kodecy

Not quite square-one

November 30th, 2022

I’ve gotten back into the gouache, and there are several things I can see. I won’t be able to cover them all in one post: I’m listing them out, here, mainly as a reminder to myself.

One: it’s different to work with paints, than it is to work with drawing implements. I’m much more in-control with pen and pencil, than with brush. Controlling the amount of water in my brush is essential, if I want to make paintings without pools of water/paint at the end of every stroke. I think I’ll have to be more generous with the paint, and work with a drier brush.

Two: I have some separation of fluid from pigment, in one of the paints I tried, earlier — some kind of a deep yellow (orange-yellow) with a pigment code I haven’t looked up. The fluid looks vaguely greenish. Painting it down, the yellow looks contaminated with green. But when it dries, it regains vibrancy, and is fine. No, I don’t know how that happens. And I’m only now recalling the (dull) greens that orange-yellow, produces.

Three: Winsor & Newton gouache lids are much, much harder to remove after years of disuse, than are Holbein lids. This is because the Holbein lids give much more gripping surface. It may also be because I have less dried paint, inside the Holbein lids…maybe I should clean the tubes, tomorrow. In any case, I now have a blister on the side of my index finger from trying to get the Winsor & Newton lids, off.

Four: I have confirmed that I have four basic earth tones in my traditional gouache (and a gorgeous glittery gold paint). Everything I have in acrylic gouache is incredibly vibrant, but will need to be mixed to create subdued colors. Which leads me into…

Five: I really need to work on creating muted colors and chromatic greys, if I’m going to work with either the traditional or acrylic gouache. I have some beautiful full-strength colors…but not everything is yellow, red, or blue. I did find three different portfolios of my old work…which gives me the baseline footprint for a color wheel. I know that we did mixing of complementary colors in Color Dynamics…even the tertiary colors (like yellow-green) were crossed with their complements. If I can create that, it should help me figure out what I’m doing, here. It’s a topic unto itself, hence not addressed further, here.

Six: Do I want to work on cold-press, rather than hot-press paper??? Hot-press Watercolor paper really shows brush strokes! (And I still need to try my Arches paper to see if it is functional after all this time.)

As far back as I can remember, using too little paint and too much water has been an issue for me — though it’s particularly visible with acrylics. In the Art program, my instructor commented that my acrylic underpaintings looked like watercolors. Several years later, I learned that thinning paints out too much with water (as versus acrylic medium) can cause poor adhesion to the substrate (in that case, primed canvas).

It’s better to use glazing medium or — I’ve heard — airbrush medium (though I’ve never tried airbrush medium) to thin acrylics (if you don’t want to add body, that is). There are also a lot of different media that can soften heavy-body paints, or dilute colors, though I’ve forgotten exactly which brands I saw, where. What was being sold was the acrylic emulsion used as the base for the paints, but without any pigment. Add that to a paint, and you get a diluted color without any loss of adhesion.

Then there was the gorgeous transparent soft acrylic gel medium — which looks beautiful with transparent pigment. But yes, it is easy to permanently mess up a canvas, working dimensionally. I know.

In transparent watercolors, as well — I only took one, “watercolor,” class, which was specifically, “watercolor” — my teacher said that it would save time if I were more direct with my application of color (instead of blocking everything in palely, before using full-strength paint). I’m pretty sure that that particular episode just had to do with timidity: it’s not great when you go in directly, and find out that your proportions are off. But I can see where I should be able to just go in, if my values match what I’m seeing.

I’m pretty certain this was parallel to one of my first Community College Art instructors telling me to commit to a line, and not make sketchy drawings. The point would be to just go ahead and make the mark, or the color block, or whatever. I guess if it’s wrong, it’s confidently wrong? (Like how English teachers will say, “never use, ‘I think,’ or, ‘I feel,’ in an essay” — even if that’s what you mean?)

That scenario might lead me down another rabbit hole (having to adjust the proportions of one object to another in an underlying drawing)…but I think I’ve noted the problem, in my process journal. I also have the memory of fixing the last drawing which led me to the realization that I was making things with (nearly) correct proportions within themselves, but wrong proportions between objects. It becomes visible at the places where objects intersect. It’s easy enough to think, “no one’s going to notice that,” but it did look better when I corrected it.

I started this entry off talking about a common problem with watercolors (both transparent and opaque) and synthetic brushes: that is, a lack of control where it comes to the flow of paint from the brush to the paper. This would seem to be less of an issue with natural-hair brushes. Or, I should say, it’s a well-known issue with synthetic brushes, that they will tend to dump their fluid at the end of a stroke. Meaning to touch the loaded brush to a paper towel or sponge to get rid of the excess water, before going to the painting.

Pigment dumping isn’t so much of an issue with gouache, because it’s opaque. You don’t necessarily see the additional pigment, and you can layer on top of it. It’s a pain with transparent watercolors, though…

…which I have been itching to get back to. I’m not sure if my palette is even functional, right now; it has been so long since I’ve used it. The thing is, I believe that those watercolors contain some of the very few colors I have to use caution around (mainly through the inclusion of cobalt and chromium). But I may get back to them, soon. I filled the palette years ago, but I don’t know for sure that the colors will rehydrate properly, now.

Even though transparent watercolors seem to require some kind of project planning, there is an undeniable draw to them for me…maybe because they’re so simple. And beautiful. They have their own kind of touch.

I’ve found that natural hair paintbrushes glide over the paper, whereas a synthetic — at least, one of the more annoying ones — may chatter and wipe up pigment, in the same situation. But I have very few natural-hair brushes for watercolor. This is expressly because of the price of natural hair combined with quality craftsmanship.

Hog bristle brushes for acrylics or oils are decently priced: that’s probably because they wear out, so often. Natural hair watercolor brushes are…nearly entirely different. But I do still see that even hog bristle, glides more easily than a synthetic — at least, a low-quality synthetic.

I do have some sumi-e brushes which are natural hair (actually at least two different types of natural hair within the same brush), but I find that their (bamboo) handles tend to split with time and use. This is especially if they’re only bound together with glue and string. I’ve lost one, and am on the way to losing another. I haven’t tried the plastic-handled sumi-e brushes.

I do know where I can get brushes which are different than the standard ubiquitous Yasutomo; but seriously, I don’t know what I’m doing where it comes to art supplies, in Asian stationery stores. I can’t read the packaging (it’s usually not in English, I can’t read any dialect of written Chinese, and I largely can only read phonetics in Japanese), and I’m not sure of the properties of the types of hair used — except that white is goat hair, soft and absorbent.

I’m really not even certain the types of brushes I find in an Asian stationery store, are suitable for the type of work I do (neither Chinese brush painting nor sumi-e nor calligraphy). And paying $30+ for one brush, when I don’t know what I’m getting or how to use it, is a bit of a risk.

The obvious thing to do, is ask someone who is knowledgeable about this to accompany me, or to ask a salesperson about the differences between the brushes. The thing is — I really don’t know how much salespeople know about the products (or how to use them), as versus just being there to enable financial transactions.

I do have some Princeton Neptune brushes, though I didn’t use them with the traditional gouache, earlier. I’m not sure how they’ll fare with it. They’re extremely soft, and my gouache is so old that some of it has dried out. (I was wrong, by the way: it does seem that I have a few tubes left over from 2007; they’re just paint cakes in there, like the ones my teacher recovered. I believe I did throw out some which I couldn’t open, maybe five years ago, though.)

That is, it takes some working of water into the paint, before the paint is usable…and I’m not sure the Neptunes are really stiff enough to handle it.

That’s not at all to get into the thought of using the Neptunes with acrylic gouache. I’m thinking I’ll definitely need to use a firmer watercolor or all-media brush, for that. For one thing, I don’t want to gum up my Neptunes with acrylic; I’m intending to use them exclusively with transparent watercolor and Ecolines. Maybe traditional gouache, if they can handle it. Not Liquitex acrylic gouache.

Neptunes are very soft and absorbent, made to mimic squirrel; maybe turning out better. The last time I used them (with the Ecoline, “transparent watercolors,” about a week ago), I could dip a loaded brush into a drop or two of yellow and not get a lot of color transfer, because the brush was sucking up the yellow and not discharging. That doesn’t happen if you mash the brush into the yellow to mix it; only if you touch the yellow and allow capillary action to draw it up.

That was fairly amazing.

The last thing I’ll mention…is that I’m very certain that my skill level with paints does not rival my skill with pencil or ink. But I can remedy that, with time and practice. It shouldn’t be drudgery; I love dense and fluid color, too much for that. Right now, I also have more books than I care to mention (?) on painting and color, that I haven’t read. I want to get to them. Maybe it will be more productive than reading about politics…
Looking forward

November 26th, 2022

At the risk of smelling myself, I think I’m actually good at this art thing. Below is a copy of the scan I made of the other night’s work. I’ve cranked up the brightness and the contrast, so what I did is visible:

The reason I’m even publishing this? Well, after last night’s post (which was originally image-less), I wanted to put up something more decipherable. I haven’t been able to get any artwork done today — there were other things I had to do. I’m hoping to get back to exploring my gouache, in the next day or two. It depends on how quickly I can get the last of my classwork, done.

