Day 133…

Over four months into the pandemic now. I don’t see an end to it soon. Even though Ontario has mostly moved to Stage 3 of reopening, it is still not contained/controlled. If everyone would wear a mask and maintain social distancing it could possibly be contained, but so many don’t.

I honestly do not understand people who think that wearing a mask and maintaining a distance from others is too hard for them to do. Selfish gits. Losing my life, or someone else’s, isn’t worth going to a beach or a pub or a party. It isn’t even worth going for groceries when there are delivery options.

I am staying home as much as I possibly can. I am still alone in my unit which is nice as the added stress of a roommate is gone, for now. Since it is already past mid-July I don’t expect they’ll have anyone moving into the vacant room until later next month (although I could be wrong.) My other three roommates most likely will return for the end of August. But, there’s a possibility, if their programs have gone 100% online for the fall semester, that they may choose to stay home with family. I know they all have leases to next summer like I do.

I’ve been eating well, which means more than I usually do when I have somewhere to go during the day. I generally have one meal (usually when I get home) and a snack (that would be breakfast.) Now that I am home all day I usually have two meals and snacks… not a great plan. And, well, now I’m trying to get back to just one meal and stopping with the extra snacking! I need to fit my clothing in September for school!  This is my “normal” breakfast, which I am back to now: cheese, some cucumber and celery, and a massive coffee (decaf most of the time.)

I’ve not been as productive as I was earlier on in this isolation. I putter. Did a few more drawings but took a break from the painting series. Made some jewelry – goal is to use up my craft supplies and beads so I can reduce my on-hand materials. I’m now assembling “dangly things” with shells and other bits of stuff I’ve collected over the years.

Here is a micron drawing, and I used my new iridescent watercolour paints and pencil crayons to add colour to it.

The paints are Finetec Pearlescent Colours. They are quite lush.

A friend passed them onto me as she found they didn’t do what she had wanted them to.

Below is a photo of the first batch of jewelry I made up. I’m planning to sell them – during third year we have opportunities to set-up to sell things as part of one of the classes we are in. These are mostly painted wood pendants with glass beads, with some metal and wood beads as well. If you are interested send me a message or comment on this post!

I’ve started making hanging/dangly things now. I lay out stuff on my work table so I can just sit down when the spirit moves me to put something together. I sorted out pieces to use into little trays (I save the plastic trays from the 99% cacao Lindt chocolate bars,) one for each dangly thing – all the components and beads, etc.  I’ve got the finished ones hanging all over the room. I’ll photograph them once I’ve got this batch finished.

Hope everyone is managing through this upheaval and keeping healthy. It will eventually get to a point where we can start getting back to doing things without the constant fear of infection. Eventually. Be safe.

Animal & Pet Portraits

I finished my latest commissioned pet portrait and it has arrived at its new home in Alabama so I can share it.

This is Snowy:

It was commissioned as a companion piece to another one I did of her “brother” Joseph:

I do these freehand – sketch in pencil and then finish with Micron pen. These two were done on 7 x 10″ 98 lb Canson Mix Media paper.

The difference in the background colour in the images is because the top one was scanned and the bottom one photographed.

Here is a work in progress shot. Sketched in and starting the pen work.

I am working on my animal drawing skills. I’ve always been pretty good with it, but practise always shows a huge improvement in my abilities. Capturing expression is the biggest thing – that is what makes a pet look like YOUR pet!

This is another cat portrait I did – this is Honey, my sister’s cat. This is also Micron pen, then coloured added with pencil crayon.

I do dogs too. The breeds have so many variations that it can be a bit more challenging to work on, but I am improving with practise.

This is my buddy Brian. This one was done for one of those on-line challenges, which that day was “use only words”. So, all of the marks on the paper are words – written or printed words. The close-up of the nose shows this clearly. It was a fun challenge.

This one was done in my usual method, sketch in pencil and finish with Micron pen. This one was over two years ago when I decided to start working more seriously on improving my skills.

This is Brian in “person”

I keep practising doing different creatures and adding colour. So far sticking with pencil crayons and watercolour. I really want to learn how to use the pencil crayons to create super realistic work – and that is a steep learning curve! I’ve been watching YouTube videos which is very rare for me, but it is something I need to see being done to figure it out. I’ve also picked up some excellent books at the used book store.

I am hoping to be able to work on lots of animal drawings over the summer. My plan is to take masses of photos on my trip to South Africa, eSwatini and Mozambique (I leave in two-weeks!) that I can then draw and paint. I hope all the creatures will cooperate.