Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Needed A Day Yesterday.

Yesterday sucked. I'll just be honest here, it was a garbage day and I felt like garbage the whole time.

I was 100% people'd out, but people kept wanting to talk to me, which would be great on days when I miss people, but I'd already had my fill and did not want to keep talking. I just wanted to exist, maybe watch some videos, listen to the rain.

Definitely didn't want to crochet.

Certainly didn't want to try to figure out why following This Pattern ended up with the stitch counts NEVER ONCE MATCHING UP FOR SOME REASON. Honestly, what a migraine of a pattern. How did our ancestors do it?!

Also, my vintage Boye Steel Hook 3 has a very obvious bend at the tip that sometimes disrupts my crocheting, but I cannot bend it back with my bare hands because, again, it's steel.

So yeah, yesterday was a complete and total bust where I never felt right or good or creative or smart or anything positive.

At least I didn't feel negative, and I'll take "just wants to stare at rain in silence" over "anxious about uncontrollable stuff and also self-loathing" any day.

Today was the exact opposite of yesterday, I'm happy to say, and I managed to go for a little walk, picking up some little treasures to put in my Goblin's Purse that I made previously. You can find my collections here, if you're interested! It wasn't as long a walk as I'd have liked, even though it was only about 60℉/15,6℃. The problem was that it was also 98% humidity! I got sweaty in less than a mile, so I headed home with a can of coke, some rocks, and a general sense of satisfaction.

As for the rest of this week, we've had a taker on the "tell me what to paint" front! You'll see what was requested on Thursday, but if you'd like to give me even more work to do, you can hit up my Ko-Fi and send me a donation with a message telling me which category (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Geometric, Location, Word, Dedbert) you'd like me to work from! I'll do my best to finish any pieces I receive in the next 24 hours by Thursday at noon Eastern :)

Here's the schedule (tentative):

• Thursday: art! You'll see what was "commissioned" this week
• Next Monday: Hopefully something!
• Next Tuesday: Blather from Me To You!

That'll about do it for me today. I'm pretty tired and this blog was supposed to go up 2 hours ago lol.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Had A Busy Day!

Today started a little weird - I woke up around 8AM and couldn't really fall back asleep. I got up around 9:30 and then started making my morning coffee and taking care of the little morning chores and such. Then I got distracted by the internet, as usual lol. By the time my mom got home for lunch, I was in the shower, and after I came out there were jalapeno poppers, which is always a welcome treat. When we finished eating, she took the cat out for her daily walkies and I started to load up my bag.

I filled a pencil pouch with 2 HB pencils, a sharpener, erasers, and a lineart pen and then tossed it into the cool geometric reflective bag/purse that Z gave me for my birthday. I also packed a small sketch book for drawing, and just in case, I packed my travel watercolor kit from Peter Pauper Press and one of my Arteza notebooks. Then I sauntered down to my local library and started scouting out locations to draw from.

"Lamp Sketch"; HB pencil on sketchpad; 2022

I sketched that while standing in front of the lamp in question. Pretty much as soon as I got situated and ready to draw, the wind picked up and the clouds began to gather. Since I'm on the coast, that can either mean it'll feel really nice for a bit.... or it's about to pour cats & dogs. I didn't want to get my art soaked, so I packed up and took a bunch of reference photos.

It's about quarter to 9PM now, and I'm pretty sure I'm hearing thunder, so even though it never rained wile I was out there, I'm glad I trotted home afterwards.

When I settled upstairs after my lovely jaunt, I noticed that I had taken another sketch a while back, but it had faded due to friction (as sometimes happens with graphite). I would like to paint this sketch, too, someday. It's pretty much the opposite of the lamp image above in real life, colorwise, being mostly reds and blues instead of greens and grays.

"Thai Tugboat"; graphite on sketchbook; 2022

As for the reference photos I shot, there were some of the Location (today's prompt, courtesy of Z), and some potential future botanical references if anyone puts their 3 bucks down on Vegetable in the next week ;)

Library Lamp Post with Ivy-Wrapped Window and Red Granite Column

Ivy Detail (plus I think the back of the microfiche machine...)

