of my mouth, eugh.

If you'd like to have a say in what I draw or paint next week, drop me a donation over on Ko-Fi with a message telling me what category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Food, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, Word) and I'll doodle something up to post on the blog!

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

 

It's Thursday, and I HAVE ART!!!

I don't just have one piece of art today, I have three! How productive of me!

First up, we have a silly little fanart I did of a Bulbasaur taking a nap in a Venusaur's flower!

"Bulbasnore"; watercolor on 100% rag 300gsm/140lb; 5"x7"; 2023
(ANIMAL, VEGETABLE)

Aren't they cute? I really like how the background got so soft and swirly!

Next up we've got the blog mascot Dedbert sipping at some kind of pink soda! This one was requested via Ko-Fi and was the first of these three to actually be finished.

"Dedbert Drink"; watercolor on 100% rag 300gsm/140lb; 5"x7"; 2023
(DEDBERT, KO-FI REQ)

Finally, we have the Guaranteed category from last week - "WORD". For this one, I drew a d4 with the highest roll, a laurel wreath, and the word "Lucky". Check it out - the U is a horseshoe!!!

"LUCKY"; watercolor on 100% rag 300gsm/140lb; 5"x7"; 2023
(WORD)

I'm pretty pleased with what I came up with this week. I'd love to hear any feedback y'all have. While I do have to moderate my comments, I'm happy to hear back when you leave them.

If you'd like to make a category request via Ko-Fi, send me a coffee with a message telling me which category you'd like (ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL, DEDBERT, LOCATION, GEOMETRIC, WORD), and I'll finish your art for next Thursday to post on the blog!

I've got a lot of ideas this week, so we'll see how many paintings, sketches, drawings, or digital works I make next week!

That'll about do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

This Week Has Been Weird

So I normally complain about how tired I am and how I can't sleep and wah wah wah, but man, this week has been * ~ * w E i R d * ~ *

I slept almost all day yesterday. Seriously. Got up at noon. Went to bed at like midnight the night before. Did the same last night and slept til nearly 10AM. It's snowing, so it's all quiet out there like I like.

Don't know what it is about taking care of a couple of very old, shockingly chill (though occasionally naughty/ridiculous) Jack Russels, but I've been helping out on Mondays & Tuesdays, and it has meant totally-zonked Wednesdays and barely-functional Thursdays every time.

Frankly, I'm okay with it. I have rarely slept so well.

Kind of annoying to miss out on a whole day of progress, but that's just life.

Speaking of progress, uh... not much has been made on that shawl. I've worked on it for a total of... less than 20 minutes.

I cannot be sorry about that when I've actually finished three separate pieces of art for you guys today!

"Side Eye"; graphite on sketchbook; 2023 [DEDBERT, ANIMAL]

This first image is a fun little sketch of our boy Dedbert giving a Look to a confused little squirrel. This was composed and sketched during coffee while the snow fell softly, right before the snow stopped, in fact lol! I love drawing little scenarios where Dedbert, who is actually only about the size of my head, is much bigger than other animals. I have a Beanie Baby nearly his size, after all...

"Independence"; Digital; 2023 [WORD] [GEOMETRIC]

Did I use the ol Red White & Blue to signify Independence? Yes. Did I also use the letters of "independence" to plot out the shape here? Yes. It's been a hot minute since I did any bubble art. This one was made in Krita with a few different brushes. Sadly, my 2-in-1 tablet computer croaked, so I did this using my XP-Pen and my normal laptop, which... doesn't always work out great for me. See, when I use Krita on the 2-in-1, it lets me draw around things without buffering. On my laptop, it buffers and that's why the lines are more jagged. It's very frustrating.

You know what isn't frustrating? This last piece:

"Mountaineer"; digital; 2023 [LOCATION]

Oh boy am I satisfied with the way this sky turned out! This is another blender/brush combo experiment and I'm thrilled with how it came out. Especially the way the colors are blended on the mountains. That's the blending stump on Krita used against several other brushes in multiple colors. The sky is all pens with the first wet blender in Krita. The water was made the same way. The trees are several brushes and pencils in shades of green blended down with the cotton bud blender, and the ground is one of the watercolor brushes with a pallet knife blender run around it.

I will keep experimenting with ways to blend colors and build depth, I think, because it's really fun to experiment.

All of these images this week were requested via Ko-Fi, so if you'd like a say in what I paint or draw next week, feel free to drop me a coffee over on Ko-Fi along with a message telling me what category you'd like (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Location, Dedbert, Word, Geometric) and I'll make it happen, no matter what life tries throwing at me. Come dogs or blizzards or insomnia, I will make the art!

Speaking of making art, I have been working on that manuscript, still. Today's word count was a whopping 365! That means that since last Thursday I've gotten 1077 words done. Not as good as some weeks (I missed a few days like yesterday, wrote less than 100 on others) but that's still more than my goal of 700 words a week!

And how about you guys? How have your creative projects been going? Have you guys been getting anything done? Are you looking forward to working on something artistic? I hope so!

As for me, I'm going to go back to bed - yes, I'm still sleepy and cozy and dopey. I'm okay with that. I got three pretty okay pieces of art and over 1000 words done this week. I did good.

And so did you.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thanksgiving 2022

 

"Thankful Birb"; watercolor, micron, and white gel pen

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'll be back hopefully on Monday!

Gobble til ya Wobble!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Today's Art is... Prestigious

Today's art was brought to you by Z, who bought me a coffee and asked for a DEDBERT drawing! I was, as always, very excited to draw my boy, so here he is channeling his inner Zatara and performing some magic for us!

"Prestige"; colored pencil & micron pen; 2022

Dug out an old sketchbook of mine to do this. Unfortunately, this sketchbook is too chonky to go in my scanner (if the thing is works again...), so I had to snap a pic and upload it.

I love how he always looks faintly bored with anything he's doing! He's just so... mono-expressive, and yet that single look conveys so much lol!

If you'd like to have a say on what I draw next week, feel free to buy me a coffee over on Ko-fi with a message telling me what category you'd like to see next. This week's was "DEDBERT", for instance!

Available categories are:

• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Dedbert
• Location
• Geometric
• Word

Anywho, minor self-advertising aside, I'm looking forward to sketching and writing more this month.

Yes, it's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), so I'll be working even harder than usual on my various manuscripts. I'm hoping to make some real headway this month, too.

I'm not, however, ascribing to the, frankly insane, wordcounts recommended by some people doing NaNoWriMo. No, your manuscript does not have to be 80k-100k words long for the love of God.

You're not Stephen King.

You're don't need to write 1200 words a day. You don't need to avoid sleep or food or hygiene to get your book done.

Just... write.

Just sit down and write a sentence.

Will you finish your novel this month? Probably not. It's an unrealistic expectation for a world where a lot of aspiring writers work 40-90 hours a week.

Just write one sentence after another as often and as long as you can without causing yourself undue hardship. Don't skip meals. Don't skip sleep. Don't skip hanging out with friends. Don't deny yourself your life while you're writing.

Your book is in you. You're just putting it down into writing. It's not as scary or complex as you think it is. You can do that. You can write your book.

And so can I!

By the way, if you're more art focused and feel a bit of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) with NaNoWriMo, then you could try writing/drawing a graphic novel of some sort? They're usually much shorter than a novel, but that's because you're cutting out most of the visual detail in the writing process and putting it into the art process! I still recommend writing out a script for a comic or graphic novel - that way you have a plan for what you're going to do!

Heck, if you're an artist who wants to branch out into writing, you can also use Visual Storyboarding to help you work out what you'll write! Basically, just storyboard out a scene, image by image, and then try to write out what you just drew - describe it! Writing is just describing life, whether or not that life you're describing is or was happening in the real world.

Anywho, that'll about do it for me. I'm a little bran-jellied from the art and I'm gonna try to figure out my next move in my manuscript.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Attempt More Digital Art!

I am still 100% a novice at digital art, and I really don't know what I'm doing. I tried to use Krita today and all I can say is that either that program hates my XP Pen Star G430S, or I just cannot effectively use it. I just wanted to draw an outline! When I would start my line, the program would either hesitate and then hurry to catch up with me (which sucked, because I was tracing a pencil sketch), or it would pop up a menu.

I don't particularly like radial menus to begin with, so imagine my dismay when one kept popping up when I just wanted to trace an owl...

So I switched programs back to Paint.net.

