I didn’t mention it before, because I felt a little superstitious anxiety and didn’t want to advertise my perceived increased vulnerability because I get “creeped-out” too easily, but Donald was visiting Sweden for a few weeks in late July and early August, visiting family and celebrating his mother’s 80th birthday. I’m glad he was able to have that time with family and revisiting his “home turf”, but of course it’s also been wonderful to have him back here again, too!
In Sweden, even though they had some beautiful weather during his visit, August seems to be the slow winding down of summer. They were having lows in the 50s, even early in the month. I feel like there are perceptible changes in the weather here, too—but even if I’m not just imagining it, it’s not so much a transition out of summer as it is from one phase of summer into another. It’s still darned hot out there, for one thing, and we’re just now entering the busy part of the hurricane season. But… It feels different, already.
I don’t know… Maybe I’m just fooling myself, playing mind games to make the last, long stretch of summer feel more bearable.
“It’s ending soon, you know. Really and truly it is. Just another month and half and it’ll be OCTOBER. And it’s never hot and humid in October (except for those years that it is). So if we can just hold out for another six weeks or so… We’ll be out of the mosquito-infested woods!”
Cue the unhinged giggling, hugging of knees, and rocking back and forth in the shadowy corner of a room dimmed by layers of blinds and black-out curtains.
Selvage Quilt Update
I’ve pieced the last of the 120 selvage quilt blocks. This last batch of 10 needs trimming, then it’s time to put some of them on the design wall and settle once and for all on the layout.
Then I’ll start putting them together into a quilt top. I’m debating between making long rows or joining them in groups of fours or sixes.
As (almost?) always, when I could see the end of the piecing approaching, it was a bittersweet sensation. By the time you get to the end of that phase of a project, you’ve usually worked out any problems with the process and even gotten good at it. It feels a little sad to be done with it!
Neon Hanging Lanterns
I think I was at a loss for what to draw, paint, or doodle, when I started this page. I have a jotted list of ideas on the table, and one of them was hanging lanterns. That seemed like something that could be interesting to try in the neon or fluorescent watercolor.
I started with a very simple pencil sketch of shapes to provide an outline. Next, I made some marks with the Crayola neon color pencils. (These are possibly 30 years old—gosh, that makes me feel my age!—and I have no idea if these exact ones are still being made, but it looks like they do sell some type of neon pencils.) After that, I added the neon watercolor. It has kind of an odd consistency. Maybe I’m watering it down a bit too much, sometimes. Anyway, it’s fine for playing around with, and that all I need it for.
After that dried, I painted the background with a darker color and added some details and outlines in plain black pen.
Don’t look too closely at the hanging chains. There’s at least one that probably should’ve gone in front of one of the other lanterns, but… eh.
Not my finest work, but something different to try. I do like the effect of the neon paint against a darker background, and I might try something like this again, with a few changes.
Doodle + Watercolor
I wanted to doodle something while listening to a podcast. Earlier that day, I’d watched a short video of someone painting goldfish in a bowl—so that was my inspiration.
Some of my fish look a little weirder than the others, but I’m not an expert fish doodler, so these things happen—especially when you’re doodling directly with pen. (No erasers, no second thoughts! Or at least limits to your ability to reconsider.)
I think the part I enjoyed most was trying to create a variety of container shapes and deciding what else would be in each bowl or container, besides the fish.
To color them in, I used mostly the Koh-i-Noor Brilliant Watercolours (Anilinky paint), combined with the dregs of whatever was already on my palette. I went for mostly bright, cartoony colors. The Anilinky paint lends itself well to “bright”! Some of the colors are very strong—almost aggressive—right off the palette. In fact, if you want them to be softer or more muted, it can take a lot of watering down or dulling down with complementary colors to achieve that.
More Doodle + Watercolor
I mentioned before that I usually draw a line down the middle of the 9″ x 12″ watercolor paper pad, and get two “pages” instead of one (and more to the point, pages that are in a size I find more comfortable filling).
This time, I ended up doodling two pictures before painting either of them. The day after doodling the fish, I settled on “witch’s ingredient cupboard” as my theme.
Some of the product ideas are lifted from the witches in Macbeth, others were borrowed from search engine results, and a few just popped into my head on their own. (“Milk of the Puppy” is from Game of Thrones and their constant references to “the milk of the poppy”.)
I didn’t spend a lot of effort on the lettering—partly because these are small, and I can only write so teensy before it’s illegible—but I think doing this kind of thing again with more care for font choice, etc. could be fun.
I actually painted this one before the fish, but I used the same kind of paint—a mix of whatever was on the palette and the Anilinky Brilliant Watercolours.
After it was dry, I felt like the background should’ve been darker, but I wasn’t in the mood to paint over it again, so I added quick, messy vertical lines with the Duke fude nib pen. Any thin-nibbed pen would have worked, but I like the way the line darkens or fades slightly with that pen.
I had more fun making this one than the fish, I think, though it probably looks like a jumble. I need work on my contrast, to keep things from all blurring together.
But it was fun, and that was the point.