That class is nearly over (!), although when I get a burst of free time…I’m going to have to figure out what to do with it. I already have a good idea of what I want to do with it: reading, art, writing; but I feel like I work best with some structure — which is why I’ve been taking classes. Well, that, and the employable skills (if anyone learned anything). A plan for the upcoming days, would be nice.

(Just like outlines for these projects I want to edge into writing, would be nice! Giving myself a place to start, makes it more approachable. Art Journaling will also help me develop source material for larger projects; so I probably shouldn’t write it off as just being for myself. After all, drawing on scrap paper could be my equivalent of the Art Journal: something I feel has less pressure, because it surely will never become an actual art piece [and then it turns out good]…)

I’ve decided that I’m going to look into jobs that require art skill and/or writing skill. Getting into that, requires research. I’ve started in on it, but haven’t saved what I’ve found in my searches. It would make sense for me to actually note some of the things I find down, by hand. Handwritten notes seem foreign to working online, but they help. Compared to having nothing, they’re extremely superior.

I’m not used to looking for jobs that use skills I’m both good at, and like!

To get a job using writing or art skills, I’m going to need a portfolio (or two) to present to potential employers. I do have a backlog of work (although much of the lesser-quality stuff has been tossed). Unless I’m mistaken, I have an artwork portfolio already, though I may have to dig to find it. Or, I may have to reassemble it. I did just check, and I have a much reduced set of images from my Capstone class…I’ll probably want to fill that out. (Not to mention that I’ll eventually want to transfer my images off of last-generation jump drives.)

Of course, I’ll be doing new work, as well. It doesn’t make sense not to, when I’m hoping to use similar skills in a job setting. If I don’t like the work, I might not like the job. Start now, baby!

I’m thinking it will be easier, although much more tedious, to look at my writing output over the past decade: particularly, my journals. I may have stopped writing fiction after graduation, but my mid-twenties to mid-thirties were tough to get through — yet extremely imaginative. The hard part comes (largely) when you can’t distinguish fantasy from reality…which is also a large reason why I stopped writing: I would trigger myself, and it would seem real.

Artwork is somewhat more recognizable as a creative product, than are the things one tells oneself, which then get transcribed into hard copy. The brain has the somewhat annoying (but looking back on it, obvious) habit of believing itself in almost everything, until it learns to question itself. In my experience, I’ve had to pay attention to my somatic sensations to be able to tell when I doubted something to be true. No one is right about everything, all the time; but plenty of people never think twice about it.

I’m sure there is a lot of material I left behind which can be mined. I can spring off of it using fresh eyes and greater experience.

The visual archives will be more challenging…but also, maybe, more engaging. I already know I have photo notations that I never worked up into final pieces. That’s before sourcing new images, drawing or painting in the field, digital editing, etc.

How to balance these two things (the writing and the art), I’m unsure of, at the moment. It may become clearer, once I begin. I already have the writing practice of the blog, set up…but if I want to write professionally, I’ll need to both be reading and writing, creatively. Not just blog posts.

Yeah; how to divide the time is a significant problem. As is the question of what writing project to begin, first; which to continue to develop first, etc. I suppose I could schedule in Writing time in the evenings, and Art time, in the mornings and afternoons…and then read when I’m so blasted from everything else, that I can’t think…maybe in the evenings, before bed? It could be part of my daily winding-down time…
Frankly…

November 25th, 2022

It would be safe to say that I was fairly anxious, yesterday. I started to write here, but I’m sure the undercurrent would have come through that I was writing out of anxiety: and not for any reason beyond my mood. My reasons for writing here, at all, might merit some reflection — because yesterday I did write in a Creative Process journal. Just, not in public.

That was also a very good thing to do…it takes a great deal of pressure off, along with added anxiety. Sometimes, though, I’m thinking that writing is not the answer. Particularly where it comes to needing to deal with stress, working visually demands so much of my attention that I basically just can’t think for long enough to worry.

I did start — and pretty much (nearly? there seems to be always more to do) finish a drawing of a still-life…which has me thinking that I really don’t need to work with a story or with cartooning, just because I want to work, visually. This is especially the case, if I’m working for emotional modulation and self-care.

Apologies for the low quality; I haven’t gotten around to scanning this, yet.

The issue I’m having now — now that I have the bare bones of the image — is how to move forward with color. What I can recall from Painting class, is the need to make thumbnail sketches which focus on value…before imagining color into the equation. (If I had been thinking ahead, I would have done more to set up an optimal still-life in the first place, and approached it from different angles, before settling on one. For that matter, I wouldn’t have drawn it on a piece of paper that already had notes on it!)

The still-life does have color; the issue is that the color scheme in real life, is brown and black. I realize I don’t have to keep it.

If I’m going to replace the color, or change the values of objects, however, I need to do thumbnail sketches, first. Once I have the values laid out, I should be able to swap in hues of similar value, without disturbing the overall image.

It requires moving on to a different stage of design, which I’m a little uncomfortable with, at the moment. I’ll need to break out my “actual” (i.e. non-acrylic) gouache, which I haven’t used in years, even though it’s been sitting in front of me for months, and has been hanging out in my craft area, for years. I meant to do it today, but felt a little intimidated. This is the whole, “getting scared of getting dirty,” bit…but I don’t think I even have any hazardous colors in these paints.

Gouache is essentially opaque watercolor. The ones I have are quality, mostly single-pigment colors. Or, at least the originals, were…I had to get them for a class in 2007. I can’t remember having touched the newer ones since a project in 2017…making the newer ones at least five years old. I’m fairly certain from what I see, that the 2007 ones have been cycled out.

One of my teachers did tell me that gouache (without an acrylic binder) basically is usable unless it has been contaminated with mold. She had gotten a stash of old tubes from one of her friends. The paint itself had thickened inside the tubes to the point that it couldn’t be expressed from the neck, but my teacher was slicing the tubes open to get the dried paint out!

“It’s perfectly good paint,” she said.

I had a bit of deliberation last night, trying to figure out what medium to use. With all the highlights in my drawing, I’m thinking that the opacity of gouache would be best — especially if I’m more concerned about shapes, color, and value, than linework. Using gouache means I can paint light-over-dark, which is not something transparent watercolors are designed to do. Beyond that, I’d have to move to acrylics or oils, and this paper is sized for neither. (Granted that I don’t even use oils.)

Because so many of the regular gouache tubes are single-pigment, they also will likely mix more predictably than convenience mixtures…which I suspect but have not confirmed, occur more in the acrylic gouache. Including the acrylic gouaches from Holbein — the company which makes my most beautiful and treasured traditional gouache.

I spent too much time on my drawing, to color it with dyes and have it fade. And I pretty much don’t want to use masking fluid with transparent watercolors, due to sensitization issues (there’s no way I want to make myself allergic to latex, even if health care has shifted to nitrile gloves); so that leaves me with either gouache or acrylic gouache. I don’t have the earth tones in my more recently-acquired acrylic gouache (and I haven’t yet gotten to the point of experimenting to see if I can form earth tones with the colors I have)…but I may have earth tones, in traditional gouache.

There: initial decision, made.

What I’m basically talking about, where it comes to convenience mixtures as versus single-pigment paints, is the difference between, “Designer’s Gouache,” and, “Artist’s Gouache.” Do I really want to get into that here, now that I’ve mentioned it? It’s…it’s more than I have the energy right now, to explain. Let me just say for now, that the mixing methods are different. I know how to mix Artist’s Gouache; whereas I know of, but do not have intimate familiarity with, mixing Designer’s Gouache.

In particular…I was never really taught to mix black into a color in order to darken it (Payne’s Grey, or a mixture of Ultramarine and Raw Umber, or a neighboring darker color [if I recall correctly]…that’s different), though that is commonplace when working with Designer’s Gouache. It may also preserve some brilliance, but it depends on the black. I had a surprise when mixing black Ecoline with magenta Ecoline, the other day: it turns mahogany!

Clearly, I have a lot to go through before I’m going to run out of things to learn…which is, obviously enough, alluring. To me, that is. And yes, it would be weird if I eventually ended up being an Art Professor. Extremely weird. The reason I’ve chosen not to go for it so far, is the fact that I don’t want to crush little artist’s spirits. Many of my instructors could find constructive things to talk about, in anyone’s work. That’s not necessarily an easy thing to do!

The other thing I wanted to mention is that the drawing from last night was on hot-press Fabriano Watercolor paper. By the time I was near-enough finished, however, I had roughed up the surface of the paper (using multiple foam erasers) to the point where it now feels closer to vellum — unless I’m mistaken.

It’s still not rougher than Arches hot-press, to memory. The latter feels a lot drier and rougher. I need to test it to see if it’s still any good (watercolor paper does age out and get to the point where the sizing doesn’t work as intended).

The Fabriano paper does allow very detailed drawings, which I appreciate at this point. (I’m not sure I’ll appreciate it forever, but that’s getting a bit ahead of myself.) I may want to stick with kneaded or gum erasers in the future, with the Fabriano paper; they would likely both be gentler on its surface. It’s only 25% cotton rag…so I really don’t know how it will perform. That’s the point of making the drawing, although using gouache as versus transparent watercolor or Ecolines, kind of misses my original point…it’s heading way more into a Fine Arts direction, than an Illustrative one.

I’m following through with it, because sometimes the tangent ends up being the real story.

An aside: I have several unread books which apply to what I’m doing, now. Although this is good where it comes to being able to study in this area in the future, it’s also a bit of a dilemma where it comes to what step to take, next. I can study, or I can work (knowing that I’m intellectually not as prepared as I could be).

M advises me to just go ahead and work with the thumbnails, and look at the books, later. That sounds good. I should remember that the thumbnails don’t have to be of any kind of “presentable” quality.

And hey, looking at what I was thinking of doing last night — painting everything in, in shades and tints of one color (Lamp Black) — I get the chance to do that, now! Just not on the surface I thought I would be using…no, I’ll have to draw it again. And again. But I will be looking for the differences in value, majorly…and I can experiment with the coloring.
Ecolines

November 23rd, 2022
I’ve been able to get back to the experimental illustration I started a little over a week ago. There were several points I was paying attention to:
1. Do I enjoy this work? (Answer: yes)
2. Am I capable of doing this work? (Answer: yes)
3. How do my art materials work together in this instance? (This was made with Ecoline transparent watercolors, on Fabriano Mixed Media paper…I want to try hot-pressed Watercolor paper next, and there’s nothing stopping me)
4. What does this look like when scanned and uploaded? (See below right)
5. Is it feasible to work a comic on paper as versus making it born-digital? (Answer: probably, but it might be more stressful than it has to be)
At the ice rink (check the knee skew)

Right now I’m fairly fatigued. I’m writing this out because unless I push myself, I’ll probably miss out on recording my immediate experiences. I’ve probably already waited too long to catch all of them.

Working with all of the materials I had to engage, was actually a nice thing. I did learn some things directly. One: adding color to lineart is going to be messy. It’s to my advantage not to overwork areas in an attempt to “fix” something which may become a serendipitous point of interest in the final image. Two: Layering colors, to an extent, can draw attention away from the mess. Three: the Ecolines look massively better when they’re mixed with each other! Four: I understand now why one of my teachers tried to encourage me to be messy (as versus perfectionist). There is no perfection in this. Only difference.

And, of course, the more you try to correct a perceived mistake, the worse it may get. That would especially seem to be so, where it comes to watercolors — though I’d actually go a step further like someone here, and call Ecolines, “inks,” not, “watercolors.” The reason for this is that they’re dye-based, whereas most quality tube (i.e. not liquid) watercolors are pigment-based.

(I probably shouldn’t get into Lake pigments…which are essentially precipitated insoluble dyes which act as pigments [but may fade], if I’m correct. But that essentially moves beyond the difference between solution [dyes] and mixture [paints], to more obviously Chemistry-centric thought that I have a hard time engaging after a couple of decades out of Chemistry class.)

Dyes are great for illustration, where you don’t want to obscure your underlying linework; not-so-great for longevity, where you want, in a sense, to time-proof your work. Illustration media aren’t necessarily meant to last over centuries or millennia in the same way Fine Art media are. We should be happy that the original Astro Boy illustration boards even still exist…

I have read that watercolor itself has only been considered seriously as a Fine Art medium, with the introduction of permanent, lightfast pigments. But that kind of begins to lead me down the road to discuss the use of commercial pigments as artist’s materials (e.g. the whole thing about Quinacridone Gold [PO49])…which I don’t have either the experience or education to talk about.

Then there’s the obvious caveat that a very large number of old oil paintings really don’t convey the same experience as they did when they were new, due to the darkening of varnish and the use of fugitive colors. The term fugitive colors is applied to colorants which change in nature, over time — by UV exposure, exposure to air, exposure to microbes, etc.

I’m not certain when the whole, “colored pencil drawings aren’t real art because they fade,” argument came into being, or, “watercolors aren’t real art because they fade,” similarly. It’s just extremely hypocritical when you have a bunch of brownish oil paintings in museums. I mean, seriously. No one knew they weren’t supposed to be like that, until they tried to clean them. I suppose one can cite naivete…

Then there’s the whole gender issue at the Bauhaus (women could paint in watercolor but were discouraged from oils), which seems ridiculous to me, but I would have been supremely anachronistic in that time period, anyway.

So you have dye-based colorants — which may change in character over time (though this isn’t an issue if they’re immediately scanned into an archival digital format like .TIFF: I went cheaper at a 1200 dpi .JPEG [much simplified for the Web]) — and pigment-based colorants, which are more permanent as a rule, but not necessarily totally permanent. Pigments are small particles, dyes are not: it’s harder to bleach a particle or oxidize a particle, for example.

When one is working digitally, however — that’s a totally different ball game; and it is worth it to ask whether, when something is intended to be seen digitally, is it worth it just to create it first in a digital environment?

I’m pretty sure that falls down to personal preference…there are aspects of working digitally that just do not compare to working by hand, on paper or canvas, instead of a tablet. The softness or snap of a brush, or the blossoming qualities of certain watercolor paints on certain papers (and not other papers)…I would not expect to be mirrored exactly in a digital environment.

This is precisely because it varies so much in a real-world environment, and there are so many issues at play (such as the dampness and absorbency of the paper, the amount of water in [and characteristics of] the brush, the quality of touch, the quality of paint, etc.: I have four different Prussian Blues which perform four different ways on the same paper, despite using the same pigment [yes, I was nitpicky]).

That’s not to even get into the differences in lead constitution between different brands of graphite pencil…(Derwents, as a class, are the most crumbly graphite pencils I own, for example…it’s kind of annoying.)

But that’s edging beyond my level of knowledge. I did take a number of classes in Digital Art, but I’m still not experienced enough to really know what I’m talking about. In five years, I might have better insight.

What I can say is that I don’t think digital art will ever fully replace the experience of making traditional art; but there are definite advantages to digital art. The ability to delete what you didn’t want to do: but did anyway, is one of them.

Most of the work on the above scan — inking and coloring (by hand, obviously, from my errors) — was done on the 22nd. I’m much better (much more practiced) at monochrome drawing, than with colors; the thing is, I’m very into color. Much more so than one might be able to tell, from looking at this blog. I think that a fascination with color is an advantage from the start: especially, looking at how difficult it can be to use color effectively.

I am not a professional Illustrator at this point; but given my current employment options, combined with my personal constitution, it’s attractive as a vocation. That’s if I can get my skills up to a professional level, which will not come without my believing in myself enough to devote time and presence of mind, among other resources, to practice.

I am coming to the point of acknowledging that my imagination is probably one of my more extreme strengths…which can be a double-edged sword. I’ve mentioned before, some of what can go along with that — especially given the fact that I deal with mental configurations which include both a tendency to catastrophize, and a vulnerability to false beliefs (which…you know, those two things could be the same).

This is the major reason that I veered away from Creative Writing after my Undergraduate degree was over. To a lesser extent, I got into Visual Arts when I realized how challenging it would be to have control over a world of my own making, when my mind had not been reined in.

There does seem to be something to the analogy of trying to ride a wild horse, when it comes to mental health…

…I say, never having ridden a horse. Not even once, neigh?

(Now I’m unconsciously getting into polyglot humor. I’m sorry.)

There’s a lot that changes in twenty years, including one’s self-knowledge, and ability to notice when one starts spiraling in a direction one does not want to spiral down. I’m sure it’s noticeable from the backlog of posts, here, that I can start to go off on a tangent and then, by surprise, maybe the post’s primary content ends up being that tangent. I’m not entirely sure why it happens…I’ve just been told to keep writing.
Sometimes you need experience to gain insight

November 20th, 2022

My XML class is in its final weeks. I remember having written some time ago that by the end of this class, I should have some idea whether I would want to go back for more intensive XML training. The answer to that question is unequivocally, “no.”

This has been a good thing to realize, prior to attempting to get a job which deals heavily with XML. Markup is not a big deal — and I may want to pursue HTML and CSS, further — but Computer Programming, is a big deal, for me. A lot of the manipulation of XML for use cases is conducted within Programming and Query languages…which are not necessarily easy things to learn. I’ve gotten tripped up on both of them.

Wend your way

I have realized that I have other strengths that not everyone has, that I should not discount; and that possibly, my past training in both Writing and Art were not missteps. Possibly, neither was Social Science. Or, Ethnic Studies. Both of the latter help me better understand the people and world around me.

Maybe, that is, I just did the best I could at the time, and my best wasn’t as bad as I had thought.

