 Hi Eve. Hey, we have a good picture, woohoo. So I, yeah, so I think I got the bad picture thing figured out. Woohoo. So we're gonna do some more work on an old canvas this morning. We'll give everybody a minute. Anybody else besides us who are gonna show up, we'll give them a minute to show up. Hey, Shell's the expat. Hey, how are you? Yeah, it's much better. I, you know, after the disaster that was last Monday, I wasn't gonna even try on Wednesday until I figured out what was going on with our internet service provider and it was the internet connection. So, hey Dory, how are you? All right, so before we get started, we're gonna do a couple of standard things that we do all the time. First, we're gonna talk about supporting my channel because you know, I gotta make some money somehow. I'm gonna pay for my habit addiction. I mean, art supplies. So for those who don't know, I wrote a book. It's all about living a creative, self-expressive life. It doesn't tell you exactly how to do that. It asks you a lot of questions to hopefully get you to figure it out for yourself. Anybody who already has a copy knows if you read it, it's very much like sitting down with me with a cup of coffee and let's have a conversation about what you wanna do that's creative in your life and why you wanna do it and how you can do it. And that's what this book is about. It's full of full color artwork and photographs with lots of space for writing and note-taking. You can buy it in my Etsy shop. The link is in the description below. If you do it that way, you get this copy and it's signed on the inside. You can get a paperback version of it on amazon.com or a Kindle version if you go over to Amazon and just type in my name, Gina Aarons. It's gonna pop up and this is the paperback version from Amazon. So it's a little bit smaller and the artwork inside's a little bit smaller but it's still got plenty of room to write on. You know, for those of us who aren't young anymore, the print is still a good size to read and there's plenty of room around the edges to color or doodle or whatever. It's meant to be written in. This paper in the Amazon version is a little thinner than the one you get from Etsy but it's still workable and doable. So anyway, I'd appreciate it if you guys go shop at my Etsy shop or Amazon or something. Second thing, who watched Shemi Dixon's video this morning where she talks about her little swatch book? I did, right before we came on. In fact, I was almost late setting everything up because of that and I forgot to turn the auto focus off. Hold on. Okay, there we go. Now it won't go in and out, in and out, in and out. All right, so Shemi Dixon did a video about a little swatch book. If you haven't seen it, go over there and watch her video and hey, Cindy. Hey, the Shelly Studio. Hey. So if you haven't seen Shemi's video, go watch it. As I was watching it, light bulbs were going off in my brain. Cindy, you know what this is like lately because you're doing it too. So I remembered that I have this in my desk drawer in the office, this little mini binder. This is actually from Avery. I got it like a million years ago. I am not joking. And it does say Avery on the side. It has a little pocket on the inside back cover. I think I got it at Staples but I don't remember and I don't think they make it anymore. And fun fact, when my daughter was like five, she decided that mommy's little binder needed decorations so she stuck these chickens on the cover and they've been there ever since. One of them's lifting, I'm gonna have to glue them down. Anyway, I remembered I have this and that what paper that was in here that was written on, I had taken it out. It's full of blank paper. Some of it's aged and stained, that's fine. But I could make some sort of a little like swatch book or list or something, like when I'm in Las Vegas or somewhere again with my friend Cindy and we're shopping. I don't come home with duplicates or triplicates of something I already have. So I may do one of Shemi's little books in this binder. I only say May because I've done sort of a reference book swatch book before. It's part of journaling crazy island style over in crazy island university but it's a really big book and the problem with is not creating it, it's keeping it up and I seem to have sort of a mental block about that. But I do have this little binder so it gave me the inspiration. I might actually do one in it, isn't it cute? I don't think you can get them anymore. If you can, I don't know where. All right, that's enough of the spiels, right? All right, so now we are going to get started and we're gonna protect our hands first. So we're gonna put on some invisible glove or some art guard or whatever. I have Windsor Newton's art guard. Whatever kind of barrier cream that you have, use that. Yeah, so Cindy agrees with me and you probably all, if any of you who have done one before will probably agree with me, doing it's not a problem. It's keeping it up every time you get new stuff in. That's the part I have a problem with. But I do have this little binder and it did inspire me to maybe do something with it. So rather than just have it collect dust in my drawer. I won't take the chickens off though. All right, so there we go. We're all covered now. And I'm gonna put my apron on because I have a brand new shirt on and I don't wanna get paint on it. So let's put the denim apron on. Alrighty. Now, first we'll talk about the photos. These are all photos I took when I was in Lake Tahoe over the summer and I wanna use them as inspiration to do some sort of kind of abstractish landscape kind of thing on this canvas. Oh, go get your tea, you have time. I'm still chit chatting. I haven't actually painted anything yet. And I have to dry this a little bit. So this was an old canvas and actually had a spoon glued to it. A wooden spoon, let's see. This one, right about here. And I pulled it off. I did leave a hole in the canvas. You can see where some of the canvas stuck to the back of the spoon. So I did patch the canvas with another piece of art canvas on the back using some gel medium. And I made sure it was stuck down good on the back with the gel medium. And then I flipped it over and made sure that it was stuck on the front side too, very good. Then I went ahead and added some coarse texture gel, some modeling paste, some gel medium that had glitter and seed beads in it. Just to, you know, it's already gonna be textury. So I thought, well, let's just do it. So it's still a little bit wet. So we're gonna dry this a little bit before we get started. And if anybody has any questions, it's a good time to ask them. Did you all see that? I think I turned on a heat gun and I think a seed bead went that way. Oops. So yeah, even around my house, if I really love it, then I make sure to seal it with varnish or something, some kind of sealer. And then it can't really get painted over easily, but most of them are not sealed because especially when I first got started, like when I did this one in 2011, so five years ago, I didn't put the month. My guess would be almost six years ago. I had no idea you were supposed to like seal canvas. I didn't know to protect the paint and all that. I had no idea. So lots of the old canvases, they're not sealed, which is probably a good thing because they're kind of ugly, to be honest. I don't think it's completely dry, but we're gonna just go with that. I moved to the garbage can. So in the corner of the camera, you guys wouldn't see that inside of the garbage can. It's just not attractive. But I went to go drop stuff this way and it's not there. That won't work. And I've been repainting these canvases because I'm hoping like with the purple Buddha that you guys decide that you like what I've painted and you wanna buy it. I need to sell some of them. Okay, let's get started now, shall we? Now, normally I would probably go over here with like some Stabilo pencil or something, but some parts of this are still damp and I don't wanna move it around more than I already have. So we're gonna avoid, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna skip that step. I'm going to do sort of a painterly outline now and I'm going to use, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. I think I'm gonna use this Americana paint it's called Asphaltum. I just love that name, I don't know why, but it's this really interesting gray brown color. Hey, Corey, you haven't missed anything, I just got started. So we're gonna put some out on our plate here and we're gonna use this brown color to sort of do our outline. I need a paintbrush, wouldn't be helpful, wouldn't it? And yes, if you hear an obnoxious noise, it's because I have a cough drop in my mouth. So the idea is just to do something kind of abstract inspired by the photos, I don't wanna be too literal but most of these were taken in and around the lake. As you can see, taken during sunset and how pretty was it, I can't even tell you. Lake Tahoe makes me sneeze and wheeze because I'm allergic to pine trees but it doesn't stop me from going there. So I just wanna create something that suggests the light and movement in these pictures. No, I'm reusing an old canvas, Corey. Yeah, I'm allergic to pine trees and I have to say that's nothing that was caused by my injury at work, I've always been allergic to pine trees. So yeah, it kind of sucks, especially when you live in like pine tree central known as California. It's kind of horrible. Pine trees, olive trees and there was another one, pine trees, olive trees, maybe pepper trees. I don't remember now. It's been a while since I had that kind of testing done. So this one has these like ripples in the water and I keep kind of looking at this one but I like the trees that stick up in these too. I couldn't really decide this morning when I got started and I was printing these. Well, at first I was kind of panicking because I couldn't find the photos on my hard drive since I switched computers and I shouldn't do that because I know they were on there somewhere. It just was a matter of me figuring out where that somewhere place was. And this is gonna be the wrong color for a lot of this but this is just a base coat. I'm going to be switching things up and I haven't planned this more than printing the pictures and prepping the canvas might turn out looking like poop. I don't know. Tomorrow, so you guys