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Wabi Sabi Milo and Art

8/19/2017

This week was a bit of a challenge. There was a lot of scheduling mess to clean up at work, which meant I had a random day off here and there but no rest. Milo came down with what seemed like colitis - he is a very high-strung fellow (like me!) so sometimes his organs get inflamed and sore. A cat doesn't know why his belly hurts so much, so naturally, he becomes afraid to eat anything in case we are poisoning him I guess??

He refused to eat for two days.

He was up for snuggles and attention, but if I introduced a bit of food into our space he would immediately stop purring and turn his back on us. I'm no cat psychologist, but it seemed that he was just being a jerk at that point.

I went out and got some cat "junk food" - his favourite crunchy treats, a can of Fancy Feast, some weird chicken "rope" thingies... For about 7 seconds it seemed like he might stay on the couch as I shook the treat bag, but he was unable to resist. Perhaps just getting anything into his stomach made him feel just better enough to try eating meals again. To start taking his heart medication again.

I've never had an aging indoor cat before. My parents' cats were all forced outdoors so when they got sick or injured they simply... disappeared. I don't know how to deal with declining felines. I don't know how to decide whether it's time to begin his traumatic end, or if he's just a day away from bouncing back. What if we're wrong?

On a lighter note, I applied to the local little art hub to put my artwork on display next year. I got a phone call the other day and learned that an artist dropped their half of a joint show this November and I was invited to fill the gap! It's not like I would say no! It does mean having a lot less notice and time to finish enough paintings. It does mean showing during a dark, wintery kind of month. It also means I can't just book that week off for vacation and that I will be at the mercy of my workplace's general scheduling disasters.

BUT HEY, LET'S DO THIS.

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Everything Flies At You at Once

8/7/2017

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It's quite summer now. Milo just lays around, trying to find a cool spot on the floor. Cats don't seem to understand our tricks: leaving frozen cloths on the hard floor, putting buckets of cool water everywhere, dampening the cats themselves... "Look at this cloth, it's super cold... just lay on it. Lay on it, you'll like it! OKAY FINE SIT THERE AND BE GRUMPY."

Some wildfire smoke has rolled in for the week and it's making the sky look super weird. When I look out the window (in air conditioned workplace), it looks cold and foggy outside. I can't tell if it's overcast for rain, or if it's just a smoke blanket. The sun looks like a red moon. It's not so bad as to affect us much (I coughed like, twice, so whatever), and the makeshift "shade" can be a relief.

I could do without the nightly snoring, though.

And suddenly I am swung back into Busy mode and it's kind of great. That lazy time of video games and half-assed sketchbookery was actually a bit of a drag. Of course, everything tends to swing out at once - A scheduling snafu threw me into a 6-day-stretch at work, at the same time that I've been getting commissions. The hardest part about splitting a passion and a day job, is pausing the passion to go to the day job for 6 days, and then try NOT to lose track of what I'm doing. Things get lost, forgotten. Plans are abandoned. Paintings are half finished.

Commissions can be scary. Especially when it involves things I haven't tried yet. The scariest part, I realize now, is trying to succeed with a vision that isn't mine, that I've never seen. I have to rely on short notes through emails and hope that I can "see" what you see. And until that project is done, I am a workaholic mess. Hilarious disasters abound. I wish I could share more of it, but it isn't truly mine to share.

So stuff has been tossed on the backburner this past weekend. But I'm back now. Well... there's a second request I should do this week. But for now, there's a bird & market painting that's been waiting for me since last week, and I'd like get back to it!

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Another tiny tenant to feed?

7/25/2017

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Lately it seems that I have been taking a bit of a creativity break. Meaning, I needed a bit of time to do useless work for a bit. I've been very slowly chipping my way through Holly's drawing prompts, and it's been a rough slog. If you watch the vlogs, you'd know that I've entered an "ebb" of sorts. It feels more like burnout to me right now. I've painted much more this year than other years (I think), and the 2 art videos per week is feeling a bit much. The videos seem to be in a boring slump, even though I've started adding little discussion voiceovers to some of them. The problem is, I am so rushed during the work week, that I don't have enough of the topic to go on, forced to ad-lib whenever I get some free time alone. It's not my forté.

At the same time it feels like... you know when you play the Sims, and two characters have a bad conversation and then red "-" signs pop up to signify a disliking? I feel like all of my relationship interactions have been like that lately. I'm just really awkward these days? Hypersensitive? Late 90s teen me would have checked the status of my "biorhythms", ha ha ha.

Today begins a nice little stretch of time alone, but suddenly not entirely alone - I came home with another caterpillar rescue from work. This one seemed particularly bad, as he has traveled from california so he must have been terribly chilled. He was wriggling slightly to our touch, and I have an empty bug apartment since the last tenant moved out, so I'm giving him a shot.

This is a Corn Earworm, and he likes corn. So I guess I will have to buy some corn. It took him several hours to warm up, but he's gone right back into munching as if waking from a light nap. Such resilience!

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So I Put Contact Paper on my Desk

7/14/2017

This photo looks so old because of the painting I'm working on, yet the stuff surrounding it seems so recent that it's blowing my mind. What is time??? Anyway, however old this photo, this is a pretty accurate representation of my workspace as of late. I was so in love with the unfinished wood look, that I left it naked, and regretted it. When there's a colour spill, that colour really digs deep. I never had any luck scrubbing or sanding it out.

Some people see a desk with personality. I see a backdrop unworthy of artwork. It's very difficult to colour correct the photos and not have the the colour of the wood start blazing out at me. Splotchy, inky, discoloured wood. Blue is particularly forever.

People were using contact paper and I was inspired. I was very hesitant to go for the marble design. I delayed the purchase and I waffled even during the process itself. I cleared the desk, scrubbed it, dried it, and then finally wrapped it in some huge marble-coloured stickers.

At first, I thought it was tacky (in style)! I also hated the seam that had to go right through the middle, and noticeably so. I hated how shiny it was, because marble things aren't usually so glossy, are they?

A day or two in though, and I think it's fabulous. If I spill a bit of food, or dirty paint water, or spritz the metallic paints a bit too far, everything can be easily wiped down. The pattern is very nice, and looks so pretty! After a bit of quick testing, however, I have to warn about the alcohol inks. They seem to stain. At least, if I let them dry. So I will have to be careful with those. Everything else seems pretty safe!

I worried that having the bright background might darken my videos/photos but strangely it's been okay. Here's to hoping I can keep myself from ruining this one!

THE MOTH LIVETH!

7/8/2017

This is all so sudden and unexpected... just look at that little guy up there. Just how.

My coworker had found him in a head of red leaf lettuce, and we didn't want anything bad to happen to him, so I took him home with some of his favourite lettuce.

Only a few days passed before the cocooning, which also took me by surprise. I thought we would be caterpillar friends for a bit longer. He solidified and darkened so quickly, and I actually thought he was dead. It happens - when they look quite dark, it can be a sign that they died before they could transform.

But I was wrong.

I came home from work and was sweeping around my desk when I found my bug container had moved from my shelf, over to my desk and knocked onto its side. The little door was open. I was so confused, I thought "who on earth would drop my moth box, recklessly leave the poor thing on its side with the door wide open, and put this moth in here?"

This couldn't be OUR moth...

When did this happen? I apparently missed the whole dang thing! Sure enough, there was a tunnel out of the cocoon.

A light breeze picked up, and his antennae shot straight out. He wiggled his little fuzzy head tufts, and then shot a crap 3 feet into the air before fluttering off! :O

So now I guess Maggie has a curfew this summer. She loves to catch moths and bring them inside. We won't know if her next victim is gonna be OUR moth. Hopefully, the moth has learned to stay far away!

The messy part

6/29/2017

This week has been a little bit busy: a 40 hr workweek this time and it was a bit more involved than usual. Not to mention a bit tougher. When I'm not working, I'm downtown at this or that event, or I'm hurtling down the highway to have a fruity drink with an old friend. It's nice to be busy, but the artwork suffers terribly!

It has been a month since I returned from Edmonton, and I don't feel done painting All the Things yet. I think I originally planned to do a little place series every week, and it SHOULD be possible, but my time management tends to be horrible when my day job is this level of distracting/exhausting. I need discipline.

Returning to this subject in my painting is such a chore because it feels overdue at this point. Overworked. I liked the whimsy in this painting when it was a little thumbnail in which I really just wanted to capture the unreal turquoise of the water. Now it's a job to do. I stopped tonight once I got to the real messy part where it just looks flat and boring. Sometimes it's better that way, before I start to make bad decisions and rush it.

Lots of art, lots of rocks, lots of dragoon

6/21/2017

Sneak peek all the way to Sunday's video! I'm using wooden plaques from Michaels because they are so very affordable and so nicely "framed". I don't know why I didn't try this sooner. It's just a little bit different from what I normally do, and there's a vague clue in the hazy whiteness next to that magpie.

Some pretty rocks showed up in the mail after the first batch went missing over the ocean. Now I really wonder what the first batch looked like. Were they a different size? Different shapes? Different markings? The pale green one (is it serpentine?) was a bonus stone and a surprise, which is why I'm only guessing as to what it might be. I appreciate it!

None of them are of personal importance to me, I just really wanted a blue goldstone and didn't want to buy one without also inviting some of his friends. They are neat looking!

Blue goldstone, synthetic cats eye, serpentine (?), pink howlite, & opalite. I just know someone (OTHER THAN LINDSAY) is just tugging at the bit to analyze the meanings and uses and powers and elements and what have you of this little grouping. And I'm sure they correlate with each other and to my personality with such alarming poetry despite being totally unaware and unintentional because that's always how these things play out.

I am not drawing in my "garden" nearly as much as I did that one year that I worked part time and enjoyed the hell out of that. And the garden is being very lovely this year too. Hmm. I think it's entirely because I feel like I need to be doing more "useful" things, which means every dang thing I paint NEEDS to be filmed or livestreamed as to not be wasted. And that's a strictly desk thing.

Clearly I should just be painting SO MUCH that filming every bit of it would be impossible. Or I should do all of my internetting outdoors. Both completely impractical suggestions, thanks me.

Chill Painting Week

6/16/2017

The more free time I have, the more I waste.

My fellow has been conferencing so I've been home alone for the week! Of course, I had all of these expectations to be super productive but that never quite works out! I still only livestreamed a few hours this week (thursday?), even though I had all of these evenings with the apartment to myself.

Truth is, I've been more focused on cramming vegetables into my face, especially the kinds that only I appreciate :) Been cooking a lot. Above is a detail of a commission I painted too slowly (alone in the apartment means I watch ALL THE MOVIES). Turns out, movies are way too distracting and can turn a 2 hour painting into an all day Event.

But that's okay, it's a very special painting for a friend. Video on Sunday!

So An Art Supply Gift Card Doesn't Go Too Far...

6/8/2017

I suddenly got a little antsy and decided that a month was long enough to wait to use my Opus gift card that I won. Partially because I suddenly decided that the other Finetec mica set is something I wanted. Even though I don't need it.

And that's what I was going for with this gift card! I have a horrible guilt complex, and buyer's guilt is one of the tiers. Everything I buy, other than food, has to be utterly practical and well thought out. This was free money, so I said nuts to all that, I was going to use it on something completely impractical and unnecessary.

I was so excited and ready to have fun, but it was SO HARD to go against my own grain. It was all very anti-climactic after I realized that $100 gift card doesn't go very far in an art supply shop! :O Yep, that little pile is what I walked away with. For the heck of it, I'll share as many superfluous details as I can think.

Finetec Pearl watercolour (CAD$43.25): Ouch! So this took up pretty much half of the gift card's value. What am I going to do with these?? How many versions of "shimmery white" do I really need? Even one? I don't know. The red tones are what really sparkled for me, and that blue-green is a mermaid's dream. Someone on Etsy is selling their own collections, and I am dying to know how on earth they are getting those. Full sized pans of such royal violets and reds... oh my.

Jacquard Pinata Ink (CAD$4.90 each): I played with something like this at Nolwenn's house before, and they were neato. I really didn't know how to choose useful colours (the selection is lacking) so I ended up with some primaries and an "extender" in case I can dilute them or mix colours or something. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Liquitex "Muted" Acrylic Ink (CAD$8.90 each): I got "Neutral Grey" and "Neutral Pink" because I couldn't choose one over the other. I'm surprised by how beautiful they are. It was really hard to talk myself into buying the grey one because I thought "can't I just dilute my black ink?" Nah. I haven't even used them for anything beyond this ONE STREAK on the page and I already want to go back for the rest of the set. Oh, it's happening.

Frixion Pen (CAD $3.50): It's a black pen. Yeah. Um... I mean, it's kinda cool, because the ink disappears when you heat it up (and reappears if you freeze it). Considering how often my workplace recklessly mucks up my whole dang schedule, I thought this would be nice for my planner. Boring.

After all this and taxes, I still have $5 left on the card. I will probably go back for that muted turquoise ink though... hmm.

Making Use of a Child's Watercolour Palette

5/31/2017

Heyyyyyyyy, I'm home. I saw a lot of interesting plants and animals and things, though I didn't do a whole lot of artsy stuff. When I am on the move, I usually take my Cotman paints, because it comes in a perfect little travel-sized palette. My Qor are a bit inconvenient in that way, as I'm just using the tin lid as a palette, and I don't really want to carry an uncovered lid anywhere.

Would you believe how tricky it is to find a little travel palette that snaps closed? I fell in love with some rather expensive brass ones. My next step would have been to order a metal palette and spray-paint it, but I don't have as much luck with ordering things from China, unfortunately.

I may still give that a shot, but as a personal back up, I ran into these little (Handmade Charlotte) watercolour sets on clearance at Michaels for $2. It was a great size, it snapped closed, and it had water wells in the lid. It was similar to what I'm used to with the Cotman set. I took the lid off, gessoed the outside of it, and then used the same blue spray paint that I had for my bicycle (which is still holding up, btw).

These cheap little watercolour sets are usually round cakes slipped into the plastic circles and held down with some glue. It wasn't super easy to get them out. I soaked them in a bowl of water for a bit and then pried them out with a tiny knife. Some popped out in a couple of pieces, most of them I ended up destroying though. It was a bit of a melty mess! But now I've got 12 spots for my Qor tube paints and I think I already have enough colours to fill every one. Uh oh! No more fun paint shopping for a while!

I mixed a bit of pink glitter embossing powder with some gloss gel medium, and pushed it through a stencil to add a ginkgo to the front. It will take some time to dry up. The only thing I would have done differently is use a spray on primer instead of the gesso, because I wanted a smoother surface.

My little palette is ready for paints! I'm going to hold off for a little bit because I'm nearly ready to use my gift card and do some self-indulgent art supply shopping. What if I find a perfect palette regardless? The plastic bottom on this one feels really delicate and easily breakable. But sometimes if you can't find the perfect thing, you gotta use what you have and make it yourself!

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