Librarianship…is different. Librarianship was a choice offered to me by a vocational institution, out of a list of jobs they could prepare me for. I do not feel their “help” was all that helpful, at this point in my life. What they gave me was a 12-year detour and another diploma…in something I may not actually want to do.

I am not certain at this point that Librarianship, as a field, even contains the type of work I primarily want to do — that is, the work that is my reason for living — though I see some subfields which could be tolerable as income streams (Cataloging). Problem is, I may have to relocate to get those jobs, and it seems most of those jobs are not even in my general region of the country — nor are they in regions I would want to move to.

Maybe the people who had those jobs didn’t want to live there, either.

As for the areas in which I find both ability and pleasure? These would be creativity, creative process, language, and literacy; writing, reading, and art.

These things have pretty much nothing to do with being a front-line Civil Service worker, even in a Library setting; but that’s what I’ve done for the last ten years of my employment. I realized over the course of those jobs, that I’m not psychologically suited for public service. I’m just very much, too sensitive; and I ruminate for too long. I can change the latter, but probably not the former.

I just tried working with “people” because I thought I had to do it. I thought that if I did it instead of avoiding it, it would get easier. Unfortunately, anxiety in dealing with people isn’t necessarily subject to exposure therapy. It’s not the same thing as a phobia.

The only way this gets easier is that people stop trying to test you so much, when they have seen you before. Whereas people throw all kinds of mind games at you, if they think you’re new.

That kind of interaction, I can very well live without.

Time

I also realize that my time is precious: this last semester, I could have been taking a class in Speculative Fiction instead of XML. That would have put me into a good position for many of the projects I could be dealing with now, which I didn’t realize I might deal with until the 18th of November, when I listed them out.

For that matter, I could have been reading things I wanted to read, rather than reading poorly-written technical books on a topic I may never utilize.

I think I’ve realized why M keeps asking me to prioritize what I really want to do: because she recognizes that — in my trying to make Librarianship work as a career for 12 years now — I haven’t been doing what I’ve wanted, and I seem a bit lost. It’s possible she feels a little responsible for this, having supported me through Library School and having pushed me to complete the program (but not expecting I would choose to work as much as I did, in my last position).

Genre

I am still uncertain what genre my work falls into; though if the answer to that is, “none,” I know I’m writing Literature. (There are some in-jokes about this, where it comes to authors who publish in Science Fiction and Fantasy [SF/F] journals.) Of course, it would heed me to actually do the work before trying to figure out my genre. It would likely clarify much more than I can understand from a theoretical standpoint.

In turn, it helps to read if you want to write. Fiction authorship works best if it is first modeled, in my case; and I haven’t really read any Fiction, recently. That kind of thing, will make it hard to begin.

Most of the reading I’ve been attracted to on my own, has been Speculative Fiction — from way back with Dragonriders of Pern and Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, moving forward into The Vampire Lestat and Violin, most lately in The Left Hand of Darkness, etc. That doesn’t at all mean that I’m a writer of Speculative Fiction; only that I’m influenced by it. I was trained into Literature and tend not to base my writing around a setting or world; I’m more engrossed in character.

It gets to the point where I question just why some of the alienating — and seemingly unnecessary — elements of SF/F recur: sometimes they just seem to be distractions from the quality of the text. (That includes Hugo and Nebula Award winners.) I wouldn’t be surprised if this is precisely why Literature people tend to look askance on this particular genre.

Where the text is precisely an exploration of the world it portrays, that is an entirely different motive for writing than being led first by an exploration of character or an exploration of the art possible in the language, itself (the latter of which, I’ve heard is expressed maximally in Ulysses; but I haven’t read it yet, to confirm).

And then…there is the fact that SF/F elements can occur in Literature. As regards what makes something Speculative Fiction as versus Literature; I’ll just have to continue research on it, now — and keep reading.

What I know is that I’m not totally into Worldbuilding, because the question arises: Worldbuilding, to what end? For me, that really is the crux of the matter. If my characters’ relations to their world/setting are irrelevant to the central question that the writing engages, it may be the case that I’m not writing within the Speculative Fiction genre…but I’m really not sure. I know for a fact that I have not studied it: I never got the chance to (and just blew my last one).

Blogging versus Authorship?

Something that came up over the past few days, is realizing that blogging is likely a form of Social Media, for me. It’s relatively easy, therefore, to pour a lot of time into it…when I could be using that time to do work which could be publishable in a way which is not just short-term self-publishing, online.

There’s also the fact that when I’m writing on my blog, it inherently pushes away the topics which are still relevant and need to be worked out; but which are not suitable for consumption by the public, at their present stage of development. Either this, or it helps generate a record of these topics — but then I have to excise them from what I post. They’re generally off-topic obsessions, or so undeveloped as to be risky to publish (either due to misunderstanding, or to being explored by someone else before I can get to them).

If I want to publish traditionally, I need to keep my work relatively private until I can get a contract. This is one of those things that I learned in Undergrad. Much of the time, a Publisher seeks First Publishing Rights, which I won’t be able to give them if I’ve already published to the Web, on my own. 50 Shades of Grey is not the norm, that is. Nor is My Milk Toof.

There are many benefits to publishing traditionally — including serving as a prerequisite to being accepted into a Creative Writing MFA program. Again, though: the MFA is valuable if you want to teach. If you don’t want to teach, is it also that important? It depends on how much focused attention you want or need on your own work — kind of like an Art MFA.

Prestige is also a factor, though it may only matter in Academia — or from within the Publishing industry, itself. Looking at my CV, however, it’s fairly obvious that I haven’t particularly ever been after prestige.

Contracting with a Publisher means that there will be a lot of work other than the writing portion which they will take care of, particularly in Marketing, but also in Graphic Design, Printing, Distribution, etc. I’d also likely get my own group of Editors to work with.

The major issue with traditional Publishing is that I have to be prepared to face a vast majority of rejections — as any author (especially a previously unpublished author) would. I have heard that if you send out 100 queries and three of them aren’t a straight “no”, you’re doing good. That’s assumed to be with a Creative Writing degree; I was told this in Undergrad.

There are also the time and response components. Blogging has a fairly immediate turnaround between posting and seeing people’s responses — even if it takes me two or three days to write a quality post, and one to three days to have everyone see it. I can’t expect that kind of immediate response, if I’m writing for myself. That means I need to be able to handle delayed gratification, or essentially working on my project for my own pleasure, and be able to tolerate the fact that other people don’t know about it.

Of course, this could be mitigated with a Writing Group/Writer’s Circle…but there’s also the question of whether I even want to try that, outside of a University setting. (It’s hard enough to share, in a class; let alone where it’s solid that I can’t trust anyone and there is really no recourse to “off” or immoral behavior other than leaving, or legal action.)

Yeah, the “people” factor may be the most difficult issue in Writing, too…

Illustration

The other things I wish to develop — outside of this class, which should end in a matter of weeks — are my Drawing and Painting skills. At this point, I’m confronting some inertia in getting back into them, as I’ve been doing “official” (i.e. XML) work during the daytime, and am not yet used to having the possibility of free time while I have natural light. Daylight is acting like a countdown timer for me, which is kind of disconcerting.

I can’t exclusively depend on the idea of Art as, “play,” or, “reward,” because that decentralizes it in my life. Though, granted, when I was using Art as a reward, I was getting much more work done than when I wasn’t. I was trying to squeeze all the reward possible out of that time, that is.

For that matter, I’m not used to the option of working with my Art materials, at all. Both Writing and Art have kind of been shoved off to the side, as things one does in their leisure time. My society supports this view by the fact that most artists and writers have to have, “day jobs,” to survive.

But if I want to become a professional Writer or Illustrator…I really need to work, to hone my skills and to further develop a portfolio — in addition to seeing if I really want to do this. I already know that I really want to write. The question here is whether to split my time between Writing and Art…because I can do both, but I don’t have the time, necessarily, to fully pursue both (unless I’m able to remain unemployed and still survive, which in turn is dependent upon my support network).

The fact is that there is a lot of reading I want to do, and Art requires a substantial time (and energy, and money) commitment. However, if it keeps me sane while I’m working on my writing — which it does — that is a reason to keep doing it, and integrate it into my workflow. Even if it doesn’t end up being particularly important as regards my career.

When I went back to Community College and decided to focus on Art…it was partially to see if I even really liked it anymore. Or, at least, liked it enough to make a Graphic Novel, as versus a literary novel. I was still working out issues of medium, that is — and it’s fair to say that I still am.

I apparently liked Art enough to follow the courses through to an AA…though how anyone uses their skills after training, is really up to them. I’m still trying to fight against the bias that says that if I can do my own work, it must also be easy for everyone else, too.

That’s not how it works, okay.

Establishing priorities

I did smell a couple of my Ecolines, and the most I smelled was just a relatively mild vinegar scent. (I wasn’t able to identify it until after I smelled a bottle of pen cleaner to remind myself of what ammonia smelled like. It is certainly not ammonia.) I hadn’t been using the Ecolines because it has been so incredibly cold that I hadn’t wanted to even take the risk of having to vent the house. But vinegar should not bother me.

Maybe I can bring in some intention. If I wake up around 5:30 AM tomorrow again, instead of checking my phone, I can do my 15 minutes of free-writing and then go and experiment with the Ecolines. I mean, I can just start my day early, instead of going back to sleep. I should then be up for dawn, which hits at about 7 AM. Sunset hits at about 5 PM, which should give me 10 hours of work — though I know for a fact that I won’t be able to work the entire day through.

That means to get to bed at a decent time, tonight; further, this means to get ready for bed early enough so that I can go to sleep, if I want to.

This also means, maybe, to slip in some time to write by hand, in between dinner and bed. It would allow me to stay away from screens late at night…although that point has been surpassed at this time, obviously.
This is actually…fun.

November 15th, 2022

Instead of working on muting colors and turning them into chromatic greys like I thought I would at the end of my last entry, last night took a different turn. I keep getting out of bed relatively late (although I do keep waking in the very early morning, as well. Today, it was before dawn).

Because I’ve found that working on study and assignments first and then rewarding myself with dedicated time for Art, greatly eases my stress, I’ve been working on my XML coursework in the daytime. (I’m feeling better about that now, by the way. I think that the Art practice is increasing my resilience to stress.) This does mean, unfortunately, that by the time I’m ready to work on Art, it’s either afternoon or evening.

I don’t entirely trust my sense of color under artificial lighting; but what doesn’t change under artificial lighting is my sense of, “value,” or of the differences between light and dark. So, last night, instead of trying to work out color dynamic issues under artificial lighting, I drew.

This time, I worked on Fabriano Mixed Media paper. I really love this paper. It withstands graphite, erasing, pens, and Ecoline liquid watercolors, at the least, and it’s nice and hard. I haven’t gone in heavily with the Ecolines — I (nervously) tried them a long time ago — but from what I see online as regards this paper, it looks promising.

Unfortunately, my normal art supply outlet has stopped carrying this specific variant of paper. I’m pretty sure the pandemic and economic issues, have to do with it.

I’ve also reviewed the Material Safety Data Sheets for Ecoline Liquid Watercolors. At least since 2016 (which is when I largely stopped doing Art: my program ended and I went back to Library School for a couple more years), they haven’t been toxic. This means I should be able to go ahead and use them without ventilation.

I remember reading some time ago that the fumes could cause a drop in blood oxygen levels; but seriously, the memory is vague, and may have been a dream. It was a very long time ago, and was related to my concern about aniline dyes.

How do they make Ecoline so transparent, that is? Most other liquid watercolors at least have (or have had) sediment!

I also read that aniline smells like rotten fish, so I should be able to tell if I’m working with it. Realistically, I have no idea if Ecolines contain aniline dyes; it’s just a fear I’ve had. I’ve also had times when things have been mislabeled as being hazardous when, in reality, they didn’t merit the warnings. That could factor in, too.

In any case…I’m both trying to be easy on myself in getting back into drawing (thus, I’m trying to give myself permission to draw things I know how to draw, when I haven’t drawn in…I don’t know how long), and also trying not to harp on myself too much for drawing something that comes relatively easily.

Something in me is pressuring me to dive into the deep end as my first act instead of wading into the shallows, when I haven’t swam for so long, that I’m not even sure I remember how to do so. Of course, though: I’m not going to drown if I can’t draw something. At the most, my ego will be bruised.

I can also tell, now: there are some things I haven’t forgotten. Muscle memory — or visual ability, whatever is employed in visualizing an image and working out visual problems with the execution of translating it into reality — these things, I haven’t lost.

Contrary to how I used to feel: in drawing the above, I actually found it fun to see things in my mind in 3-D, and then translate that to a 2-D form. It used to be hard and annoying, but now (having gone through several rounds of Figure Drawing) it’s more of a challenge. It means breaking something down into its underlying arc of motion and assembling underlying forms (beginning with the bones), before adding in flesh and then clothing.

(Of course, there are also all the surroundings to draw; I didn’t get into that, last night.)

I do tend to still start drawing figures, with the eyes. I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, about that. There are times when the gesture of the figure — their overall arc of energy and flow — is more important than where the character is looking. Right now, though, I’m letting the eyes suggest the internal feeling of the character’s pose, and the camera angle say something about my approach to that character.

As I begin to move more thoroughly into drawing gestures, though — whole-body representations of embodiment, feeling, emotion — I hope my drawings will end up being less stiff, and more fluid. Even if life isn’t really like that, stories (here I mean to reference Sequential Art, though this also applies to Fiction) aren’t, at heart, literal representations of reality. That’s not what stories are for.

What they are for, or what they do, is a good question, and one I don’t have the energy to consider, at this time. It’s a big question; a culturally-dependent question; and one I may be able to find an answer to by a combination of my writing practice, reading about Creative Writing, and taking classes in Creative Writing. But I can’t put it into words, now. I’ll need to come back to it.

In any case: neither Creative Writing nor Art, are about reproducing reality. There are bigger things at play. Even with Hyperrealism, the artist chooses their subject: it isn’t random. That choice of subject is a place where the artist has agency — the ability to say something larger than just making a photocopy of reality for its own sake.

Anyhow, I’ve recently been looking at foreshortening and rendering figures in space. I’ve had to. And right now, hands and hand positions are a significant challenge (which give further insight into the character’s state of mind). I’ve been able to work with this, in what I’ve done so far. It just has to do with breaking down the body into its component shapes and volumes, and understanding that we don’t always see everything flat-on (if “flat-on” actually exists in a 3D world).

It also means it’s OK to forgive myself for starting off by making a figure’s eyes relatively giant, when what I’m actually after is less obviously cartoony. The image I’ve posted above, I’ll need to revise in order to shrink the near eye back to an only slightly enlarged form. I can see where to work, next: just take the upper lid a bit lower at the corner. I can also see where I might want to round out the skull at the hairline on the right.

It’s possible to re-draw things like this; just annoying when the face is established with the cartoony eyes, and then has to be readjusted to have a more realistic underlying skull. I think that the more I can move away from the eyes as a focus, to the whole body and being and gesture as a focus, the easier it will eventually be to keep my own desired proportions in my drawings.

But then, I’ve been developing my style, for…a long time. For me, when I can look at the cartoon and recognize in it a person who might exist, or a person who inspired the cartoon, that is a place I want to be.

Anyway — I wanted to scan that image before I worked further on it. Up next, after final corrections, are inks: I can do this with or without natural lighting. I will lose this original framework after erasing, though, which is why I went to the effort to scan it, in the first place.
Mess

November 14th, 2022

Initiation

I was actually able to open the rest of the Liquitex Acrylic Gouache pots, on the 12th. I kind of wish I had asked someone to photograph my hands, after I was done: it’s one of those things that will make you feel like you’re actually an artist, to have your hands covered in spots of paint which you’ve tried to wipe away, but have mostly just succeeded in smudging more spots of paint onto yourself from a dirty paper towel.

Yes, I did immediately wash my hands after opening all the pots (it wasn’t worth it to wash my hands after each pot, and I didn’t have the foresight to wear gloves). I also clipped all my nails today, including the ones which I just barely scraped the stains out of, as I’ve started regularly flossing again (thus putting my hands in my mouth).

Of course, I later got fountain pen ink all on my hands, which is usual for pen maintenance. But this post isn’t about that.

Toxicities and safety

As I have said before (not necessarily here), I am grateful to my past self for having thought ahead about toxicities. I have apparently succeeded in avoiding the use of paints with known toxicities, at least recently (with the Liquitex Acrylic Gouache). Liquitex seems to be good in this regard, as a brand…and I found I have some nice colors from them!

I was sure not to buy anything last time around that carried a Caution Label (as versus an ACMI AP Certification)…which eased my mind greatly. (Note that Golden Paints uses a different system, explained here. They state that the absence of known toxins does not equate to complete safety.) It’s fairly impossible to paint without getting your hand wet from the paintbrush — unless you use gloves, and then the gloves get wet, and God/dess forbid you get paintbrush rinse water under your glove…

Particularly, anything with cadmium or cobalt in it, I’m not using at this time (though I think I have a Cobalt Teal Blue and Cerulean Blue Chromium in my watercolor palette: nothing really compares); I’ve also tried to stay away from Chrome Oxide Green: chromium is another metal to watch for.

And yeah, sometimes a color, like Chrome Oxide Green, just isn’t to my mixing taste. Straight Cobalt Blue, is one of them. I may also be lucky that Aureolin isn’t one of them (this is Cobalt Yellow…which is also rumored to be fugitive [hit Ctrl+F on a Windows device to search for “PY40” on that page; the entry starts with, “potassium cobaltinitrite”]).

There are some other pigments which might just cause sensitization (like Nickel Azo Yellow, a.k.a. PY150 [to the best of my memory]) — although I’ve tried Nickel Azo Yellow (through a dot card from Daniel Smith), and it’s beautiful. In the category of beautiful and causing irritation, I also know about bismuth orthovanadate…or PY184. It’s gorgeous in the form of acrylic paint and has excellent mixing properties, but will apparently irritate any part of the body it comes into contact with.

