i'm thinking of switching things up on patreon. i know when i started it, i didn't want it to be
just support me so i do stuff kind of donation pile, i kind of wanted it to be more of a project,
like a group, a sketching group. it is really just me posting scans from my sketchbook for
inspiration, maybe some stories about what i'm drawing and why. most people just kind of go for
the monthly mailing, so i take one of the sketches that i make during the month and then mail it out,
but one of the things was voting for a theme every month to keep it kind of directed and less
open-ended. you know, one month we'll do flowers, one we'll do buildings... they usually kinda broad
but sometimes they're too specific and i run out of steam at the end of the month, i'm not sure if
i want to do it anymore. i'm really nervous about it because i don't want to lose that one little
piece of input i get. maybe i can replace it with youtube video polls or something,
because the whole point was to be able to take a whole month to study something specific because
that's the way that you get better at something is if you do it more than once, but i feel like
i've run through so many themes, and there's lots of times where i'm just out somewhere
and i see something really cool, and i'm like that would be a really nice thing to sketch,
but i also don't want to take energy away from patreon and stuff because time is limited. i'm
starting to feel imprisoned by my own themes, when they were really just supposed to be about
knowing what to do and having something to do and not having to think of something to do kind of a
thing. it was supposed to just be a given. so i'm thinking i should just drop the theme. the prompt
list, i feel like that would probably be enough, and also just showing what i'm doing. those kind
of things inspire me to draw on my sketchbook all the time, so i feel like that's probably enough.
so wet.
i'm having a high anxiety week but they're all good things. i don't really have a fear
of failure. artists, our idea of failure is just living a boring mundane life. that's
not that bad. that's still better than the majority of the world really. the good things
terrify me. i went to the paint the train show, train themed art show, and i almost didn't even
submit to it because i just did a painting of a velocipede, which is a little railway vehicle for
one person. that was the one with the crows and the flowers, to fit my personal liking, and so i
was really self-conscious about even submitting it. it turned out that i actually won honorable
mention for my category, what was it called, mixed media and fiber arts category? which is
not what i submitted it as. i was wracking my brain trying to think, what did i do with this
painting? i'm pretty sure i just water colored it right? and so i went to go look at my painting to
see, and no, it was just watercolor. i started literally panic-eating a wagon wheel because
i didn't know what else to do about it, and i'm like, did i submit my art to the wrong category?
and then by doing that, sort of threw the ranking in the judgments? jenny came up and she said,
the judges thought that your 3d effect was a different kind of thing, and they decided to
move my artwork themselves. so it wasn't me, it wasn't my fault, i did not do anything wrong,
and i won honorable mention, and i had to film a video today and i hate doing that, so yeah,
how you guys doing? i'm going to meet somebody on friday at a different show. there's just so
much going on right now. it's kind of brilliant actually. one of the other artists in the show,
i'm buying a little piece from her, and so we decided just to meet at the reception to do the
exchange. just having another person to meet up with is making me actually kind of excited to go,
because every time i go to an artist reception, people are already kind of talking to each other,
they have their friends and family with them, and you're like
what do i do? and i just
look at art, panic-eat more wagon wheels, feel lonely. i won't have to be alone.
you're back. my cat is back. she looks blasted still. look at those...
are you high?
so i'm almost done with this sketchbook i made using i think it was bockingford watercolor paper,
but it was on clearance. i'm almost done but it's all paste-ins pretty much, meaning not very much
of it was directly painted into it, because when you use watercolor paper, one side's always going
to be the wrong side, and i don't really like drawing and sketching with dry media on thick
papers. really eager to be done with this, but i do like having a sketchbook around that i can
use watercolor in. this was not it, but i did used to use stonehenge a lot, the stonehenge
mixed medias. i used to make all of my sketchbooks with this until it got too expensive, and that's
because i was selling them at the same time, and then i stopped using thick papers for sketchbooks
in the first place generally, but i still like to have one around so that i can do stuff like this.
i'm thinking of going and trying it out because maybe it's changed right? you don't know,
maybe it's different now? and so i did a little test with watercolor here. this is also probably
some other cotman watercolor or something, and so this is with the qor, and it seems to layer okay.
it doesn't spread very well, and it did layer kind of nicely. it doesn't lift very much but it looks
kind of nice. i'm thinking it might be good. i'm thinking it might be a fun time to try stonehenge
again. check this out. i got this commissioned from susan. i wanted to get this mug for john,
with the cats on it, but she wanted me to send her the art piece myself. so this is what i
drew and i asked her for one of her cute little fishes on the back. the signature on the bottom.
thank you so much susan. i also just love the way that it's trimmed,
it's so pretty. trimming was my absolute favorite part of using a throw wheel. there's
something deeply satisfying about it. okay look at this color. i love it, it's so pretty. and that is
actually literally what color milo was too. that's kind of spot on actually. damn, so much rain.
maggie, you want to go outside?
i'm just chilling on the floor here. today is really distracting. we just had our atmospheric
river event which has turned everything east from here into a disaster zone pretty much.
the city of abbotsford was built on a drained lake bed and it is turned back into a lake,
so pretty much every highway out of the lower mainland has been destroyed.
nothing really strange has happened here. i live in pretty much the safest area,
and now it's a beautiful sunny day for the first time in months.