Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which This Week's Theme Was: LOCATION

Today is another gorgeous day! Sunny and clear and breezy, and it's 72℉/22,2℃ with 52% humidity. It's just lovely! I spent most of today painting a lovely little image on my small, heavily-textured paper, and I couldn't be happier with how it looks.

This week's theme was "Location", which meant that I had to go about figuring out what I wanted to draw or paint. I usually work from references, but today I just started laying down random patches of blue to make a sky, then snagged my paint stick of Daniel Smith's Buff Titanium and laid down some land masses. From there, I built up my colors and shading, and the very last things I added were a light house and my signature!

Here is my work for the day:

"Landscape By The Sea"; watercolor on rag paper; 2022

I finally got the scanner working again! Seems like we just had to get new internet...

This painting was so much fun to make, and it came together so organically! I did zero sketching, and instead I layered paints from my Emooqi black metal palette as well as my Daniel Smith Buff Titanium, and it just... grew into itself. I love it. It's even more wonderful in person! It's also now available on my long-forgotten Redbubble shop!

From today til Wednesday night at 9PM Eastern Time, I'll be taking requests for next week's art topic via Ko-Fi! Leave a tip with a message containing what you'd like to see: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Food, Location, or Geometric! For an Extra Coffee (another $3 USD), you can tell me whether you'd like to see it in Pencil, Colored Pencil, Pen, Marker, Watercolor, or Digital! I will do my best to fulfill any requests made this way, regardless of how many I get!

Hopefully you can see why I got so excited about today's piece. It was a blast to create, and I must recommend the "slap it down on your 5"x7" paper" technique I used, because it was fun and the end result was fantastic.

Now Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Had Fun!

I had a blast at this year's Independence Day celebrations with my partner, Z! We took my grandmother to the local parade and watched the band my dad plays in roll down the street on their float. The band got really creative this year lol!

Yes, that's a t-rex inflatable costume on the back of the float...

Thankfully, there was no one actually wearing the costume and standing on the back of the float because I can tell you from experience, standing on the back of a moving flatbed truck that may be moving slowly but still makes pretty quick stops is NOT easy!

Instead, it looked like my old man zip-tied the thing's limbs shut (to prevent the air escaping) and they just lashed it down to keep it from flying away. It was a big hit!

After the parade, Z and I made sure my grandma got home safely (despite her protests that she'd be fine, we wanted to be sure no one ran her over because while that road is usually quiet, it's used as a parade turnaround on the 4th!) and then went to hang out with some friends for the rest of the day!

And thank goodness they had AC because I did that thing where it doesn't matter how much shade I've stayed in or how loose, light, and natural my clothing is or how much water I've drank, I got overheated. It wasn't even particularly hot! It was probably 85℉/29,4℃ at the worst, and the humidity was very low, but I guess since I was in the sun for five whole minutes my body was in "keep all the heat" mode.

Eventually, we wandered back over to the small fair that pops up every year - it's 99% food trucks and 1% craft tents - to grab some food. Z bought a blooming onion and some fried Oreos that we shared, and honestly if you've never had either, try them! They're delicious. They're also greasy as heck, and I forgot to take any pictures of that or anything else for the rest of the day. We ate and shared with our friends, and eventually we went back to their place for another cooldown session.

On the way back, Z showed me around his town for a few minutes. That's all the time it takes to see pretty much everything of note in his hometown - bakeries, cafes, grocers, even a boxing school... they're all pretty centrally located! I'd love to move there with him. It really is lovely.

We hung out with our friends until nightfall, when we all made our way to the fairground again to lean on a homemade hotrod truck and watch the fireworks.

I didn't get home until almost 11PM, but no one was home waiting for me except my cat. My parents had gone to one of the big cities for the symphony and fireworks there! Which was fine by me - it meant that I could brush my teeth and take a cool shower late at night! I really needed it - when you're A Very Round Bird, heat gets trapped in weird places and is almost impossible to release in public. After the shower, I just went to bed.

Which was especially good for me, since I hadn't slept a wink on Sunday night! I was trying to make something for a potential blog on Monday but uh... it was pointless and I wasn't even home after 8:45AM! When on earth would I have even written it? I make no sense sometimes.

Instead, I now have a very nice beginning of a very nice granny triangle shawl. I might work on it more today, but honestly, despite sleeping for a good 9 hours, I could use another nap!

Yesterday was clear and bright and dry and breezy, but today is cloudy and the humidity is rising and it'll probably rain soon. You couldn't have two July days more different, it feels like. Except I know better because I'm pretty sure I remember a year where it was 93℉/33,9℃ with 85% humidity on the 4th and then the 5th was about 65℉/18,3℃ with 40% humidity...

I like how quiet and slow today feels. Usually, there are some dumb neighbors setting off leftover fireworks by now, but they may have already blown all their hands off or something last night. That or they're waiting for sunset, which tonight will be after 8:20PM...

There was still light at the horizon last night after 9PM! We could see the silhouette of an Osprey on its nest.

Yeah, I'm rambling. I think it's time for me to run down this week's plans:

• If you want a say in Thursday's art, don't forget to send me a coffee on Ko-Fi with a message saying which category you want! Those categories are:
• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Person
• Geometric
• Food (this one's new)
• I don't know that I'll have a game for Saturday, but I'll keep looking! You can Ko-Fi me a message with a free pc or browser game you'd like me to check out!
• Next Monday should result in at least 1 finished project but I'm not sure it'll be the Mystery Project aka the Mushroom Bag...
• Next Tuesday I'll be back with more blather!

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

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Another Dream is Made

This week's theme was "Animal", so a huge shoutout and thank you to Z, who caffeinated today's painting into existence!

Last week, I painted some pretty diamonds that had some neat color mixing, so I decided I'd try something similar this week! Except I did that thing I do where I do Too Much all at once...

I have 7 different watercolor palettes now - my original tube paints that I de-tubed, my Emooqi palette in the black tin, my Peter Pauper Press plastic palette, my pink-tinned metallics (another gift from Z, who is too fantastic for words), my Japanese metallic/pearlescents, my brush pens, and my watercolor pencils.

So I made a list of said palettes, and I added an 8th Category - "Mix", where I'd mix colors from 2 or more palettes together.

And for each palette, there was the number of colors plus the "Mix" category for within said category.

Yeah... for someone who supposedly hates math I sure do a lot of it for art...

Anyway, I used a random number generator and picked my palettes and colors based off of that!

For an entire image.

Last time, I just had numbers 1-96 and picked from either the Peter Pauper Press (1-48) palette or the Emooqi one (49-96).

This time, I got a number between 1-8 and then from there, I determined what the combinations were.

It was... a lot of numbers. I filled a sheet of notebook paper with two columns of colors!

Speaking of Paper, I used a sheet of my larger watercolor paper cut down by 50% across the middle. I don't use this paper often because it's 1) big, 2) unwieldy, and 3) expensive, but I'm so glad I used it today - none of my other paper would've looked as nice, and frankly, even the nice Hot Pressed block I used last week would've been too small.

"Deep Jelly Dreams"; Watercolor on paper; 2022

Top Detail

Middle Detail

Bottom Detail

This is another Dream image, and I hope some day to make a collection of Dreamscapes like this. I just really like the colors and the flow.

And yes, that's a small pink hammerhead shark sneaking out of the darkness in the bottom right corner.

I hope this piece made you smile, today. I have to say, working on it was super fun - each color, every wash and layer, was a surprise and a joy! If you've got a bunch of art supplies and you're getting stagnant on them, then I strongly recommend making a randomization table and creating based off of that!

For now though, I'll be heading off to bed. It's been a long day! If you're interested in choosing next week's theme, head over to my Ko-Fi account and send me a coffee with a message saying "Animal" "Vegetable" "Mineral" "Geometric" or "Location", depending on which category you'd like to see next!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Being Tired Is Contagious, it seems

In spite of my best efforts to sleep, I haven't been very successful. Turns out I just had my pillows arranged wrong, and I was hunching forward in my sleep instead of draping myself over the mound of pillows for optimal airway opening...

Of course, I didn't figure that out until about 3am, so I'm a little sleepy today.

And I'm not alone! Everyone I've talked to today has been tired, including the cool person who cashiers at the local Food Service. Even the cat has been tired, lurking beneath blanket forts or sitting pointedly in front of the bathroom closet in the vainest of hopes that we'll break and allow her to coat our bath towels in fur.

So what I'm saying is: today is a sleepy day.

I still went for a walk, I still wrote a little in my manuscripts, and I still poked around at my art supplies to see if anything popped into my mind as inspiration (it hasn't...), but mostly I've just wanted to take a cool shower and rest.

I've managed to take that shower now, and I'm currently relaxing in my room with both fans running and another itch.io game in another tab.

Caffeine-wise, I did way better today than yesterday. Yesterday I had, I believe, around 6 cups of coffee. I know. Believe me I know how stupid that was.

Which is why today was 2 cups of coffee, one can of Coke and the rest of my drinks have been either Meyer Lemon tea that Z got me for Christmas a couple years ago or pure water. I strongly recommend the water option.

I also recommend dressing in natural materials when the weather hits about 80℉/26,7℃. Cotton and linen are your best bet. I can vouch for the fact that light linen trousers are even more comfortable if you're in the sun than shorts. Covering your skin is good for you in direct sunlight! I have a mole I've been keeping an eye on for years on my neck, so I've taken to wearing a cotton bandana over it to keep the sun off. I've also had less heat/sun related illness this year than in other years (though it still got me once!).

The plan for this week is as follows:

• Art for Thursday (there's still time to buy me a coffee and pick a theme!)
• I'm playing an incremental game for Saturday
• Hopefully I'll have more progress on that strap for Monday, though I might miss it, since it'll be Independence Day here in the USA.
• Next Tuesday I'll blabber more!

If you're planning on buying me that coffee, remember that the themes are:

• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Location
• Geometric

And leave a message with your donation stating which one you'd like! If you buy me 2 coffees, I'll even let you pick whether it's Digital or Traditional!

I think, though, that that'll do it from me today.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Continue To Work Slowly...

It's been a long project with the Mystery Project aka Mushroom Bag.

And it'll be a few more weeks yet I fear.

See, it turns out that slip stitching 420 stitches by 12-24 rows is... a really long and boring process.

So if you have access to canvas straps or ribbons you like? USE THOSE.

Seriously. Use what you've got because it takes forever to slipstitch.

This is what 10 rows looks like:

It may look pretty decent, but I assure you, it's only about...
0.5" or about 1.3cm wide.

It's also fairly thick, though, so it should be very comfy to carry on the shoulder once it's completed.

And as for the zip-tie situation to hold the mouth open? I'm uh... I'm still working on that lol. I haven't gotten one from the basement yet, but I know that it should, theoretically, work.

We'll see!

Sorry this week's is short, but it's been insanely hot (85℉/29,4℃) for the last couple days and today was the first break from the heat that we've gotten.

Honestly, the rain was welcome and lovely, even if I did feel a bit cooped up and craved a walk.

If I don't have the project 100% finished by next Monday, I'll try to have another little One Day Make to show off instead, just so there's a little variety!

Maybe some flowers!

Tomorrow I'll have my thoughts more together, I think - today has been... very scattershot for me, so I'm not going to be able to write too much beyond my instructions for a slipstitched strap:

1. Make a row of chain stitches as long as you want your strap to be, then make one more as a turning chain
2. Slip stitch from the second chain from the hook to the end of the chain, chain one, turn your work
3. Slip stitch in every slip stitch - do not do what I suggested last week and slip stitch through both loops, the stitches will be waaaaay too tight, so just slip stitch in the back loop only! At the end of the row, chain one and turn your work
4. Repeat the previous row until your strap is wide enough.

If, like me, you find yourself getting highly distracted and cranky, pour yourself a glass of water. Every time you get cranky, pour yourself some water. It might not make your work less frustrating, but you'll have built-in breaks as you keep having to run to the bathroom and you'll end up well-hydrated as a bonus lol.

I think I should probably call it a night before I start losing what's left of my mind. Braincell number 3 may have retired today. I'll know better tomorrow.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming

 

In Which I'm Gaming Again!!!

It's a hot and hazy summer's day, and I have not had the guts to go outside. My father has been burning our wood pile down slowly because it was starting to put off its own heat waves and we do not want it to spontaneously combust. My mother has been gardening. We entertained the idea of taking the cat to the beach for the first time, but she has been hiding in her blanket fort all day after she had a brief outing this morning.

Instead of being active (beyond my usual squats and self-soothing rocking lol), I've been starting an indoor garden!

Oh, not a real one. I have a black thumb, not a green one lol.

But as I may have mentioned on Tuesday, I have found itch.io and been able to start playing new games!

And today's title is "Plant Daddy" by Brady Soglin.

In this game, you're the eponymous Plant Daddy - a lonely college grad who has just moved into their first apartment with nothing and no one. You buy your first plant - a "garden plant" - and start caring for it. As your plant grows, it will give you Leaves, which are your first currency, and after it fully matures, it gives you Blossoms, which act as a second currency. As you gain these Leaves and Blossoms, you can spend them in the store tab for such niceties as places to sit (or set plants on), artificial lighting, and even room expansions. Mostly, though, you'll be using your currencies to buy new plants.

Sometimes, you'll get special traits on your plants like variegated leaves and fancy stem colors! You can get special pots for those plants with the Nursery item, and you can even develop seeds from them, so if you want an army of variegated Tiny Trees named David, you absolutely can. Yes, you can name your plants. I am naming all of mine.

You can also buy decorations and more places to set plants down, which the game strongly encourages you to do.

Yes, that's a plant next to a candle on top of a cardboard box, and yes its name is Dan.

Zoomed out to show that to-do list on the wall above the shelf
It's how you find your objectives!

How's Annie?

Anywho, this game is really fun! It's relaxing and quiet and cute and you can easily lose a few days just trying to work your way through your To-Do List and raise an exceptionally cool plant or three. Currently I'm about 50 blossoms away from unlocking the next room - the bathroom - where I can then proceed to grow mushrooms on the back of my purchasable toilet lol!

There doesn't seem to be any way to pay-to-win in this, either! No "pay 99 cents to speed up" or "buy x amount of currency for 3 bucks of real money" stuff that I'm used to from generator-based idle games like this. It's refreshing and pleasant and as long as you don't turn the sound effects up too much while watering, you're not going to have to go to the bathroom a bunch of times.

In short, this is a perfect game with a deceptively simple interface that leads to fabulously deep gameplay. It looks cute, the "story" is adorable and relatable even if you're a plant-killer like me, and sometimes it's nice to just look at a room full of potted plants named things like "Leroy" or "Chad" and think "yeah, this is exactly what I wanted this to look like". 

All in all, this is a game that is absolutely worth a playthrough!

So Go Enjoy Something!

FC

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