I did have a very old acrylic tube which used bismuth orthovanadate: the specific paint is no longer being made. The only reason I know it works so well? I tested it before I discarded it. I just had to decide whether its prettiness and utility was worth my anxiety, in replacing it (I’ve had to replace almost all of the heavy-body acrylic paints I bought before 2016: they age when unused, and get gummy).

Hitting home

I pay attention to this stuff now after having had a bout with what I was told by an ophthalmologist was conjunctivitis (it felt like extra loose tissue in my sclera [the white of the eye] that would wrinkle and itch when I shifted my eyes) — which may have occurred because I was brazing a type of brass which could cause that response. (I found this out on inspecting the Material Safety Data Sheets [MSDS] at the location from which I had gotten the brass.) I’ve been told that “conjunctivitis” only refers to an infection called “pink eye” and can’t be caused by chemical fume irritation, but the Internet disagrees (there are too many supporting sites to list, here).

Anyhow, I haven’t had that issue in a very long time. If I hadn’t experienced it, I would likely know much more about silversmithing, now — but I decided that particular craft, wasn’t worth my health. There are a lot of chemical risks, and physical risks and hazards, in Silversmithing (even at core, there are sharp objects and fire). I actually didn’t feel safe in the class. This is the reason I left.

I’m a color nut, so Painting is a very…appropriate outlet, for me. Moreso than Smithing, and moreso than beadwork (the latter of which, in my specialization, is limited by what colors of glass beads can be made). I’ve also known most of my other Art instructors to be much more careful about pigments and Art materials, and the environment.

I think the problem lies more in my psyche than anything else. After all, all I have to do is use a glove and not wash paintbrushes out with my bare hands…or ever touch the surface of the painting.

God/dess, maybe it’s not.

Maybe sometime in the future, I’ll consider working with more hazardous materials…like when I know what I’m doing, better. 😛 Or accept the risk. Or wear a glove. Or when I get my tendency to worry, under control (something I read said that worry was anxiety projected into the future…ah, that was The Anxiety Audit: Seven Sneaky Ways Anxiety Takes Hold and How to Escape Them, by Lynn Lyons [2022]). The thing is: it may only be, “anxiety,” if it isn’t warranted. If it is warranted, and isn’t excessive, it might just be called, “caution.”

Warrant

The problem I’m dealing with is, “baseline high sensitivity to anxiety,” + “risk factors that are real enough to be acknowledged by the Art community and the wider society.” That is: the risk isn’t all in my head. I just notice it more, because my brain is sensitive that way.

I know at least one Art teacher who had breast cancer and is still alive; I knew an artist who died from breast cancer at a very young age; and I’ve known Art teachers who have known artists who have had cancer (I don’t remember the types; only that the specific teacher I’m thinking of, admonished us not to blow pastel dust up into the air [it’s not good to inhale], and not to spray aerosol fixative inside the studio [ditto]. Both of those things happened, anyway — reminding me of high school Chemistry).

I’ve been warned about the case of Jay Defeo and “Deathrose”, where the artist — if I’m recalling correctly — died of lung cancer, which may have been caused by layering and repeatedly carving away white paint.

There are a number of things that could have gone wrong, here. The use and carving of plaster; the use of titanium dioxide as an opaque white pigment; or possibly (I hope not) Lead or Flake or Cremnitz White as a pigment; could all have been factors. So far as I know, lead-based pigments are mostly used in oils, these days. Toxicity in oils is a very large reason I opted to take painting classes using exclusively water-based media.

At this stage, Titanium White — or rather, the pigment titanium dioxide — is known to be a factor in the risk of lung cancer by route of inhalation. Although it isn’t toxic per se, airborne Titanium White — as a free dust — is an irritant to the lungs and is currently classified as a possible carcinogen.

“As a free dust,” meaning the stuff that the students were likely blowing up into the air from the pastels, in my Drawing class (see above).

“Wait,” you say. “Isn’t titanium dioxide used in cosmetics?”

Yes. Yes, it is. So is talc, when talcum powder is said to contribute to the development of cancer when it is contaminated with asbestos. (Of course, who tests the talcum powder before it is used, to see if it has asbestos in it? That would seem to be the crux of the matter, right? That nobody’s testing?) But that’s an entirely different rabbit hole…

Calculated risks

I’ve got to decide whether or not to take calculated risks; whether to make myself temporarily uncomfortable, in an effort to move forward. To keep myself safe, I realistically should have been wearing gloves, the other day. However, I feel relatively okay about it. The exposure is likely negligible, given how soon I washed my hands; the fact that there were no known toxins in my paints; and how rarely I would have done anything like that.

Sometimes, as well: wearing gloves can contribute to exposure by reducing one’s dexterity and making simple tasks, difficult. This is what happened when I got exposed to Cobalt Yellow during a watercolor painting class: I was trying to get a tube of Aureolin open with gloved hands.

The glove reduced my ability to feel and grip the tube, wrapping itself around the cap. I eventually took the glove off to try to open the tube with my bare hand. It wasn’t until I had done so that I realized that the paint had already oozed out of the tube (despite apparently being sealed shut) and spread all over the tube itself because of the glove: thus, all over my now-bare right hand.

I couldn’t feel it because the temperature of the paint was too close to the temperature of my hand; and at the time, all I had to get the stuff off of myself was my watercolor rinse cup, which was already dirty. To make it worse, I was out in the field and didn’t know the location of the nearest sink.

All I got was some mild itching (i.e. “dermatitis”), but that does mean I was exposed to the cobalt. You do not want this to happen: cobalt is toxic.

It’s essentially not easy, if it is even possible at all, to work with Art materials and avoid all health risk. The risk comes with the practice, just like I’d risk myopia, carpal tunnel, and spine issues, if I worked at a computer eight hours a day. Or, like I’d risk my near vision if I worked with tiny beads, a great amount of the time. Or how I’d increase my risk of adult-onset diabetes if I regularly ate a bunch of candies and sodas. Pretty much, life is risky.

The fact is that we can mitigate some of the known and avoidable risks, even if we can’t (or choose not to) avoid all of them.

Color mixing

In any case: Liquitex is fairly good about taking known toxins out of their paints. They also have a “Cadmium-Free” line which is designed to mimic the performance of cadmium pigments, without actually containing any cadmium. These are actually really nice paints! The drawback I can see is that the mixtures are proprietary, so you don’t really know what’s in them; but apparently they aren’t categorized as toxic. (At least this goes for the two I bought: Cadmium-Free Yellow Deep, and Cadmium-Free Red Light. They make a really warm, brilliant orange, together.)

I mentioned last time that I had an extremely difficult time getting the seals off of two of the Liquitex pots (one of which had the interior, donut-shaped seal [that’s supposed to stay there] somehow stuck onto the seal of the paint pot itself). Thankfully, most of the rest of them were nowhere near as much of a trial. I’m…fairly well impressed with the range of reds I was able to find: from Quinacridone Magenta, to a pinkish “Primary Red,” to an orange-pink “Cadmium-Free Red Light.” The middling, “Primary Red,” is not a lipstick red, to my relief.

Reds are one of those interesting color families that have more variation than expected…but then, that could probably eventually be said, for all colors.

I had actually started with a “Primaries” set for the Liquitex, then expanded because I could see that I was kind of past working with single primary colors. The “Primaries” set includes Primary Red, Primary Yellow, and Primary Blue, plus Emerald Green, and Black and White. The, “Primaries,” given here are more like, “Typical-Idea-Of,” though they do lean cool, for my taste. The Blue is close to a Sky or Cobalt Blue (neither of which I tend to enjoy using), while the Yellow is a basic…inoffensive, middling yellow. I love the Red, though; it does lean slightly violet, but not as much as Quinacridone Magenta. Their Emerald Green also leans bluish, which can be an issue if you’re looking for something that looks like chlorophyll.

If I really were at a beginning stage, this set would have worked; the thing is, I’ve been taught to use a split-primary palette. This includes a cool and a warm tone of each primary color. Because my definitions of “cool” and “warm” are a bit confused (apparently the color wheel is not evenly split between “cool” and “warm” colors, and I didn’t understand that violet was considered “warm” until several years after I must have been taught the definition), I’ll just explain the following in terms of color bias.

When you choose your primaries, the primaries chosen will really…affect everything. If you have an orange-leaning red and an orange-leaning yellow, they often make a warm orange (if they mix well, that is. I’ve been on the lookout for a nontoxic yellow pigment which is good at mixing yellow-leaning greens, for years…which I’ve mentioned in at least one past post). If you have a violet-leaning red and a violet-leaning blue (like Quinacridone Magenta and Ultramarine Blue), you get a relatively clean, strong violet. If you mix a green-leaning blue and a green-leaning yellow, they produce a relatively clean green.

