Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Sometimes Projects Change...

I've been working since the first of October on a special project. In it, I planned to have 31 pictures drawn, painted, sketched, etc. In each picture would be an animal, a plant, and a mineral that are native to my home state.

If that sounds overambitious, it's because it was.

Especially without a proper understanding of exactly what plants, animals, and minerals exist here...

So I reduced the number of pictures from 31 to 4. That seemed far more doable.  That was last week. It took me until last week to start really painting.

And then I learned something else:

I cannot draw minerals yet.

I'm not going to show you my failures. They hurt to look at. They are in the trash, and I cannot learn by observing them, only through failing, trying, failing again, and trying some more.

That brought me to this week. The last week of October. With nothing to show for it.

How frustrating!

So I started painting.

"Sweets'; watercolor & pen on watercolor paper; 2021

You may be able to tell from the blurry image there that I'm not too thrilled with this one... It's too simplistic, too wonky, too a lot of things, but I do like those colors, so that's good!

The watercolors I used for all of these, btw, are all either from my Emooqi set or from my Arteza watercolor pencil set. This one is all Emooqi, though the black is just some Pigma fineliner.

Next, I decided to go a little more naturalistic...

"Three For One Special"; watercolor and Pigma micron; 2021

I love pumpkins, though not as pies, so just painting a trio of lil pumpkin bros chilling on a table was fun! This paper is also Emooqi paper, which is why it has that odd diagonal ripple to it. It holds water weirdly and cannot possibly be a rag paper - it feels like sketchbook paper to be honest, but if that's the worst part of my Emooqi set, I'll take it!

But it's still a little simple, yeah? A little plain and obvious. What about something horror themed? Something... spooky.

Something downright Shakespearean?

"Toil & Trouble"; Watercolor and Pigma Micron; 2021

I am... so proud of this piece.

Each of the ingredients you see are included in the Witches' brew at the start of Shakespeare's Macbeth - which while not vegan is considerably more vegetative than I thought.

Eye of Newt, for instance, is mustard seed. Wool of Bat relates to holly! Tongue of Dog is just a petal from an herb, same with Adder's Sting, though Fenny Snake and Blindworm are both actual reptiles. I also have the leg of lizard and owlet's wing on there, though the owlet in question is a moth, rather than a baby owl.

Finally, I decided to go for a less chaotic image and tried that Emooqi paper again, this time using only pens and watercolor pencils:

"Witchgarden"; watercolor pencil and gel pen; 2021

This is the witchgarden - a collection of plants (and one fungus) with witchy names! The branch is a witch hazel, the pink stalk is "Witch's Moneybags" (Sedum telephium), the green stalk is Witchgrass (Panicum capillare), and the yellow feathery plant is "Witch's Hair" (Desmarestia aculeata), and that little yellow blob is "Witch's Butter" (the fungus),which is a jelly fungus that grows usually on trees. Of course, you can also see the glittery black widow spider I added at the end!

I didn't like the bubbles/circles at first, but now they're really growing on me!

So what do you guys think about my October project? Did I meet expectations, or did I fall flat on my face?

I hope you've all kept creative this season!

Next week, I hope to have some other art, too!

That'll do it from me tonight - I'm pretty tired and I have some writing to work on tomorrow.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which It's Been Quite The Week

So Facebook died for a bit yesterday and that was a Bit of Trouble for a lot of people. I know people sell handmade crafts and stuff on FB, and I really hope they're doing okay and that a day of tense waiting and hoping. Personally, I was mostly annoyed that it was harder to talk to my boyfriend and was completely cut off from my friends :(

I used that time to make my blog yesterday, but what about Friday-Sunday and also Today (the days I haven't blogged about)?

Well, on Friday my cat went in for her dental cleaning and health check. She has to be completely sedated for this, since they usually have to take teeth out (she has suffered from periodontal disease since before we got her). Now, she's had a lot of health issues since we got her. Polyps, perpetual cough, lack of appetite, bad teeth, she's kind of an adorable lil wreck. She's also eleven.

Which all combines to mean that for most of Friday, I was on pins & needles hoping she'd be okay. She hadn't eaten at all on Thursday night, after all. Thankfully, around noon, the vet called and said she was waking up fine.

But they'd had to take two teeth.

And they took a sample of the slime in her throat.

And they found another polyp, this one in her right ear, laying horizontally too far down to reach.

And she was a bit underweight.

And she's eleven.

She's more than 2/3 of the way through her lifespan, and she's spent the whole time sick.

So of course we've basically been her slaves since Friday.

She spent Saturday and most of Sunday asleep in her kennel (to prevent her from hurting herself), and while the door stayed open, she didn't like to leave. She did, however, eat all of her food for once in a long long time. She ate breakfast every morning, even taking her pain pill (those are gone now)! She slept 90% of the time, and she mostly wanted snuggles when she wasn't in her kennel, which we covered with a flannel blanket for privacy.

I should mention it was in the mid-50s here for temps (55℉ = 12.8℃) so to her it probably was very chilly. Today was a nice balmy 65℉ (18.3℃) and I took her for her first walk post-surgery. She... ate grass and rolled on the warm driveway and completely ignored the chipmunk two feet away from her face. Then she wanted to come in after an hour of lounging and rolling and nibbling, and I gave her a snack.

She ate her snack!

She has an appetite! She just needs people around her and for her food to be higher than it currently is.

Unfortunately for me, today was also a day beset with mold spores. Which I am very very allergic to.

I've been sneezing since I woke up, and I hate it because my nose feels heavy and my eyes itch like crazy.

The eyes are the giveaway. If I had a cold, it'd just be my nose, but with the eyes feeling like my eyelids are lined with Brillo? Definitely allergies.

I will take my meds before I sleep.

So basically the whole time I haven't been on here or crocheting I've been a cat slave!

That's been my week.

The rest of my week is looking pretty similar, tbh. And no, she didn't like the treat I bought her on Saturday (a tube of chicken flavored treat from Tiki Cat). Maybe she'd have liked it better from the tube and higher up? I don't know.

Probably not, she can be picky.

Anywho, the rest of the week is for Art Prompts and Falloween/Spooktober fabulousness!

I'm gonna curl up in my flannel shirt and my fluffy pants and read spooky stories until I conk out tonight.

That'll do it from me!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC