Been Painting

Every couple of years I get an urge to try painting with acrylic. And every couple of years I decide that I don't like painting with acrylic and I never will. That need to paint with acrylic came back around again and this time I decided I actually quite like it, a lot. I've had a pack of paper coasters that someone gave me in my paper drawer for years knowing they were nice and would have a purpose but having no idea what to use them for and their time finally came. They're nice and solid and hold the paint well and they're the perfect size for little paintings.



I want to paint my way though the whole pack but I've stopped painting while the heat is at it's worst (hopefully) because even just sitting at my desk makes me sweat and the paint is going gloopy really fast. But I'll be back to these little paintings. I like the finished paintings but even more than that I liked painting them.



I find brushes really difficult and I can't quite make it do what I want but for some reason this time around none of that bothered me and it was just a good time. I used to find mixing colours really stressful too but I think I've reached a point in my life in general where I'm just like (or at least trying to be like) "it is what is and that's fine" and it found it's way into my painting, maybe it isn't the exact shade I was aiming for but does that actually even matter? I don't think so.
So yeah, keep trying things if you get the urge. If something feels rubbish and you don't want to do it then don't waste your time, there's so much you do want to do but if something was rubbish last time and you get an urge to try again then maybe it wont be rubbish this time :)



I made this vlog over the days I was painting these ^_^

Shop Update ~ Stickers and Kpop Zine

Some recent (sort of, I'm lazy at blogging) new things in my shop. This hand cut set of stickers. I tried a new type of paper for these and I'm really pleased with them.





My kpop fanzine! I worked on this for a long time (not as long as it took Blackpink to have a comeback though) and it's 32 pages of random thoughts and drawings from an old lady kpop fan (me)(not that old)(kinda old tho).



I also made new business stickers, (business cards....but....stickers) and some thank you stickers to use with orders. I put a pdf of the thank you stickers in my shop so you can use them on orders or whatever too ^_^

I'm trying to harness my last post about enjoying summer while simultaneously cursing the heat. It's so stuffy and horrible today and I think my brain is going to swell right up and burst out of my head. I hope your brain is less swollen.

Summer

Tbh I'm not a big fan of summer, it makes me uncomfortable. I get hot and sweaty and can't think straight. I'm itchy from bug bites and the heat itself and also hayfever which as well as making them itchy also causes my nose and eyes to stream. I feel a constant reminder that I am too poor (and therefore useless and bad at life) to afford all the fruit I want to eat because it's fruit weather. The sun feels good on my skin for about a minute then I feel prickly and like I'm cooking. When it's stuffy and humid I feel like I can't breathe properly and my skin rubs on itself.

BUT I want to like summer. So I'm trying my best to enjoy it. I get a similar feeling with summer as I do with nostalgia, it should be a really good time even though you know it wasn't. The difference is that while I can feel nostalgic listening to pop punk and put aside the sadness of my teen years, summer keeps on coming back so I want to embrace that nostalgic summer days feeling and try to quiet the whingey reality of it.

I appreciate the long days and the bright, good quality light. There's no need to have the heating on. Nature's looking pretty good and it's nice to be warm. Juices and fruits taste so much better in the summer, not because they're any different but because the setting is. I can eat houmous with veg sticks for days and not get bored. I (oddly maybe) enjoy the look of bug bites and scratches and bruises that come from being outside in the wild and being able to wear shorts while you do it. Sitting outside and being barefoot feels so good.
My birthday is in the summer so you'd think I'd have a pre-programmed love for it but I just don't, I'm going to work on it though so when I do go outside I can enjoy it a little bit more.

Things The Rats Have Pushed Off My Coffee Table ~ Illustration

I wanted to practise drawing objects because it's good to draw all sorts of things and so that I didn't just pick things I'd find easy I went with things the rats have knocked off of my coffee table. We have the rats on the sofa with us a lot and there's a coffee table next to it and the rats sit on the arm of the sofa and try to steal things from the table. These things are things they've either tried to steal but dropped or things they've pushed out of the way to get to something else they wanted. I love how thiefy the rats are and I think it made drawing this more fun because I was constantly reminded of how adorable them sneaky rats are ^_^




P.S. Them rats aren't at all sneaky but they think they are which is even cuter.

Squishy Cosy Rat Faces

Some squishy ratty faces to brighten our day. I can only get focused, not blurry photos of these guys when they're cosy. Once they wake up they are too zoomy for photos and/or so interested in the camera that they aren't in the frame anymore.







This hammock action also features in this vlog ^_^

New Work ~ Sequin Badges and Second Nerdburger Commission

Two recent pieces of work that I haven't gotten around to sharing here yet.

New badges in my etsy shop, sequin badges no less. It occurred to me that I could just put things in the badge press and seal it into badge form and I love it so much. It's actually quite fiddly to do because if the sequins are too close to the edge the press can't fold it into a badge but I want them to fill the badge so they need to get as close to the edge as possible but that just makes them more satisfying to make. I want to find lots of other things to try it with.

Nerdburger got in touch to commission me again, this time a portrait of her husband to match the one I'd done of her before to use on their Japan vlogs. They've put out 3 (I think) Japan videos so far and I highly suggest watching them along with all her other videos. One of my favourite youtube channels, it's really surreal (and awesome) to see my work pop up whenever I watch ^_^ Thanks Cazz!!

Some Drawings ~ May

Some photos from my phone of some of the drawings I did in May. These are a mixture of sketchbook and diary. I just finished a sketchbook that I've been hoping to fill up for a while, the binding was bothering me and I want to work in a not so annoying book but can't leave a book half empty. I think I'm going to work on loose paper for a bit and stick some bits in to cover the most useless pages but then I might make a flip through video for it. It's not full of amazing drawings like some sketchbook videos but not everyone can use sketchbooks like that and I like the idea of adding a slightly less polished looking sketchbook to the mix. I mean if your final pieces are beautifully layered oil paintings then your rough sketches are probably going to be more detailed than anything I ever do. It's ok for your sketchbook to be an ugly mess of nonsense just the same as it's ok for people to make sketchbooks that could be beautiful finished pieces in their own right. All sketchbooks are good sketchbooks!





My current creative project is finishing a kpop fanzine that I started working on ages ago. I left it totally unfinished to do other things and then thought I should get it finished even though I didn't feel like I was really into it anymore then when I actually started to work on it again I got really into it so hopefully I'll manage to keep working on it until it's actually finished this time :)