If you then mix the colors with the colors directly opposite them on the color wheel, you should get first, muted colors; then, chromatic greys…which is what I’m looking forward to trying out, today. Yesterday, the 13th, I was only painting out the basic straight hues and simple mixes, as these paints are new to me.

Are you hesitating?

The thing is…and this is my analytical/fear-based mind speaking: I’m not sure how this is going to work out. I’ve tried to optimize for the most intense secondary colors…but the thing is, you don’t have to mix Ultramarine and Quinacridone Magenta to get violet. You can also mix Quinacridone Magenta and Deep Turquoise, and you get a redder purple: even with the green component of the Turquoise, the color isn’t strongly muted. Mixing a violet with a less-violet-leaning red, tends to turn out something closer to eggplant, in hue.

(I usually think of reddish violets as “purple” and bluish violets as “violet”…I don’t know how common that is.)

Muting, or the tempering of a color’s intensity, happens when you start to mix colors with biases other than the color you’re aiming toward, or when you intentionally mix a color with its complement (across the color wheel).

I even somehow got an ink blue out of mixing yesterday (close to an Indanthrone Blue color), though my mixes are somewhat of a mystery for me, as I don’t tend to write down what I’m mixing. When you can add upwards of five colors into one mix, and don’t remind yourself of their names as you’re continually adjusting that mix…trying to remember, gets tedious. Active experimentation is easier to manage — at least, in the moment.

The thing about getting paint colors is that each additional color you use, introduces a large number of new mixture possibilities, especially when you’re starting with a split-primary palette. This happens while everything you mix with your basic, chosen primaries, happens to coordinate and harmonize on some level. At a certain point…it becomes clear that using too many different pigments can actually be more of a problem, than a solution. The thing is, which colors you choose for your primaries, matters.

Principally, you can skew the selection in favor of either strong violets (involving blue and red) or strong oranges (involving yellow and red); but getting both at once? I’m not sure I’ve tried it…and I really don’t know what’s going to happen — particularly with complex mixes — when I do.

Of course, David Lloyd, interviewed in Creating a Life Worth Living: A Practical Course in Career Design for Artists, Innovators, and Others Aspiring to a Creative Life, by Carol Lloyd (1997), states that, “failure is built in.” (page 23) An artist has to be open to failure, in order to progress. So maybe today’s work, can be about embracing potential failure. 🙂

Kind of like the failure I got when trying to photograph yesterday’s work, in the intense blue light of early morning…

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the paint brands (or books) I’ve gone over here, today, nor have they compensated me. I purchased the materials I’ve written about in this post, with my own funds. I am not a medical professional, and nothing in this post should be taken as medical advice.
Maybe I should be doing Art?

November 10th, 2022

So…I have gotten to the point of realizing that maybe I really should be doing something with my artistic sensibilities and skills. The below started out as a test sheet for Caran D’Ache Technalo water-soluble graphite pencils, on Canson Mix Media Paper. As you can see, it…developed. I’ll shrink it down so you can have a hope of seeing it all on one screen:

This does have a Brightness/Contrast and Black & White filter applied to it: night photography means that otherwise it has an orange cast and appears dim.

This is another time when I just started something, and — to my surprise — when I keep at it, something comes out. I’m being surprised by this in all areas of my life, right now. It does make me wonder how much of my creative process is simply about engagement (and trust in myself).

I did this today as a reward for re-engaging with my XML homework, on someone else’s recommendation. I didn’t get the right answer on that homework, but what I turned in follows my own internal logic (which did not mirror the computer’s logic). At least it made sense to me, and it was a valid file, which is better than I left off, yesterday.

I question if my heart is in it.

Last night, after having done a few sketches (I haven’t posted them yet; they’re essentially comic art), I realized that I do still have artistic skill, and that maybe I should follow that skill…

I’m looking at working with the art supplies again more in the near future, and putting less energy into the beadwork — the latter of which, looks like a relative dead end. Developing skills in drawing and painting (at which I already have a good start) just seems to carry more possibilities. (I mean: I could be a storyboarder, or a background artist for animated works, or actually do that Graphic Novel work that I’ve wanted to, or become an Illustrator, otherwise.)

I also opened a couple of pots of Liquitex Acrylic Gouache (gouache is opaque watercolor; acrylic gouache has an acrylic binder which means it won’t lift off the paper, later). They were so difficult to unseal (my thumbnails are not that strong) that I ended up only working with two colors: Cadmium-Free Yellow Deep (which I really love), and Quinacridone Magenta. D and I literally had to use pliers to peel one of the seals off!

Because of this, I didn’t experiment as much with the Acrylic Gouache as I would have liked: but someday when I’m OK with being gloved up and using pliers to unseal things (and possibly spraying paint on the table and floor…and myself), you can bet that I’ll be trying those out, more!

Now that I think of it, maybe I should open them, outside the house…in throwaway clothes and an apron and a face shield, or something. The good thing is that I’ve made sure I have no toxic colors in my set. The potential mess, on the other hand…that’s entirely different. The Liquitex also has a chemical smell, but it isn’t a big deal to me, so long as the paints don’t carry a Caution Label.

Today I worked on a pre-primed Blick Canvas Pad (I wasn’t sure what to use; acrylic gouache is a hybrid between watercolors and acrylics), though I also have some other surfaces I can try out. The paint is really, fairly gorgeous: if you like even, flat dispersion. There was a drop in intensity after it had dried, I noticed; but I was mixing an orange-leaning yellow with a blue-leaning red, so the dulling could be expected (orange plus blue are going to mute anything they’re mixed together within). I used a synthetic watercolor brush on the firmer side to apply it, and that was fine (just don’t let it dry in there!).

I had been torn between Liquitex Acrylic Gouache and Holbein Acryla Gouache…it may be worth getting both, if I find I like acrylic gouache, generally. (I know Holbein from their other watercolors…both their transparent watercolors, and their regular gouache, are pretty good.)

I’m also surprised at how closely the Caran D’Ache Supracolor water-soluble colored pencils mirror the intensity of paint — it’s something I noticed offhand, today, when seeing them both at once. If my memory is correct, the Supracolors mimic the color range of Neocolor crayons (they’re made by the same company), but they liquefy much more nicely, to my sensibilities. (I got rid of my Neocolor IIs — water-soluble crayons — because I didn’t like their texture, once wet [or even after they had dried]. I might have been able to modulate that with lighter pressure, smoother paper, and more layers, however.)

The Supracolors really put the Derwent Inktense and Derwent Graphitint pencils to shame, which I feel relatively confident in saying, even though I gave up on the Graphitints after testing two of them out with water and a brush. They sounded like a good idea, as muted, tinted graphite; but they don’t liquefy anywhere near as nicely as the Technalos. The Inktense pencils, I’ve had for a long time, and they’re fine (especially when you want permanence: they won’t move after they’ve dried, even if re-wet), but they need a light touch and multiple layers. Supracolors, on the other hand…they’re just very soluble, and very intense, as I recognized again, today.

Bright colors can always be dulled down; brightening a dull color, though? That takes some skill, but it can be done (try mixing magenta and yellow to get red…or adding an intense color to a dull one with the same underlying and harmonizing tones, which will strengthen the common tones. [These things don’t always make sense]).

It’s been a while since I’ve allowed myself to get back into drawing (as versus painting), though to be truthful about it, until this week, I hadn’t allowed myself to indulge in either, even though I have the tools and media and substrates. Why?

On some level I had been thinking that my art didn’t matter and wouldn’t go anywhere. But I did just get through reading Beth Pickens’ Make Your Art No Matter What, where she asserts that it does matter; that we need vision for the world. That, plus just coming off of a museum visit…it helps.

Not to mention that in my capstone class for my AA in Art, someone did tell me, “please don’t stop making Art”…
I know what this is.

November 9th, 2022
I have, again, been experiencing substantial anxiety…which in this case feels like nervous energy and intense activation. This has translated to going to sleep and then waking up a few to several hours later: being awake enough to do things (mostly, digital things), then going back to sleep, and being able to rest. On Monday, I woke up around 3 AM, and stayed up until about 8 PM. That’s just…a red flag.

That early morning, I finished reading the book, Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles, by Beth Pickens (2021). Given that when I got back into it, I was less than halfway through, and I essentially read it in two sittings altogether, that would seem to be an accomplishment — but like I said earlier, it’s an accessible read.

A thorough review of the book will have to wait (for now), although I did enjoy it. There were also several times I felt myself clearly reflected in the text. I am, for example, a person whose quality of life would suffer if I did not write…which I hadn’t so much connected with an artistic temperament, until reading this book and seeing that I share that with others whom the book is aimed towards. Not working primarily with the Visual Arts, doesn’t mean that I’m not included in a “creative” category.

Learning more about what I want to do

I look at my writing production, and I see I want to write more; a lot more. The clearest indicators I have of my writing practice are my blogs…but there is the point that I do not want all of my writing to be blog posts. It’s just easier to track, here. If only it were as easy to track my writing which I intend (someday) to publish!