The plants nearby, plus the trashcan because oops

Really Cool Looking Tree!

Love how the flowers face Up but the leaves drip Down!

The Peonies are actually That Magenta in real life! Even more so!

I know it's a weed, but I love purple vetch

All in all, though, the town smelled incredible today. The Rugosa Rose are all in bloom, the cypress spurge have gone by so their stinkiness is no longer a factor, and no one was burning willow, so it was just roses and the occasional waft of fried food from Main Street lol. The walk was wonderful, too. I wore a bandana around my neck mostly to have something I could mop up colors with if I needed to, but also to protect my neck from the sun (more fool me, the sun vanished!), and I can't recommend linen pants (trousers, not underwear, guys) enough - kept me from overheating in the slightly humid 70℉/21,1℃ weather.

Do I recommend going for walks with art supplies? YES. If you have anywhere remotely walkable and peaceful nearby, grab something do draw on and with and go. One of these days, I'll get my energy up and I'll bring an actual chair with me down to the waterfront and chill out with my art supplies and a bottle of water (or two).

So from today til next Wednesday, if you buy me a coffee on my Ko-fi account and comment "Animal", "Vegetable", "Mineral", "Geometric", or "Location", I'll use that as my prompt for next Thursday's art!

That'll about do it from me for tonight - I'm gonna try to doodle with watercolors for a bit and then go to bed.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Le Tired

I overcaffeinated last night, I think. I didn't sleep fantastically well, and what sleep I did get was constantly interrupted with suddenly waking up and grumbling "What the f?!" before going back to sleep. This happened five or six times.

Yup. Definitely switching to chamomile or lemon tea tonight. Probably chamomile. I like that for nighttime.

Coffee is delicious, especially mixed with cocoa, but apparently once you hit 32 you just can't slam back mug after mug of delicious brown goodness without consequences. Drat.

Anyway, several neat things have happened/are happening this week! First of all, we took the cat for walkies again on Sunday:

Evie really enjoyed hopping up on the lowest branch of the old smoke bush near our neighbor's fence. She was watching their chickens and ducks and hoping for a glimpse of Skye, the cat she has a crush on (despite slapping him in the face when they finally met).

My mother and I stood out there with her for a while, trying to tempt chickadees and cranky woodpeckers into my mother's outstretched, sunflower seed filled hands. They did not deign to fulfill her Disney Princess Dreams, sadly, or I'd have taken a picture.

Perhaps a certain someone parking her fluffbutt under the tree with the bird feeders in it had something to do with their reluctance...

If you look very carefully, you can see a very put-out chipmunk glaring down at me because I'm the moron holding the bright pink leash to my cat right where he wants to be!

After the walkies, my boyfriend came over and we hung out and it was great! We tried something called "panackelty" that my mom made from a "Pooh Bear Cooks British Food" video, and that was incredible. Sunday was, in short, a wonderful day.

However there was one thing on Sunday that bothered me.

For about a year, now, I've had a strand of purple LED lights strung around my window. In the last month or two, they've started to go bad (flickering, lights dying and coming back on, generally becoming obnoxious), and it's been driving me nuts. I like having some noticeable light in my room while I sleep, and the purple light was very soothing to me. The lights were practically vibrating at times on Sunday, so I decided to bite the bullet and replace them with something actually designed for nightly use:

A Mr Glo 6" glow ball

This thing is a USB-recharegable LED light with a bunch of colors and stuff. I was not paid by the company or anything, I just knew that my BF has the 4" cube and that thing is great! It didn't have free shipping though, so I went with the slightly more expensive sphere. There's a lil button on the bottom you can use to cycle through the colors and light patterns, but if you wanna adjust the brightness, you have to use the tiny lil remote it comes with.

I have it on right now, plugged in and charging. I might just leave it plugged in tonight lol. It's currently sitting in my yarn bowl so it doesn't roll around on the end table - it's hard to sit it down while it's charging (which is a few points in favor of the cube!). I'm looking forward to using it as a way to get more light down to me while I'm on the ol floor pillow, crocheting or sketching.

I also got another shipment in, but that's a tale for Thursday, which is when the next blog should be up ;)

That'll about do it for me today, folks!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC