My favorite color is orange and one of my favorite amphibians are red efts. I think they are adorable. They are just about glowing when they are on a forest floor.

I'm trying to work with orange. Orange is a pain... Did you know adding blue to orange makes it dark grey and more makes it black? I didn't. To get the right tone of orange, I've needed to make test strips and teach myself color theory. The exact color of orange I want I can't mix because of the paints I have (grr), so I'm settling for good enough. They have fluorescent orange dots, which I still haven't figured out how to do well. I'm working on a series of these paintings of these little guys. They are still coming out too dark, but that's another thing I'm working on. They don't photograph well... But they are still super cute (to me).


For this one I used black to tone down the orange. The tail is out of focus in the reference photo, which is why it seems fuzzy. My favorite part is the eye.


This one I used blue to tone down the orange. I like the darker oranges on this one a little better. I also discovered masking fluid! It's a sticky substance you put on paper to keep something white. Afterwards, you rub it off and the white underneath remains. It makes leaving lighter spots to paint in later so much easier to do.

Frankles “Will you be taking your skills into the fandom world?”
My original thought: No! Too scary. And then the idea wouldn’t leave me alone, and I couldn’t sleep, and I spent the night researching how to do it. I looked into painting a face with watercolors. Ha… To do that I need to draw it. To draw it out I need to be able to sketch a face. I haven’t sketched faces…

To the internet! I found some decent tutorials for sketching front and side view of faces. Sketches below the cut.
( Read more... )

Apparently I'm one of those people who bake to cope with things. So I've been baking all the carb things such as cakes, candies, and breads.

( Read more... )

After playing with the gel sticks that a friend got my kids, I decided I'd attempt this whole watercolor thing again. So I got a watercolor starter set and spend time painting with Mr Five as he paints his own things. It's generally gone well, except for the time he spilled an entire cup of water on me. Mother's Day is around the corner, and instead of buying my mom her favorite flower, I decided to paint it.

( Read more... )

I've been altering the art material the kid's have been assigned for distance learning. One of my alterations was to work with gel sticks. A friend gave them to me and I had no idea what they were or how to use them. To the internet! Apparently they are a love child between a crayon and watercolors. You draw on paper and use a wet brush to move the color around. Mr Five LOVES this activity. He has been super into taking dried up markers and dunking them in water to make colors. He calls it his color science and keeps him entertain for hours. Well, this activity makes colored water and he gets to play with a paintbrush; he really couldn't ask for more. The boys made rainbows and blended the colors together. Then Mr Five discovered black and I have multiple pages of black blob art.

I've been trying to work with the medium. The tulips were the first attempt and I didn't like the lines leftover from the crayon. So I was working on removing that with the other ones.
I found a water color pic of lemons online and tried to replicate the technique. I have vague memories of layering colors or something like that. The lemons were done by treating the gel sticks as water colors by smooshing them on a surface and adding water.

I’ve been taking advantage of content that’s newly accessible and might as well share what I’ve found.


National Theater Live is posting one new play a week. I think you can only watch it once. https://www.youtube.com/user/ntdiscovertheatre

I’ve watched last week’s show, One Man, Two Guvnors, which was super silly and not for me. There was a classic humor dinner scene, random lines, and characters breaking the fourth wall. I didn’t finish it, and I’m not broken up about it.

This week is Jane Eyre. I love the movie 1996 version with Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt. There are apparently 16 versions of Jane Eyre and I’ve only seen that one.
I think this plays version is too artsy for me. The stage pieces, costuming, the cast were minimal. There was strange elements like when they were traveling by train they would walk in place. There was a random opera women in red. The baby scene at the beginning almost caused me to stop watching. To show Jane’s swirling thoughts, there was an few actors/actresses that would surround her and yell out her thoughts. It took me a embarrassingly long time to figure out that is what they were doing. Madeleine Worrall as Jane was fine. Felix Hayes as Mr Rochester didnt feel right. His voice was very rough and it felt like he was angry yelling all the time.
Next week is Treasure Island. Week after is Twelfth Night, which I know will confuse me so I’ll use sparknotes that day.


Cirque did Soleil is posting 60 minute specials. https://www.youtube.com/user/cirquedusoleil
These I liked. They have the strange cirque magic and it’s wonderful.

Broadway also has content available. I haven’t explored it yet, but I’m getting there. https://broadwaydirect.com/where-to-watch-musicals-online-the-musical-lovers-guide-to-streaming/

Projects galore!
( Read more... )

Sherlock Toadstool and Doctor Fungus made by SCFrankles have arrived safely.

They are adorable and well made and should have their own squee fest. :) They will have more adventures outside when it’s mushroom appropriate weather to get a proper photoshoot. Right now, they’ll hangout on a shelf and (hopefully) not get into mischief.

Now to name the species! (The creator can correct me if I stray from the inspiration).
Sherlock Toadstool is a Fly Agaricus. It’s a big, spindly, showy mushroom. They’ll have a partial veil (the tissue around the stem) that protects the gills in immature mushrooms. Oh, and it's poisonous. They’ve traditionally been used in a fly trap by adding a cap to a bowl of milk.


Dr Fungus I’ll call a bolete species. They are stubby, compact mushrooms that blend into their surroundings and have pores instead of gills. There is often a color change from the top of the stem to the bottom. The pores will often turn a color when bruised.

Anyone want to beta a Mystrade fic? :)

It's based off of this prompt:
Imagine Person A and Person B are both single and decide to spend Valentines Day together and do all of the silly cliché Valentines Day things together as friends BUT somewhere between the flowers, the heart-shaped candy, the fancy dinner, and the romantic movies, they end up catching feelings for each other.

I'm expanding the one day to multiple days and having them work through feelings and getting to know each other. They'll be character background and stuff because that's what I like the best with this ship.

Chpt 1 is about 3k words now, and I have the others drafted out. I'm expecting it to be 9 chpts and about 20-30K. The fic rating will likely be M to E. Since I haven't learned from my other fics, I'd like to get the first chapter posted for Valentines Day. Oh, I'd expect me to at least tying myself into a mental knot and getting stuck at least once.

Hopefully I haven't scared everyone away...?