That’s easy, you say: just keep printouts. Right? Or a private blog with some obscure domain, and password-protected access.

I do have the materials with which to write: plenty of them. The problem comes down, at this point, to organization: where do I start? Literally, what do I write on? Do I begin with an outline, or “pants” it? (Given my past experience, I think starting with an outline will help, even if I end up changing that outline 6 or 7+ times by the time I’m done.)

I have at least two stories which I can begin working on. One of them originated in a visual context, and I’ve hoped to explore it in a visual context. I’ve actually purchased some blank A4 paper for this, which responds very (very) well to soft pencils, for roughs.

The other story’s characters have been with me since I was a young adult. I’m able to look back on that now as a maturing adult…and I think I’ve found a way to move forward with it responsibly. (In a way I couldn’t as a youth, that is.)

I’m thinking of working on the latter, first: Monday morning, I was able to write out a full page of notes on how to update it and make it personally relevant, for this point in my experience. I really didn’t expect that much to come out when I started writing — I pretty much crowded the page, and wasn’t sure whether to start another one.

Right now, I’m looking at developing the latter work as a piece of prose, as I have been trained to write Literature — and I believe I may be able to do more justice to it as Literature, than as Sequential Art.

I also look at all the things I have and want to read, and see that I want to read, a lot more. Given that I can’t do everything I want to do, maybe I want to have my life revolve around reading and writing, and keep the beadwork (and writing/publishing about Jewelry Design) as a hobby? Or develop my strength in Visual Arts, as versus beadwork?

Of course, I also need a job, in there…which is, in effect, a largely different topic. Over the course of my life, I’ve grown very much to appreciate Library services. But, even as much as I appreciate others doing the work, being a Librarian isn’t necessarily what I want to do.

I’ve been trying to talk this out with people: it is very apparent that I got into Librarianship without full knowledge of what the work entailed. I’m not certain at this point to what extent there actually is even work I want to do, in the Library field. Want to do, and am capable of doing, let’s say.

This XML class (which I’m taking in preparation to become a Metadata Librarian) is very difficult — especially for someone without Computer Programming or Database experience. My frustration with it is coloring my view. I am not a person who has much experience with struggling in academia.

However, looking back on it, everything I’ve done in Library and Information Science which verged on Computer Science, has been really hard for me (HTML/CSS, excepted; but that’s simply markup, not programming). I forget sometimes about having gotten lost in database architecture and SQL; or my horrendous experience in Fundamentals of Programming; or just wanting Intro to Computer Science, to end (which it did, after my stress and tension sent me to the ER with a back injury which made completing the course, impractical).

Particularly where I’m asked to download way too much onto the computer that I work to keep secure, I get edgy in the first place; let alone when I don’t understand what it is that I’m downloading. Or when my computer raises security warnings because the learning tool is acting like a virus.

Maybe I just have trust issues around that: or, likely, I understand (or overblow) the risk. Yes, it’s possible to back up everything on a regular basis, and I know I should be doing so as a matter of course; but I still don’t like being asked to risk my security.

So I’ve been reading, a lot.

What’s surprising me is that a lot of what I want to read (currently, at least), doesn’t overlap with what I want to write about. National social patterns have me curious about larger, global patterns; and the best way to learn about the latter (and thus have a little wider context for the former) is to seek out materials about them.

That is also, by the way, exploration of the wider world in an effort to narrow down where my interests lie; if I want to write nonfiction, or teach. It probably would also enrich my fiction writing, by showing me how people can be different.

Avoidance

From what I did early Monday morning, I’m pretty sure that a lot of my motivation for reading, had to do with anxiety and avoidance of my coursework. I am not sure if I’m dealing with, “burnout,” but I am really tired of this XML class. We only have three weeks to go, meaning I likely only have four more chances left to fail.

I have been working on the course — most recently, today and yesterday — because I know I have to, if I don’t want to totally fall behind and deal with the potential repercussions.

What are the worst of the potential repercussions?
1. Getting an Incomplete and having this purgatory extended.
2. A blow to my ego when I see the final grade.
3. Risking my ability to continue to take classes at this institution (though the teaching at this institution varies in quality, and in reality, I have a cushion of good grades).
4. Jeopardizing my acceptance into a future postgraduate program because of a blotch on my record; thus, endangering my future ability to teach at a four-year College or University. Right now, that’s still a viable career option with no hurdles to cross (other than financial).
That’s pretty much, it. I already have my degree, so the pressure should be off. Still, I don’t think my psyche would handle it well if I just ruined my shot at learning and getting through this, because of my emotional state (at this point: anxious and frustrated; tired, with a little anger).

Engaging or not, is my choice; and I have to deal with the consequences, either way. Aside from a potential emotional breakdown or giving in to the sudden urge to destroy my computer, there are no downsides to doing the work — or, at least, trying to.

Maybe I should frame it as trying to do the work, not as getting the work done. The latter assumes I’ll be successful, which is more pressure than I need, at this point. I seem to have the concepts, but I don’t have the vocabulary, and I don’t have the syntax. And if Metadata Librarianship is primarily this type of work, it’s pretty obvious that I don’t want to do it.

Reading seems to have been my way of calming my anxiety. Of course, I ended up buying a lot of books on my all-nighter, which is — also — significant.

Distance education is better than no education (at least, when the students actually learn — sometimes they don’t, and I know this); but it really does not compare to being taught in an actual classroom, where you can ask questions, hear others’ questions answered, and collaborate in study groups. Classes should be more than reading and doing exercises on your own (like you should understand what you’re doing, in isolation, because you read a chapter about it? Seriously, that’s no way to teach, or learn).

When I step back and look at this, I can see that I’m dealing with reading, writing, Academia, Libraries, and maybe possibly Publishing, as routes of potential employment. I might also be able to do something with my Art skills, but in reality, it has been so long since I have drawn or painted. (Beadwork is something else.)

But hey: maybe I should flex those muscles? I have the paint, I have the pencils and paper and inks, I have the brushes and pens. And I’ve been encouraged to set the Art aside as a reward for engaging with the XML class; as versus avoiding the XML work, through my art.

And yeah, I may have to turn in this last assignment messed up. Do I know what I’m doing wrong? Not really. But I tried. I engaged with something that is indisputably difficult for me. That matters…
A new method

November 4th, 2022

I’ve stumbled upon a method of drafting blog posts which will likely come in handy, in the future.

Last night, I wrote a rough draft of the post which became, Yeah…Maybe I Kind of Love Design, today.

I did it pretty much without beginning with, “Today, I did something,” (or rather, I caught myself: I’ve had to re-edit too many of those posts, once I passed the midnight mark). I knew I didn’t have any photos and I knew I wasn’t going to take photos until I had daylight, again. I honestly didn’t know if we were going to have adequate light today, or more rain (the rain is welcome, by the way); nor did I know whether I’d be able to collect all the photographs. I’d intended to post on Friday or Saturday night, which I’ve found to have the best viewing hours.

Essentially, that first draft took up four pages. I saved the text, printed it, set preliminary Categories and Tags, and went to bed. Today (I think? — I was up before dawn and then went back to bed and awoke again in the afternoon sunlight), I went over the rough draft and edited freely — by hand. These edits probably happened in the morning, before I got chilled and went back to sleep.

Because my original draft had been saved and printed, I didn’t feel the need to preserve my divergences into multiple tangents. In the past, I have tended to preserve these tangents for the sake of flow — and largely as an artifact of the WordPress editor — but it is unnecessary when I know the material is archived, barely related, and later can be put to better use.

I read it over, identified the different logical sections, deleted large sections which were otherwise irrelevant to the core reader (like a digression into wirework, when the subject of the post is arguably bead-weaving). After I had done various line edits to the text itself, I also identified where photographs or other images would enhance what I was trying to communicate.

Before the sunlight went away, I took several photos for each suggestion I had brainstormed — plus more. The large majority of them didn’t make it to the site.

I ended up using all of the suggestions except one, which was a simple size comparison of two types of round crystal beads. These essentially glowed in the sun, against a black velvet background: probably overexposed. I may tinker with this later, but what I got, didn’t look very salvageable.

I also realize that most of the people who may see that post, probably won’t have the background to know what I’m talking about. A difference of about 0.5mm in bead diameter in a 4mm bead, probably won’t matter to most people…but it does make a difference, in beadweaving. It means that one bead is 7/8ths as long as the other, with adjustments to the volume that I don’t care to calculate.

I realize that, in the last post I made especially, I get into a lot of specifics and minutiae which are likely only apparent to someone who is pretty deeply into the craft.

There really isn’t the same type of community of makers on WordPress as there is elsewhere. Because of this, I might as well post what I want to post, and let people find it…or not. I can make the site and the blog what I want it to be, that is.

After I had edited and uploaded my photos, I added in captions, alt text, and went back a few times for a thorough editing-after-editing. I also deleted the Tag which no longer fit my content, after the edits.

I’m pretty sure that’s all there was, to it. I posted before dinner, and now am posting about my process. Not too bad for a 24-hour period!