Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Played With Pencils & Water!

Today was miserably dreary. It rained all day, never got above 75℉ (23.9℃), and it felt like late afternoon as early as 11AM.

As you may have guessed, that wasn't great for my motivation.

Neither was my inability to get a good night's sleep, but that's on me for just refusing to try to sleep until after 3AM.

Despite all these factors, I managed to do some art!

"Rainy Cubes"; watercolor pencil on watercolor paper

For once, that photo isn't that out of focus, that's just the lines being softened by my water brushes!

I'm fairly satisfied with this study, though I also hope to layer every pencil on a larger work at some point. This was only about a dozen colors layered in different ways. I also look forward to doing a bubble art with these colors at some point!

Artistically speaking, I'm just not feeling it these days, sadly. I just don't have much energy right now. I'm hoping that I can get some mojo back by taking a walk tomorrow, but we'll see!

As things stand, I'll be happy to finally be able to focus on art and writing more. My legs finally stopped hurting today (they've hurt since Sunday!!!) and it was such a relief to be able to walk around the house without hobbling or feeling like someone took a baseball bat to my ankles.

I think that about covers my artistic life right now. I'm a little distracted by the fact that it's so foggy I can barely see across the street and everything is being painted a sickly mauve by the hidden sunset. It's a positively apocalyptic look. One that I can't deny is also very cool to look at.

That'll do it for me.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk 316

In Which I Did Another Experiment And There Were Birds

Today is gross. It's in the low 40s (that's in the 4.4-7.2 range for you Celsius folks), it's windy, it's somewhere between a drizzle and proper rain. This didn't discourage the local wildlife, however, since not only were my neighbor's chickens outside (which might be a bad thing as you'll see in a moment), but we've had ducks, cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches, and more songbirds in general today than I've ever seen before a wet spell.

As any wildlife biologist or naturalist can tell you, wherever there is a high concentration of prey animals, you're sure to find predators, and while cats aren't too uncommon around here, they're not the top dog, so to speak.

That honor goes to the birds of prey we have hovering around. During the summer, the chirping cries of the osprey are so common as to be background noise. I saw a bald eagle last week, wheeling near one of the neighboring churches. I see turkey vultures at least once a week, soaring on the thermals from the slowly rotting dump nearby. Sometimes, if I'm walking at night (or if they're being inconsiderate creepers outside at 3AM), I'll encounter an owl - usually a barred owl.

But by far, my favorite birds of prey are the hawks and falcons who sometimes make an appearance, culling the overabundant pigeon flocks with impunity. Often, the crows or ravens will bully our hawks, eagles, and owls (one owl even met a grisly end due to being harried at all hours for several days - they're called a murder of crows for a reason!), but today, one of the larger hawks paid us a visit:

He's on that low branch - see him?

He hung out for a bit, then swooped towards me and vanished.

So that was my morning - coffee and birds. Kinda normal, eh?

But what art do I have to offer you?

First, the lineart of my tubby boi, Dedbert, rockin' that Self-Isolation body...

I've been testing out a new art style - intersecting lines with cross-hatching in different colors, and today, I decided to experiment with that.

"Line Frequency Experiment 1"; sharpie and graphite on legal size printer paper; 2020

I'm not particularly happy with how this experiment turned out - namely because I lost track of which lines were which!!! I just wish it was easier to keep track of :( Still, part of the problem is that I'm not going big enough with my points between lines - if I could increase the distance between lines intersecting, then I could really get some good stuff done, I think.

I'll continue to experiment :)

***

NOVEL UPDATE:

I am continuing the work, but since the last update, I've only written maybe 50 words. I'll do more work tonight and onwards.

***

Here's what I did today:

• Coffee and banana bread for breakfast - it came out great
• Observed Hawk
• Turkey and cheddar sandwich
• received package: five-pack of black garlic oil tonkatsu ramen (excited about this)
• cleaned up cat vomit (not excited about that)
• Did That Art (exciting!)
• sent a PC off to a new home (also excited for this)
• wrote a blog post
• got into argument with cat over whether or not the ramen is a suitable spot to lounge. She is for it. I am against.
• Cat has adjourned to stovetop. Thankfully stove is not in use.
• Now I'm finishing this post :P

Thanks for sticking with me guys.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC