Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which These Are Mostly Doodles/Concepts...

I have, as you may be aware, been plugging away at the art prompts from Kick In The Creatives' Creeptober list...

But the last couple weeks have been weird.

Last week, everything was all about my youngest sister's wedding, which, as I said on Tuesday, was PERFECT. It was marvelous and I hope the two of them have a wonderful marriage. It did mean that I was a bit wrapped up in the stresses of prep and then the tiredness of the following days (not that I cut a rug or anything, I'm just low-social, and having that many people around me was tiring in a very good way).

This week, you'd think I'd have less excuses to fall behind on art, but... somehow despite there not being anything going on, I still feel very tired and none of that is helped by me not being able to sleep. Yay.

Last night's lack of sleep had a reason, at least.

One of the massive horde of ladybugs that seem to be creeping into everyone's homes found its way into my bedroom, and instead of chilling on the ceiling or on a far wall like one of my spiders...

The big doofus was flying around like an idiot, smacking into walls, pinging off the metal shade to my bedside lamp, and most egregiously of all...

Landing. on. my face.

Ugh.

Nothing like waking up at 3am with little feet tapdancing on your nostril.

Creepy lil butthead.

Anyway, it's missing in action now, so there's every possibility that this headache I can't shake is from ingesting a toxic insect.

I'm mostly joking about eating the ladybug.

Because it really is nowhere to be found...

Anyway, after yesterday's rainstorms, today's gorgeous 65℉/18,3℃ weather with its broad blue sky and wondrously golden light and balmy winds is a treat. A treat that I enjoyed in owl pants and a tee with Putties from Power Rangers on it under the label "Jobbers". Also a yellow flannel shirt. While wielding sandpaper and scrubbing furiously at rocks.

Anywho, I did end up doing the art from the 14th to today, it's just.... kind of more conceptual than finished. And there are some pieces that I'd love to finish some day!

"SPELL"; pencil sketch; 2022

"MONSTER" pen sketch; 2022

"HORROR FILM"; marker sketch; 2022

Yes, Horror Film is flipped on its side. My camera was being very, very combative that day. And yes, it's based on "Halloween". I'd actually like to try this one again, because the idea of taking something that should be Orange and Red and Silver and making it in entirely pink/magenta tones is kinda calling to me. I'd try it in Krita, I think.

As for Monster, that thing is adorable, but I wouldn't want to meet it on a moonless night. And Spell has a lot of potential in a more graphic style - it might make a fun piece of flash some day.

"FESTIVAL"; marker sketch; 2022

Oh Festival... I want to redraw this some day as a proper engraving-style piece. It's supposed to look like a Halloween-themed Maypole being danced around by various monsters - a bat, a skeleton, a headless ghost, a minotaur, and maybe a cat? I would love to play with this concept some more!

"SCARY FACE" marker sketch; 2022

"GRAVEYARD"; pencil sketch; 2022

"GOBLIN/I LIKE ROCKS"; marker and pencil sketch; 2022

"PUNCH" marker & pencil sketch; 2022

"CLOWN"; marker sketch; 2022

"SILHOUETTE"; pencil; 2022

"TWILIGHT"; marker sketch; 2022

"FULL MOON" marker sketch; 2022

"THROUGH THE WINDOW"; marker sketch; 2022

"GOTH" marker and pencil; 2022

I am extremely happy with how both Goblin and Goth turned out. They're both self portraits, after a fashion. I buzzed my hair yesterday and honestly, it's not bad! I can't do makeup to save my life, though, and I haven't owned a pair of purple pants in years.

I'm also thrilled with Silhouette, which is a silhouette of a human skull! Graveyard is based on a still from Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Scary Face is supposed to be a Gengar from Pokemon, but... yeah, he be wonky.

Those are the prompts for the last 14 days! I should post again on Halloween as a General Halloween Blog so check back then to see the last few prompts:

• Costume
• Party
• Trick or Treat
• Something You're Afraid Of

If you'd like to have a say as to what each of those contain, feel free to shoot me a coffee over on Ko-Fi with a message saying which category you'd like to add and for which prompt. The prompts are above, the categories are

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

I'm really looking forward to closing out this month, and I'm gonna have a good time finishing up!

How about you guys, any plans for Halloween?

And I hope you go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk - Fall(ish)

 

It's A Very Fallish Day!

Today, it's a lovely cool day, though the clouds are quite threatening, to be honest. There's a steady breeze, the cat is... in a mood, but that's normal, and I'm finally comfortable. We just came off a week of temperatures in the upper 70s to low 80s (23.8℃-28℃), but today it's a cool, comfortable 67℉ (19.4℃) and I couldn't be happier with it. I'm actually wearing pants. It's awesome.

Because I'm in a comfortable mood today, I decided to go outside my comfort zone a bit and draw something I could actually see instead of making things up:

"Above the Sink"; graphite on sketchpad, 2020

This is a very closeup view of what's sitting above my sink, though I turned the candle into a coffee mug lol. The tiny pot of orchids sits next to a little soapstone bear that my mother got a long time ago, and he sits next to a plain white candle (in case my mother's feeling a little... pyrophillic while she does the dishes). There are other things up there, a small statuette of two birds on a log that can be lit from the inside with tealights is a little way away from the orchids, and on the other side of the candle are a corked bottle of sea glass and a cat grass planter with a tiny egg-shaped piece of sea-tumbled granite in between.

It's what I see every day during my coffee time. It's very, very familiar to me.

I plan on scanning the image onto my computer later, maybe playing around with my tablet and coloring it in? The orchids are such a bright fuchsia and the pot has a lavender top, but the rest are all... gray or white, to be honest. It's not a very dynamic color pallet lol.

Speaking of dynamic color pallets...

Portrait of an Artist Round the Bend

I just couldn't resist sharing this family portrait of myself in my cozy new flannel shirt, my boy Dedbert, and our crocheted pumpkin, Lenny (I just made that up, the pumpkin doesn't actually have a name). I know most of the people who read this blog are friends or family in my real day-to-day life, but just in case, I'm... not ready for a face reveal on the blog. Another time, perhaps lol!

So that's today - a cool, calm day of coffee and art. And trying to give my cat her allergy pill (which I failed at and now I feel guilty for stressing her out and also failing to get her allergy meds into her...) but that's not really germane to this blog lol!

Also, you may have notice that I've missed a couple of Tuesdays lately? That's because I'm usually quite busy on Tuesdays, now. I think I'll start writing my Talk-About-Tuesdays on Monday night and just publishing them when I get up - that way I'm not just posting two blogs a week!

Anyway, that'll about do it for me. My coffee is empty, and I feel like snuggling into my sheets for either a nap or just a nice snuggle session with Dedbert and a copy of Dashiell Hammett's novels.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC