This monthly post is something you can get via email (which also enters you into a free art giveaway) or by trusty ol’ RSS. Corporate social media gives me hives, but i really want to keep in touch. Leave a comment or reply to the email. If i know you, i probably miss you, and if i don’t know you, let’s fix that. ❥
Art
Oof… three, and that last one wasn’t even mine. My four-year-old niece drew it while we were hanging out. She asked how to draw an alligator, and i said “Basically like a green dog with a really long face.”
…I didn’t want to ask her why only two of its legs had feet, because i was afraid she would change it. It’s perfect.
News
It’s been a rough month, tbh. I pre-emptively evacuated from the wildfires near us, which became a real move (because if you’re taking the stuff you really care about to your new house, you might as well start taking everything of next importance, and so on). It was earlier than i meant to, and it spun everything into disorganization. Summer already makes it hard to do anything at the speed i normally do–exercise, work, read… even my stupid video games are too difficult for me when the temps reach ~28°C/82°F.
The weather is just starting to turn, so hopefully i can give a more cheerful report next month.
Pet Tax
Anecdote
My four-year-old niece doesn’t like it when people color things “wrong.” She asked me to draw the water feature in my parents’ back yard, so we could both color it together. She announced that she would be coloring the water blue.
I said, “Let me show you something. C’mere real quick,” and led her off the deck and over to the water feature, which is a waterfall that bubbles up out of a chunk of grey rock and then flows into a pool filled with smooth, brown, algae-slimed pebbles.
“Is that water blue?” I asked. (It’s definitely not; it’s as clear as water can get, and a tree shades it from the sun for the last half of the day, so it doesn’t even reflect the sky.)
“No!” She looked amazed, as if this had been a magic trick. And also she seemed offended that i had destroyed the imagined reality and replaced it with one that was so incredibly difficult to match with colored pencils.
“That’s okay,” I said. “You can still color it blue, because blue is a symbol for water, and people will understand it. But it’s good not to mistake it for what’s real. If you look at things before you draw them, then you can choose how realistic you want it to be.”
Did she understand it? Probably not. Will it change what you see when you look at things around you? I can only hope so. It’s one of the coolest parts of being an artist, and one that i keep re-learning over and over.
Get Goods
Newsletter Giveaway
We haven’t drawn a name yet! D: I’m so sorry. I forgot my dice in the Handbasket when i came back to my sister’s basement this week. I also haven’t been to the post office in all of August, so i don’t have a scan for you of last month’s reward, either.
I’ll double up in September! ❥
Merch
My shop is back and it works just fine, but i kinda want to show you more work from my friends, so check out these faeries and cats from my friend Liselotte:
You can order these from her here! She also does a calendar with her quirky cats every year, which is superb ❥