I know, I know, Paint.net is more like photoshop than an actual art app (despite the name...), but it's what I've been practicing with for the past 5 years.

Yeah...

Progress is slow.

Anyway, I started with a sketch of Dedbert and his Pink Owl Ladyfriend (whose name he will not tell me) brewing coffee together!

As You Can See, It Was A Very Rough Sketch

I loved the composition, but I thought it was perhaps a bit too close to the bottom and off-center, so when I scanned it, I tried to move it around. Didn't 100% work, but it was cute.

From there, I started trying to outline the piece. Like I said, Krita was not cooperating with my tablet for that, so I went with Paint.net and scribbled the outline in with a gray tone. I actually liked the scribbly, scratchy outline I got from there, so I stuck with that and intentionally overran some of the colors when I laid them down!

I tried just doing flat colors, but that was less interesting than just the outline, somehow, so I did some experimenting with dark tones and transparency and managed to put down a shading layer!

If anyone wants to give me some direct pointers, maybe some links to some tutorials for absolute newbie beginners who've never used Photoshop or anything like that, please, please feel free to send me a message on here or Twitter. Links will work better on Twitter, tbh.

"Happy Owlloween!"; digital; 2022

On another note, this was a Ko-Fi mini-commission! I got a nice little donation with a message telling me my benefactor wanted to see a DEDBERT piece, so that's what my donor gets!

If you'd like to have a say in next week's piece, please feel free to hit that Ko-Fi donation button on the sidebar and include a message with your donation telling me which category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Word, Geometric) you'd like and I'll make something next Thursday!!!

I think that'll about do it for me today, guys!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Need To Plan Better

Thursdays are hard, man.

Not only am I trying to make art, but I usually don't know what I'm making until the night before, so then it's a CRUNCH, and it means I neglect things I'd also like to do - like shower and talk to my boyfriend.

But you're not here to hear me whine about how I can't manage my time, you're here for today's artwork, which is a strange little pixel DEDBERT!

DORDBORT - digital 2022
(It's actually pretty good sized, I don't understand computers...)

I think next time I try to do a digital Dedbert, I won't try anything fancy. I'll just go for colors, shading, and then post.

This experimental bubble/pixel piece is cute, but boy did he take way too long. Again, it's all the background's fault. Inevitably, I gave up. It was too muddy and busy and took away from my boy.

As it is, I think I did pretty well on the mirroring everywhere but the beak, so I'll be practicing that, too!

I would also love any suggestions for 100% free, non-pirated artist's software that anyone might have! Bear in mind, of course, that I have an older laptop with limited GPU, so I'll never be making anything exquisite, effects-wise, but if it has some better brushes (I cannot figure out how to make or import brushes on Paint.net, so it'll have to be super duper user-friendly...) or a cleaner interface, I'm down to try it!

Hopefully next week, I'll have an easier time of it!

Time management has always been a struggle for me. I've never been tested for anything, but if you've read even one of my blogs, it's probably pretty clear that I struggle to think in and operate in a straight line. Not trying to pull the "I'm so special!" card here, I'm just stating a fact. I've never been able to accurately lay out what I'm going to do, in the order in which I'll do it, actually follow the directions, and then finish something in a timely manner. I've just never been able to.

So I'm going to try to trick myself this week.

I'm going to start a pixel project, and if I get a commission-lite this week, I'll work on that when I get it. If not, you'll see what I'm working on on Thursday. Hopefully before 9pm...

That's the plan!

I'll see you all next week on Monday, where hopefully I'll also have more of the crochet-along project finished!!!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

In Which a Dreamy Day Was Had By A Certain Birb

Dedbert had a wonderful day today, which is very good for him. I didn't have quite so nice a day, but we can easily chalk that up to today being a comedy of errors.

First, I woke up around 3AM and never got back to sleep. Then I tried to take the returnables back, but the redemption center was closed (again). Then I tried to pick up snacks, but the Family Dollar was closed (again). Then I tried to get two cans of Dr Pepper but they only had one at the Food Service, but that was alright because I got a Coke instead. Then my mom and I went to Staples and tried to print a photo for someone but the photo printer booth was closed. Then I went to the Dollar Store, which is, of course, the buck twenty five store now, and they didn't have M&Ms. At least they had my popcorn. For twelve cents more than usual.

All in all, a very frustrating day.

So of course I had to paint something soothing today, rather than frustrating and complex.

Thankfully, today's category was the newly-added DEDBERT, so here is our boy chilling in a pond, unbothered, in his lane, moisturized, etc.

"Dedbert Dream" watercolor on rag paper, 2022

Look at our boy! He's so calm, so relaxed in his little spa, surrounded by grasses and wildflowers as the sun gently sets.

Pure bliss.

In fact, I absolutely wish I was him, floating gently in a cool but not cold pool under a cotton candy sky with no cares, no regrets. Just pure Dreamspace.

It's why I love painting Dream Creatures!

My day may have been frustrating, but now I'm just vibing with my smol damp son, so maybe life isn't so bad?

I hope you all have a day like Dedbert's soon, where you simply exist and are enough and are satisfied.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Have Squares, More Squares, And A Goomba.

"Squares 1.0" digital art; 2022

I... screwed up. Big time. See, I forgot to set things to "Nearest Neighbor" and "lock aspect ratio"... and it's now perma-blurred. Balls. I'll have to try again, sadly. Maybe this time I'll do it with fewer colors & more pixels? It's a fun project though!!!

Regardless, I also have a bit of a product review!

I recently bought some more Peter Pauper Press goodies - namely some watercolor brush markers! I decided to swatch them up and try to make a painting with them. There's 24 brushes plus one water brush (yes another one).

I swatched up the colors to see how they worked!

Swatches!

All of these colors are very bright and saturated and delightful, the paint goes on strong and thick and did I mention bright? Yeah, they're BRIGHT. They respond well to water when you try to blend, and they have absolutely no smell! There's a good variety of colors, too. Plenty of different tones.

These would probably work really well for someone who wanted to do watercolor lettering or illustration (which it suggests on the shockingly sturdy plastic box), and they seem like they'd be great for travel.

My only issues are that the brown brush has a loose cap so it's already dried out (I only got to use it once and now it's.... not really working anymore, sadly) and that the colors do not have names anywhere on them.

That being said, I really do think they're nifty!

And since it's March 10, I figured I'd get in on the Mar10 day shenanigans!

"Goombye-bye"; Watercolor brush marker; 2022

Don't worry, Dedbert isn't gonna hurt the Goomba, he's just gonna drop him off at the nearest warp pipe! (Not that the Goomba understands what's happening lol).

Alright, that'll about do it for me today. Don't know why I'm so tired, but here we are, 9:30 at night on a week night and I already want to curl up with some fun videos and a nice chat with my guy, maybe drift off to the sounds of a cute beagle who likes neither cats nor pools...

Go Enjoy Something, guys!

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!!!

Thursday Art Walk

 

Still sleepy as heck, but I still drew/painted a bit

Some weeks, you slam out a bunch of amigurumi and paintings, and some weeks you want to crawl into hibernation and do nothing whatsoever. This has been one of the latter weeks. Is this burnout? Eh, maybe. I still *want* to draw and paint I'm just super sleepy.

Part of the reason I'm so tired is the oft-mentioned pilling of my cat. The last few pillings have been pretty hard - she's been stealthily spitting the pills out, and she went on a hunger strike that just made the antibiotics hurt her belly, so that has sucked. She finally ate tonight after giving her a bunch of choices (including cold oatmeal and lettuce because she's weird), and she let us pill her at 8PM so that was nice.

Another reason for my chronic sleepiness is that it's deeeeeep winter where I live. Yes, there are colder places and snowier places even in this state, but let me just say I'm glad today was 32℉ (0℃) because on Saturday it'll feel like -26℉ (-32℃) and I am not at all down with that.

Thank goodness I have warm fuzzy things to wear and curl up in (like the sweater I made! And some cozy pajamas I got for Christmas along with some super comfy slippers)!

I also have my boy Dedbert to keep me company.

"Here Comes The Boy"; watercolor pencil & Pigma micron; 2022

I hope I can get together enough motivation and focus to do more art next week. I'd really like to be making more art! Hopefully after I'm done pilling the cat, I'll be more rested and can do more & better art.

How is the winter treating y'all? Hope you're warm and safe (or cool & safe if you're in the southern hemisphere!). 

That'll do it for me tonight lol.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC