Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I continue to experiment in digital art

I'm slowly figuring out my digital art style, I think.

Part of my problem is that digital art is not the same process as physical art. There are too many ways you can move things around in digital art, too many options that I don't understand. What is an Add Layer? What is a Masking Layer? What does this or that button do?

Another part of the problem is that I have zero patience. I cannot abide the Ugly Phase of art. I just can't stand it, and I don't have the patience to fiddle around with brush sizes, textures, and color until things look more like I want them.

So Instead I have an odd, flat, scribbly style in digital, far more so than in traditional art.

This week I did a couple of digital paintings in Krita.

Portrait; digital art; 2022

Tree vs astigmatism; digital art; 2022

I might, with enough time, be able to figure out ways to make better, more natural pictures. I don't often get the urge to paint people, though. I am pleased with how shaggy the tree came out, but I can definitely improve.

Today was also largely taken up by me finally starching my snowflakes. Sure, I'll do a couple more Snowmageddon flakes, but the ones I'm giving away are 100% starched and pressed and are currently drying. I still have several gifts left to finish.

I also need a nap lol.

When don't I?

How about all of y'all? Do you have some sort of last-minute gift rush you're up to? Are you also working on art? (If you are, please feel free to let me know what you're working on and in what programs/mediums!) 

I know today's blog has been super short, but my attention span is 1 chipmunk in diameter and rapidly retreating into the night lol. I will likely take a brief nap before engaging with the enemy (crochet) until an unreasonable win condition is reached (such as: total completion of the remaining gifts). Until then, I'll be signing off.

One last thing before I go - my cat went out for about 10 minutes today, found a mouse trail, sniffed her way along it and then peed on it. What a little turd!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Today Got A Late Start

I prefer to wake up around 9AM. Today I woke up after 10AM, which is fine, but my day just refused to start. I have actually been staring at this blank blog page for over an hour, listening to old commercials. I worked on some crochet today, but mostly I've just wanted to go back to sleep.

Seriously.

All I want is to sleep.

But I must finish my gifts. Same story every year.

As for the schedule this week, here we go:

• Art for Thursday - you can have a say in what I make if you send me a coffee on Ko-Fi with a message telling me what category you'd like to see (animal, vegetable, mineral, dedbert, location, geometric, word)
• I'll be continuing to work on gifts & snowflakes so that's what you'll see me talking about on Monday.
• Next Tuesday I'll probably complain and whine about how much work I have left to do leading up to Christmas.

Let's see... what else should I update people on?

Well, I got a new phone back in May and just now activated it. Why did it take 7 months? A couple reasons. One is anxiety - I stress about dumb things (and yes, it was dumb to stress about it), but also because it came with a year of service and I wanted to wait til the last second to roll that service forward. It's done now, and I have to say, new phones are weird. I miss buttons.

Other updates for the week include:

We have lots of deer - saw half a dozen at the bird feeders the other day.

It's been bitterly cold for the last few days, so of course we're getting spring weather again in a couple days...

We had some snow, it's gone now.

I tried a snickerdoodle flavored Lindor Truffle - 8/10 stars. It tastes just like a snickerdoodle cookie dipped in white chocolate and has little crunchy bits in it. Quite good, very sweet.

My cat sees the sun shining during the day and demands to go out. It is too cold to be out for long, so then she whines to come in. It's very cute, especially since she actually wears the sweater I made her.

I think that about covers my week? I'll admit that I just can't sleep enough to feel awake, so my brain is mush (as usual).

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Snowmageddon Week 3

 

In Which The Blizzard Has Fallen To Flurries...

This week has been rough for working on stuff. I've been struggling with insomnia again, and it's resulted in a meager 3 snowflakes (the Sun Star by Renata Saj, the Mykonos snowflake by blueraindrops, and this snowflake from bestfreecrochet). The three of them took a total of 2 hours and 11 minutes or so, and they didn't use up that much thread. The last snowflake was the hardest, despite only taking about 45 minutes. The first holds its shape very very well and is a fun challenge, taking me a little over an hour to complete!

I have worked a lot on other gifts that I cannot post here (yet), and I've actually started writing a pattern to be shared in probably January.

Aside from that, though, here are this week's flurries:

Clockwise from top: bestfreecrochet, Sun Star, and Mykonos

The plan for tomorrow is (besides blogging) to sew in the ends on these and start starching and blocking them. I'll do my best to take process shots.

If I sleep tonight, the chances of there being process shots are much higher lol.

I think sewing in ends will take the longest - there's a *lot* of flakes. The ironing, pinning & starching should take maybe half that time, with the rest of the day being all drying time. After that, it's just a matter of finding some ornament hangers and badabing badaboom, we've got ornaments.

I'm debating whether or not to use proper laundry starch or to try an experiment with clear glitter glue...

Regardless, Snowmageddon is nearly done for 2022.

I can't wait to be able to show off more and different projects (especially some of the crazier items I've been working on for my friends & family!!!)

If you guys have any free pattern suggestions or project ideas, please do feel free to comment below - my brain likes to get stuck in loading mode sometimes, so a gentle nudge one way or another is always appreciated.

I'm going to get back to work on my gift list, so I hope you enjoyed today's peak at what I'm up to!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Art Practice Continues

Last week, I think I mentioned that I'm practicing with Krita and my new 2-in-1 laptop/tablet thingy. This week, I have a piece that I did 100% in Krita with the pen! Is it hyper-realistic? No. I'm beginning to think that perhaps I am more prone to simplistic, chunky, goofy art rather than intensely realistic art. Especially when it's my early attempts at digital art!

"Wombuddy"; digital art, 2022

So this scribbly little guy is something I'm shockingly proud of. I have very little idea what I'm doin in Krita, so having something come out roughly the way I want is always a fun surprise! I'm especially pleased with his blocky head and tiny eyes, to be honest.

Pieces like this Southern Hairy Nosed wombat are excellent teachers, I've found. They may not be the most refined images, but from this little guy, I learned that: 

1) I can absolutely create art in Krita with the 2-in-1

2) Reducing animals down to their basic shapes (squares, triangles, circles) will absolutely give you the character and essence of those creatures when you draw them

3) Refining images can take a long time and you don't always end up with as fun a drawing as when you leave it a little messy

4) Using your shadow tone (a dark teal in this case) as the undertone for the entire body makes everything look more cohesive and works with the image.

5) signatures are hard. Use smaller brushes for that.

I have done some more practice drawings both before and after the Wombuddy, but he's the one that stuck out the most, so into the blog he goes lol.

How about the rest of you - do you have any digital art tips/tricks?

Also, if you want to have a say in next Thursday's art, feel free to go over to my Ko-fi account, buy me a coffee, and leave a message telling me which of the following categories you'd like to see next:

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

In the meanwhile, though,

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

Crunch Time Approacheth

Well, despite my best efforts this year, The Christmas Crunch is coming.

That's what I get for having 3 siblings, 3 niblings, and several family pets, I guess lol.

On the one hand, I have plenty of snowflakes, and if I make more tonight (which is my plan), then I'll have more than enough to give as backup gifts. On the other hand, I've given my family members snowflakes for the last two years, so it'd be nice to change things up.

I've finished at least three non-snowflake projects, one of which is in use already (cat sweater), one is going to its owner tomorrow (a tree), and something that will wait until Christmas to go to its owner (it's a secret to everyone!). I'm working on another couple tonight, and hopefully that will leave me free to dedicate tomorrow to art.

And yes, it's still more than two weeks to Christmas, and yes, that's a lot of time....

Except that it really isn't.

No, it's not enough time that I don't have to worry about running out. I have 7 groups of people to make things for with a total of 24 gifts to make. Of those 24 gifts, half are snowflakes, which I already have done, so that's 50% complete there. Of the remaining 12 gifts, I've finished... 1.

Hoo boy.

That being said, having a 54% completion rate on gifts in the first week of December is unheard of for me, so maybe I should calm down?

That being said, a couple of my projects are... bigger. So I really should be working on them.

And the yarn is allllll the way across my room because of course it is.

Le Sigh.

Anyway, that's going to be my week - coping with the yo-yo weather (it got to 50℉/10℃ again today for some ungodly reason), crocheting till my knuckles ache, practicing my art on the 2-in-1, and posting that art on Thursday. Next Monday, you'll probably see my neatly pressed & starched snowstorm, and next Tuesday, I'll be back on the internet to probably whine and cry about how much work I've given myself instead of going out and buying gifts like every other sane human being lol.

Such is the life of the slightly mad crafter.

I think I'll get back to sewing beads onto surprise crochet projects with some Supplemax Ultra I bought ages ago. Maybe I'll surprise myself and finish something big tonight?

And if you have any interest in pushing me in a particular direction for that art on Thursday, feel free to send me a coffee over on Ko-Fi with a message telling me which category you'd like me to work from (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, Word).

And don't forget to Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Snowmageddon Week 2

 

The Weather Outside's Been Frightful
But all This Snow's Delightful!

The weather this past week has been unpleasant up here in the beachy north. Temperatures have unreliably fluctuated between 28 to 52℉ (-2 to 11℃), and it has rained, snowed, and blown a gale (up to 50mph/80kph), sometimes all at once. When it's been clear, it's been cold or windy. Needless to say, I've spent a lot of time holed up in the blanket fort, hooking up a small blizzard.

In total, I now have nearly a dozen snowflakes! I believe that on last Monday, I had only 4 or 5 completed. I have... more now.

I actually ended up taking pictures of all of the snowflakes I've completed up to now (including the ones from last week, sorry).

Snowmageddon Part 1

Snowmageddon Part 2

The snowflakes I've completed since last Monday are as follows:

Snowflake #1

Crochet Snowflake

Cake Head Snowflake

Lace Snowflake

Chocolate Chip Eater

Snowflake Corfu

That list above links directly to either the Ravelry page for that pattern or the pattern itself (if the pattern is on someone else's website/blog). And if I can crochet them by desk lamp light while the wind howls outside and my coffee cools on my desk, you can crochet them, too!

There is a lot of counting involved in some of these flakes, and it takes me an average of 45 minutes to make each one. In fact, it took me over 8 hours to crochet all of the snowflakes in the last two weeks that I've done. I only skipped one day, but I've hooked a few in one day, too.

On average, it takes about 45 minutes for me to crochet these using hooks between 1.5mm and 2mm on the white cotton crochet thread you can pick up at Wal-Mart. The longest I spent on a flake was an hour and a half (on the Chocolate Chip Eater), and the fastest flake I made was the "Crochet Snowflake", which took a little over 15 minutes to make. If you're going to make one single design of a flake, that might be the one to make en masse.

If you're going for fancy flakes, though, I'm really loving the humorously named flurry of patterns that Jessica Wifall is putting out this year on Ravelry, so if you're on there, those might be your idea of a good time, too. The Wifall patterns are taking me an hour or more per flake, but they're delightfully complex-looking while not being overly complicated, stitch-wise. In fact, it's mostly just a lot of yarning over for hilariously long stitches (really, I've never even seen a trtr stitch before this month, and they're so fun to make - yarn over 4x and start pulling through over and over!) and counting chains.

The crop of snowflakes available this year is magnificent, and if you're looking to make yourself a bunch of ornaments and learning some new patterns, this is definitely the year to do it.

Let's get flakey, y'all!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Played With Pixels & Blending

So today, I have a couple of small (250px square) images. They're both digital art.

They're also the same image.

So in the first image, I drew in Paint.net. It's all squares, believe it or not!

"Blockage" digital art; 2022

As you can see it's a bit fuzzy because the scaling got messed up again. I switched to a new computer, one I'll be using strictly for art, and it's a learning process.

After making this piece, I copied the canvas and strolled over to Krita, where I tried out the blenders.

What I wanted was to blend each square into the next.

What I got was an out-of-focus misty background.

"Blendage" digital art; 2022

Now, obviously, I have a lot to learn about how Krita and Paint.net work, especially now that I'm using a 2-in-1 tablet/laptop with a dynamic pen!

As for that pen... it doesn't seem to respond accurately to Krita. If anyone knows what they're doing in Krita and can point me towards a way to make a Latitude 7390 with dynamic pen work with Krita, please let me know.

It'd be really fun to play with line weights in a more naturalistic way.

I did end up scribbling a few different sketches in both Krita and Paint.net, but I forgot to save those as sharable images, so you'll just have to trust me when I say I think I can make these programs work.

As for the rest of tonight, I have a virtual date with a certified cutie and we're gonna watch some YouTube together.

This is not a euphemism. I am, in fact, that boring.

Until next week,

Go Enjoy Something!

FC