Thursday Art Walk

 

Art is... hard.

Geometry ended up being this week's theme and I thought to myself "Z got me a really cool reflective bag for my birthday with all these awesome triangles on it, so I should make triangles!!!"

Ladies and gentlemen...

It would appear that at 32 years of age, with a full 30 years of art experience under my belt, several straight-edges, and even a freaking stencil...

I can't draw triangles.

Like... at all.

Seriously, look at that mess.

Yeah. I let out an audible "oh yikes, no" when I saw how bad it looked after backing away.

And that, my friends, was finished at NINE FREAKING THIRTY PM!

Yikes indeed.

"But Casual," you may calmly and reasonably point out, "couldn't you have started earlier today?"

To which I would say you're usually right but the last couple days have been cat-filled and assistive on my part. Which just means I've been serving largely as cat furniture and helping my mom with plants.

Not the most "oh I couldn't possibly work on this!" kind of situation.

But it is what it is.

I pulled out two of my palettes (the Peter Pauper travel palette and a nice black steel 48-color-set from Emooqi) around dinner time, poured a cup of paint water, filled an oral syringe with water to activate the metallics, and set to work.

And failed.

And tried again, and failed again, and then finally got the triangles above finished and realized while inking them that they looked...

Awful.

Well, that's no good, so I got up and stalked around my room for a bit, steaming and stewing, before I finally said "well, if triangles are gonna be this hard, I'll just do diamonds"

"Diamond Panes"; watercolor on hot press paper; 2022

And so I did!

I'm so happy with how this turned out! I like how the colors worked together (a real concern when you're using paint from two separate palettes) and how the diamonds interlock. I'd almost like to try it again with a thinner straight edge so that I could get more diamonds on one sheet, but I'm still very happy!

The Art Station, complete with Failure

Let me tell you, it can be hard to paint and draw on a bed, so I could not be more thrilled with the really sturdy bed tray Z got me for Christmas. Honestly, he's been a godsend for my art!

If you'd like to have a say in my art next week, feel free to toss me a coffee over on Ko-Fi and leave a message saying "Animal" "Vegetable" "Mineral" "Geometric" or "Location"! Your suggestion will determine the art I make!

That'll do it from me for tonight. I'm exhausted and it's nearly midnight lol.

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which Attempts Were Made

Last week, we finished the cap on our Secret Project/Mystery Project, aka the Mushroom Bag, and this week, we're left to experiment. First, I wanted to experiment with ways to hold open the bottom opening.

I decided to use some very low grade jewelry wire I have had laying around, but I'm very unhappy with the way it's turning out. I'll have to undo it and start over.

Specifically, I'm unhappy with how the wire bunches and twists

I am quite disappointed in the stiff-yet-wobbly nature of that wire, though I can see myself making a couple of rings, covering them in ribbon, and sewing them in place to hold the gill portion stiffer.

Now, it's unfortunate, but I only found two different "mushroom" stitches. One was from a YouTuber called Crochet With Samra, and the other was from Fiber Spider. I have my concerns with using the very lovely but delicate stitch from Samra as straps, but as you can see below, even a single repeat of the Mushroom stitch from Fiber Spider is a bit... broad and loud for a strap for such an oddly-shaped bag? I have dilemmas. 

She a thicc band

If anyone out there has better suggestions on a mushroom-themed strap I could whip up out of natural-colored, red, and/or white thread, please let me know!

Also I still need to wash the bag because she is a dirty dirty bag.

For now, though, I'm going to relax and try to figure out some ways to fix what I've borked, test out new designs, etc!

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 have HAD A DAY....

I have been painting all. freaking. day.

And I failed.

I failed so hard.

What I was trying to do was a wet-on-wet splotch background using all of the paints I currently have.

What I ended up with was a mess because my dumb butt forgot to turn off all my fans, so the "wet" part just... dried up. And puddled.

It was bad. Don't believe me?

An Attempt Was Made

I tried, guys. I really tried. And it almost looks cool, but the hope was to use that as a background, and it's waaaaaaaaaaay too saturated for that.

So I tried again! This time I wanted to paint lines, so I did that... but...

Cue Sad Trombone...

I think the worst part is that it almost looks interesting.

But almost doesn't make the grade, my peeps. It simply does not.

I have been cranky and grumpy and really, really disappointed all day because of this nonsense, and my poor boyfriend has had to hear it allllllllllllll. I probably whined for 40 minutes about how it just wouldn't cooperate.

But as you might have noticed from the doodle up top, not all is lost, because Sharpie and some random fineliners I snagged at one of our local bookstores had my back and I whipped out these lil Dedbert drawings in five minutes flat!

"Fine."; marker on printer paper; 2021

And thus ends the saga of the no-good, very bad, awful crappy art day.

Lol I just noticed that you can see the greeting card I was using to protect my notebook from marker bleedthrough...

Anywho, yeah, sometimes you can work very hard and still not have your project work out. And sometimes walking away and coming back later doesn't help. Sometimes even starting over doesn't work. Sometimes you just need to do something else lol!

So I hope y'all are having an easier time than me, creatively!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Show You Progress & Errors!

Alright, I've been following YouTuber Nianiani for a few weeks now and I've learned so much! That picture with the seashells I posted a while back? Based on one of her tutorials. Couldn't have done it without her.

So I decided to try more of her tutorials!

She's got these lovely fruit, flower, tree, and even bunny tutorials but I am very hot. Today reached 87℉ (30.56℃) and it was so humid that it felt over 100℉ (37.78℃). I wanted to go to the freakin beach, but I didn't wanna go outside.

So I decided to try two of her tutorials involving the ocean!

The first attempt was a seascape with trees and a beach and it was lovely! But I literally could not make my paints cooperate, and since she utilizes quite a bit of Buff Titanium (a well-covering off-white tone I do not own yet), alas, I had to abort.

Attempt the Second was simply an aerial view of a wave coming in to shore. A study on the interplay of blue and gold (not Ted Kord & Michael Carter). A... highly complex layering experiment.

That I botched.

Twice.

Now, fortunately, Watercolors are fairly forgiving, regardless of what you've heard. They are forgiving, but they are also hard to substitute, and if your painting calls for pans and you have pencils, you're going to have to become... creative. Especially if you have committed the cardinal sin of painting without swatching your tones first.

Which is what happened to the first two tries I made at this piece.

Which I'm also not finished with yet.

Because I'm not in the AC anymore and my bedroom is a toasty 85℉ (29.44℃) plus an uncomfortable level of humidity. I have no one to blame but myself for being too stubborn to sit downstairs at the couch, battling the cat and wearing headphones. Yes, I'd rather have my inner knees sweat than my ears.

I'm dumb like that lol.

So here they are - my attempts at watercolor!

Try #1 at the Wave; Watercolor; 2021

What went wrong here? Well, you may notice the visible sketch lines in the background, but the other problem is... the blue is too irregular and too small. You'll see why if you watch the vid or see picture #3 lol.

Try #2 at The Wave; Watercolor; 2021

So what's wrong with this? Uh... kinda same problem - blobs too tiny, background gradient not very good.

The Wave; Watercolor; 2021

As you may be able to tell, this is the version I'm going with. Is it perfect? No. But I love that gradient I've got going from the deep water to the shore. I love the soft sand gradient. I am satisfied with the third layer of paint accentuating the ripples of the water. I can work with this.

Bonus: This was actually my first try at the Seascape painting, but I was able to rework it! I'm very, very happy about that.

Now, I'm about 7 minutes into the tutorial, so that should tell you how long this took between all the failures, life stuff (food, coffee, cats), and just waiting forever for paint to dry. Seriously. At one point I had to just... walk away for an hour while one of the layers dried. It wasn't even that wet! It was just that humid.

I hope I can get this finished in the next week or so, so keep an eye out!!!

Also, since I just got an iPad, if you're reading this and know how to do art on one, please let me know the best free app you can think of for painting on iPad!

That'll do it for me, tonight (wow it got late...)

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Fiber Monday 303: Failure is Always An Option

In Which I Have Failed!

Yup, you read that right, I've botched it :)

But FC, you may be thinking, if you've botched it, then why do you seem so happy?

Ah, my friends, when you fail at one project, it opens the door to another.

My failed earwarmer

I was originally working from this pattern, but then the unfathomable happened: I ran out of yarn.

Normally, this would be a Very Big Problem, but since I was using leftover yarn to begin with, I decided that I'd fulfill one of my dreams this year. 2020 might just be the year of the Scrapghan!

What the heck is a Scrapghan?

So, you know how when you're working on projects, you'll occasionally have a few yards of leftover yarn? A Scrapghan is a blanket made from your leftovers. There are, of course, infinite versions of the Scrapghan, but I've come up with my own version of a Granny Square to do this with!

First, form a Magic Ring and chain 3, then yarn over, put it through the circle, yarn over, pull through 2 loops, yarn over, put it through the circle, yarn over, pull through two loops, yarn over, pull all the way through.
Basically, you're forming a starting 3dc cluster!

From your first cluster, chain 3, then make another 3dc cluster and chain 3 again.

two clusters with chains after each

Then make two 3dc clusters without chaining between them, then chain 3.

I know, it looks a little wonky, but trust me!

After that chain-3, you make a 3dc cluster, chain 3, make two 3dc clusters, and chain 3. Then you slip stitch into the top of the first cluster you made!

Pull your magic circle closed, and you have a strange little flower!
How cute!

Now that we have our center spoke, the pattern is pretty simple.

You slip stitch over to the next ch3 space, chain 3, then dc twice. Then you ch3, then dc 3 times in the same space! You've just formed a corner.

My new starting corner.

Now, once you have a corner, you're just going to yarn over and slip your hook between the clusters that are right next to each other. Dc three times, then move onto the next ch3 space to make another (dc 3, ch3, dc 3) in the space. Repeat this all the way around. I know that slipping between the closer petals can be a pain, but it's worth it!

You can see a rectangle forming!

Don't forget to slip-stitch into the top of your starting ch3 and slip stitch to the next ch3 so that it's easier to start your next round.

A handsomely completed round!

Now keep doing that until you start to run out of yarn again. Once you're down to about a foot of yarn left, it's probably a good idea to slip a stitch marker onto the last stitch you completed and set the rectangle aside until you have more scrap yarn.

Which will take a while for this yarn, because I had gotten to 50 rows
on the earwarmer before I was forced to admit defeat...

So there you have it - you can turn negatives into positives through the magic of switching gears. Yes, this means no earwarmer, but! Now I have a fallback project for when I'm between designs.

I'll try to figure out a better way to write out this pattern (and possibly chart it for those of you who operate better with charts), but for now, I hope this helps you start your own vaguely rectangular blanket :)

Go Enjoy Something,
FC