will get a heads up more than other people will tomorrow. There is going to be a bonus live broadcast. I'm going to be getting my last journal for 2016 ready and I'm gonna discuss what doodle books I plan on working in next year and that sort of thing. So it won't be actual a painting video but yeah, that's coming up tomorrow. So I think we're gonna just do it live because honestly, life is easier than I don't have to like edit things and make thumbnails and to be honest. All right. Now, now, now, now, now. Let's get out some paints. Gray, which I love. You know, I'll know it's my favorite color. I've got the deco art traditions paints also. I'm gonna try to keep the paints separate so that at the end of the broadcast, they can go back in edit in the colors I've used for you guys. One of my favorite colors across a lot of brands but especially the deco art traditions. This is Indian yellow, which is like an orangey golden yellow which I really, I really like. And then what else? So we're gonna get out. I think we'll get out the tomato red. I really like in this one how you have these dark reds in the sky. And I have to tell you, this photo doesn't do it justice. It was so bright and colorful. So it's tomato red. And you know, I'm gonna stick some aquamarine in there because you know why I just am. Now, if you wanted to do something like this using an inspiration photo and just doing it very abstractly, and you wanted to maybe, even though it's kind of a lake scene with trees, but maybe you wanna do it in like purples and pink. So just print your photo in black and white so that the natural color doesn't like to distract you from where you wanna go. And I'm glad. Yeah, I like live streams. They're fun, they're easy. And now that we have the issue with the connection strained out. You know, AT&T, you gotta love them, right? And I do think I need to switch to a different brush because I need to let go of some control. So let's do that. Okay. So I have this big flat brush, which is this is a folk art brush. And I don't know what size it is. The paint handles like completely covered pallet knife. And yes, a spoon. I know you're all like, what the hell is she gonna do with a spoon? This is a plastic spoon. It came with some food that my husband and I got at a local Vietnamese restaurant the other night. And I think we're gonna, I'm gonna do some sort of YouTube thing soon where I challenge you all to do some artwork without any paint brushes. I think that sounds interesting. So remember, even if you're doing, sort of an abstract water scene, whatever's above the water is gonna be reflected in the water, right? So whatever you do up here, you should do down here. And this is just the first layer. So just breathe free with your marks and don't worry about it and you're thinking, ooh, that kind of looks like poop. Well, it's the first layer. There's always an ugly duckling stage. Sorry, my husband is texting me while I'm live broadcasting and it's showing up on the iPad. You guys can't quite see, but it's kind of funny. I swear his hearing is going this weekend. I kept having to repeat myself. He wasn't hearing me. I'm not sure it could have been selective hearing, but I don't know. Hearing loss does run in his family. So I don't know. Okay, now before I add any blue, the aquamarine to this, I wanna dry these because I don't wanna add the aquamarine and then get a lot of purple. So, back with the heat gun. And you just wanna take the shine off of the acrylic paint. That's probably good enough. Okey-dokey. The image was really bad, Eve. Today it's much, much, much better. And yeah, it was just so bad. There was no way we were doing that. It was so bad. Now, because my medium's underneath and we're completely dry, I'm getting little pebbly things that are lifting up into the paint, I'm actually kind of okay with that. And I may pick some of them off as we work the canvas. I may leave them on. They just add interest and texture, so. Yeah, I started out with watercolor, so I get it. I started out with watercolors because they were inexpensive and less messy. You know, they didn't take up tons of room. So, I just wanna put a base coat of this aquamarine in the sky. I'm not gonna cover up everything that we did or the collage in the original background, but. Now, normally I would have the mediums be completely dry and then you could really go in here after you put some paint on and you could really move things around heavily with a baby wipe because the mediums, the texture mediums are not dry all the way. I have to be careful with how much I do. Yeah, you know, we shouldn't be afraid of texture. Texture is one of the fun things about doing mixed media. And I love how Andy Skinner uses crackle pastes and things in his regular artwork. He doesn't just crackle furniture. You know, that's old fashioned thinking. You really can take these and do anything with them. In fact, something like this with crackle paste on it would be really cool. And that's already looking very cool. I like it. All right, I'm gonna put some white on here. I'm gonna put it right into the aquamarine and I'm gonna mix it, but I'm not gonna mix it all the way. So, I know you can see my plate in the corner. It's mixed, but there's lumps of white showing in here. I'm okay with that. I'm gonna take my brush and I'm going to, there's little pebbly things like moving around on my canvas, probably seed beads. I'm gonna make sure I'm getting the edges as I'm going. Okay, I think, I think I think I need more of that white. Oh, that was an attractive sound. I think we're gonna need some green at some point. I know, isn't this color pretty? That is the Decowart Media, sorry, Traditions Artist Acrylic in Aquamarine. It's gotta be my favorite Decowart color, honestly. Now you notice I covered up all the brown. You can still kind of see some of it. That's okay. Don't worry about it. Let's see, I'm gonna just do this. I'm gonna take some of my paint white and put it in some of my paints gray. I like to have, I want to have the water be cooler. I don't know, I wanted a different color blue than the sky. I don't know if I want it cooler or warmer. This is pretty warm up here. We're gonna try the paint gray down here. This is paints gray and white. Now, not all paints gray paints are created equal. Some of them are more blue than others and some of them are more black or gray. Every brand is different. The Decowarts is pretty blue. And I like that, I prefer it to be blue. And like I said at the beginning of the broadcast, this is a old canvas that wasn't done very well the first time. If I screwed up this time, it's fine. Probably was headed for the trash bin anyway. So whatever happens, it's fine. Make sure I get the edges. Now, when I'm doing canvases like this, I don't always do a lot of cleaning of the paintbrush. I don't mind the kind of secondary accidental colors that we get, they don't bother me. One thing about using all these texture pastes and mediums is that you use up a lot of paint getting into the nooks and crannies. The one thing in this, if you're gonna do like one of these scenes where you show the shoreline, that is the one thing that you wanna have be a straight line where the earth meets the water will always, or the sky meets the water will always be a straight line. So that's the one part you wanna have kind of be straight-ish. Is straight-ish a color? I mean, a word. Maybe it is. It is. Now, and it's supposed to be abstract. We're not trying to paint exactly the photos from Lake Tahoe. I'm just using them as inspiration. If I wanted an exact representation of those photos I took, well, I'd blow the photo up and hang that on the wall. This is supposed to be an art piece. And anybody who's visited Lake Tahoe knows it's really all about the lake and the water and how beautiful it is, how blue it is. So this painting should be all about the blues and the water. I love what's happening too. And I haven't planned it. We don't, I don't plan things, generally speaking. Not very often. And when I do try to really work with a plan then I really struggle with the results. I'm usually not happy to be really honest. I really like the work better that comes out when I have no plan. I know that's probably kind of goofy, but. And when you do these kind of water pictures, water scenes or water inspired pictures, you're gonna lose, use a lot of blue. So I wouldn't put too much out on your palette unless you have one of those stay wet palettes. But definitely don't put the tubes away because you're gonna need them. So the modeling paste and texture paste help create some movement and depth, of course. And then the way you apply the colors help do that also. And like if I'm just using blues, like this is more of a blue-green, it's a lot warmer than the Payne's Gray which is a lot cooler. So this one adds a lot of shadow and this one adds a lot of light. I think Cinnamon Cooney just did a video on that recently, didn't she? Maybe. That's too, a little bit too much like the sky color. But now I got it on there, so we're gonna make it work. It's a make it work moment. And if some of these base layers were drier, I would just wipe it off, but they're not. So we can't do that. I'm gonna add some brown. Suddenly though, even though that was kind of probably an accident putting that turquoise on there, I'm kind of liking where that went. Don't forget if you have any questions to ask them. I'm running out of clean surfaces to put things on. And look at my baby wipes again. My least favorite medium. That's a great question. And it's one that might surprise you because I know it's most of your, one of your favorites, most of you. Ink sprays. Any of the sprays, they're not my favorite. They're messy, the things clog all the time. They drive me up the wall, to be honest. I would rather water down some paint or some watercolor, but I do own some ink sprays. I own more. I sold some of them off. They're not my favorite. I know that's probably shocking to somebody. So I'm gonna take out some black. And of course we're gonna add purple because purple is just my color right now. So it's not complete without purple. So dioxazine purple. And look, I have no more room on my plate. Yeah, so the sprays are not my favorite. I don't mind oil pastels. I did sort of have to take a couple classes to learn how to use them, but I don't mind them. They're not my favorite, but they're not my least favorite either. So I wanna start with the purple because I don't know, I just do. Oh yeah, purple just makes things pop. See, colored pencils, if you just had me use colored pencils by themselves, kind of not my thing, but that being said, I like using them in conjunction with paint and collage on a mixed media background. Solid knife. You guys just knew that purple was gonna come in here somewhere, didn't you? At some point. I mean, honestly, it seems like purple is just my thing right now. Charcoal. I like charcoal. Charcoal's fun. You have to seal it though. See, I just think this is all about the purple. I love the purple. It is messy. And honestly, and it makes me cough and wheeze, but I love charcoal. My favorite way to use charcoal though is in a charcoal pencil. That's a lot of fun rather than charcoal sticks. Charcoal pencils are more fun and less messy. And they can be smudged and move around with water or mediums like your Stabilo pencil. Okay, I'm gonna move some lights around. Hold on, let's see. It's better. Glare is better, but it's not completely. Yeah, charcoal, try a charcoal pencil, Cindy. I think you might like it better than traditional charcoal. Lots of people don't like traditional charcoal because it's messy. But I have charcoal pencils somewhere. Yeah, here's one. You know, they're one of those ones where you peel it back. It has a string. And charcoal dust is fun to put on a page and rub around with your fingers and then paint a picture with your fingers. It's very expressive. Yes, that's a good idea. I've got some packs of Nuke and tell Aqua Brushes, let's see. There's still a little bit of glare in the camera like I can see right here, but it's also really wet right there. I like where this is going. It's not going where I expected it to, but I like where it's going. But isn't that generally the way of things? Okay, let's grab just a little bit of that Indian yellow and I'm gonna mix it into the white. I think I should just give up trying to find a clean spot. What do you think? So sometimes when I do palette knife work, you know, I wanna leave the marks that the knife leaves. Sometimes I want to smudge them with a baby wipe. In this case, we're gonna do a little bit of both, right? I didn't plan on that, but it does. And it's very, you know, intended to be very abstract. So, you know, we're not looking to paint a realistic portrait of any of these photos. You know, it's suggestive of a landscape. You can kind of tell that's what it is, but exactly what landscape you don't know. It has a lot of depth, which I wanted of texture and color, and I didn't want that on here. So remember what I said, whatever's up here, if this is a water scene, it needs to be reflected somewhere in some way, at least a hint of that same color and movement down below in the water. It doesn't have to be in the exact same shape. The color should be similar, but it should be reflected there somehow. I remember the first time one of my teachers told me that and because I was working on a water scene and it just wasn't coming together for me, it wasn't quite right. And all she said, she didn't tell me how to fix it. All she said to me was, remember what's above the water would be reflected in the water. And as soon as she said that I went, aha, I knew exactly how to fix it. Oh, thanks, Cindy. I'm just playing, honestly. Let's see, let's grab some of our blues. So I don't want this too dark, but I don't want it. They will just keep practicing and playing. They will. I'm lucky so far for the most part on camera when I'm doing this that things turn out because it seems like when I'm painting and the camera's not on, I struggle more. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm not thinking about it as much because my mind is occupied on making sure I'm watching the chat. I don't know. It's interesting though. So there would be a big shadow right here because whatever this tree or mountain shape is would be reflected in the water and there would be a big shadow right here. So you wanna kind of dirty this area up a little bit. Oh, I got some yellow in there. I don't know that I wanted that yellow in there but it's in there now. I don't necessarily want it to be as dark as this up here because then I think that's too dark. And then it just looks like a blob. So I'm gonna put some of the color and then I'm gonna move it around with my baby white as much as the wet canvas and wet texture paste will allow me. And I'll just keep adding paint layers and moving the paint around until I like what I see. Those of you who don't know who Pauline Agnew is, she's a really fabulous teacher out of Ireland. She has a couple of abstract painting classes coming up, paid four courses that seem like they're really fabulous. I've taken a lot of classes from her. I missed out on the abstract one because I was busy writing the book and the timing was not good but I am planning on trying to take it next year. I'm gonna introduce another color. I know that's like insane. I'm aware of the fact that that might be a little nuts. I haven't used the green yet either. This is what is it, true blue. It's a cool, cool blue, a bright but cool blue. And see that just gave it a little pop. That's what I wanted. I'm using a non-traditional tool like a palette knife, the spoon, that will help you free up your marks because you really, you can't get too precise with them. You really can't. It's really just a matter of making marks and laying the color down in the right place. Kinda like what's going on down here so I don't wanna do too much to it because I'm kinda liking what's going on down there. You would think by the look of these baby wipes that I can't afford more baby wipes. I have a whole box of them, that's not true. Yeah, I like that. Okay, I do wanna add a little bit of this green. And again, I'm just, you know, this is very textured. I'm gonna get you guys a close-up when we're done. Things will be wet but you'll see what I mean. It's very, very textured. Plus I'm using a palette knife so you can't get in close. You can't really make proper marks. It's just too textured. You can't, you'll never get it in there. And I kind of like being able to tell that there were pages, squares of pages collaged into the background. Not only does it add to the texture but it's almost like there's a secret message back there behind the painting. So this is just black. Be careful with the black, don't go overboard. See how far you can get your painting without using any black. You'll find that if you keep the black to a minimum and you use your really dark cool colors rather than black, that you'll probably paint something you're a lot happier with in my opinion. Again, that's my opinion. People may disagree with me. There's nothing wrong with black. I use black. But I usually only start using black at the end if I feel I need it, which I don't always. Now this is the time if you're gonna do a piece like this that you can introduce a pop of a neon. And really think about it. I was watching a bunch of videos last night and trying not to fall asleep because I was really tired. But I was thinking about it. Your pop of neon or your pop of color doesn't have to be paint. It could be neon glitter suspended in gel medium or something like that. Wouldn't that be fun? And that's probably something I'm gonna try in the near future because I got that idea last night and thought, hmm, I really like that idea. I think I have to try that. Remember to wipe off my yellow before I dip in the red so that I get more red and less orange. Not that orange wouldn't be okay in this because it would be, but it's not really what I'm shooting for. Everyone is quiet today. How come you're also quiet? Nobody's asking lots of questions. I did like that one question though that Eve posted. You're all quiet as you're painting and working on projects. While you're watching the broadcast and or listening to me, that would be so cool. That might be too much red down there. So I might have to take some of that off. Just FYI, in case you're like thinking, ooh, I don't know about that red down there. Yeah, I don't either. It's okay, this acrylic paint. So the nice thing about acrylic paint unlike watercolor is it's all about layers of marks. So if you get a color in the wrong place and you can't get it all off, because everything's too textured, like that's the reason I can't get it off or maybe you've waited too long and it's dry. Just go over with another color. It's just gonna add interest to your final piece anyways. Finishing up Inktober. Yeah, I have to finish up my October doodles today because that little doodle book has to go into my journal tomorrow when we do the live broadcast. So I need to finish that up this afternoon. That's gonna be my job this afternoon to do after I get the mail. Yeah, and bonus on this painting, I have all of these texture pastes and gels. So when I first got started, I thought I had to have them and I didn't really use them. So I've got them though, I should use them up. Ah, stitching pamphlet books, cool. Oh, good Maria, I'm glad. I think this is pretty cool, let's see. What is this, that's my most regret buying. That would be, there would be a few things. So Prismacolor pencils, I know a lot of you love them. I am not a big fan, in fact, I stole all of mine. The old ones are great, the new ones break, the leads break all the time, they drive me crazy, I don't like them. Hey Ian, so I am not a fan of them at all. Texture pastes and gels, I thought I had to have them. I barely have used them, so I kind of regret buying them. What else could I say? Sprays, any of the sprays, again, I thought I had to have them when I first got started, not a big fan. You know, I'm using the texture mediums, like I didn't hate them so much that I sold them all, like with the Prismacolors, so I'm using them. Why I thought I needed jumbo jars of some of them, like Glass Bead Gel, I have no idea. Hey, you know, when you first get started, the trap that you get into is thinking that you need one of everything, exactly what the teacher is using, and that's probably the number one thing. So if you're new to mixed media and you're new to art, what the advice I would give you is, go buy a small jar or see if you can get a sample before you go out and buy a big giant jar of anything. Try it, see if you like it, before you go invest a ton of money in a bunch of stuff that you maybe are gonna not like. Go find your local art supply store. A lot of times they'll have things like Prismacolor pencils and Neocolor II crayons in what they call open stock, which means that they sell just one or two of them at a time rather than having to invest in a set. That's what happened to me, Eve, that's exactly what happened to me. I didn't see any of the bad reviews until after I invested in them, and then I ended up selling them because I was just so disgusted with them. I just was tired of making them work, and I asked for something different for Christmas, which I'm much happier with. I have more Derwent pencils now, which I prefer. I just didn't think the Prismacolors were worth the money because they were just so hard to work with. So I'm just using up the extra colors on my palette and making sure I have all the colors that I want in the places that I want them, which I think I do. I like it, it's messy, but I like it. I haven't yet, but I've heard good things about them. If you use a product, less or expensive product, because you're on a budget and you create something you really love with it, then make sure you scan it. That's the only thing, because it's probably not archival, which is fine. Just make sure you scan it. Yeah, so I'm a Big Derwent fan. I'm also a fan of Indigo Blue, and a lot of things, British. So, which might make sense if you look at the family tree since part of my family is immigrated from London, so. Okay, wait, I missed something up here. Posca pens, I have a love-hate relationship with. I sold some of them to Cindy. I have some. They're so hard to get in the States that they're not, that's one of the reasons, main reasons are not my favorite. They're also not refillable. So, every time you run out of something, then you have to buy a new one, and that's not, you know, I'm kind of eh, about that. So I prefer either a Molotow marker or a, just a Sharpie, if I'm gonna buy something that's not refillable. Yeah, Inktense pencils, I love them. They're fabulous. I have a set of Inktense pencils. Now the blocks, I'm not a big fan of the blocks. You know, I, as you all know, who've been watching me for a while, I tell you, I'm the lazy crafter. I do not like to have, you know, things I have to fuss with too much. And the Inktense blocks, they work great, but you know, the container they're in is just horrible. My phone is buzzing. It's gonna have to just keep buzzing because I'm live with you guys. I don't know who it is. It's probably political again. Drove me crazy all week. They're calling the house number. They leave long messages. Seriously call somebody else's phone. I do absentee ballot. I voted already. Not that there's any good choice. Get blown up by Russia or lose, you know, go back 50 years in women's rights. I don't know. We won't talk about that. We don't talk about politics. This is no politics zone. All right, I'm gonna stop because I think I need to stop before I mess up something. Because I'm kind of liking the way it looks. It's very abstract, but I like it. What do you all think? Yeah, I love my Sharpies. I still have, I started with Sharpies. I still have Sharpies, whether it's a Sharpie paint pen or a Sharpie marker. I love my Sharpies. Yeah, I'm gonna zoom in. And they're easy to get. Okay, wait a minute. Let me move it. I know you're all gonna say, well, wait, it's out of frame. Whoops, other way. I might be able to zoom in a little more even. Hang on. Oh, nope, that's it. It won't go in anymore. And I just, I love the texture and you have definite movement going this way. I love that. And the depth of color and yeah, I just love it. It's not poopy, go figure. And look, I look like I had a good time. If there's a problem with the audio now and then, Ian, it might be because I'm walking away from the webcam and all the audio was going into the microphone on the webcam. So when I walk over to the desktop to zoom in, you can't hear me because I'm too far away. I know, right? Well, now you could do this in all shades of blue. You could have your blues be your focal color. Maybe do the sky in a different color. You could do greens. Oh, sorry. I was that older sister, Maria, so sorry. But I love it. I love it. So I'm gonna just let it dry for a couple of days and then I'll seal it. It'll be up for sale. It is up for sale. Of course, it'll be sealed before it gets shipped if it sells. You can private message me in my email address at artistaginabearans.com. That should be in the description below. You can also get me over on Facebook. And any of the other ones you've seen me paint on here, there are also everything's for sale except for my journals. All the canvases are for sale. You're over it kinda. That's funny. I was the older sister, so I can't say anything. But I wasn't a torturous older sister. I was the one that cleaned up everybody else's issues. Now you could put a little pop of something neon in here. I don't feel it needs it because we have these little bits of Indian yellow and the red showing through. So I don't feel it needs it. But you could of course do that and really make it pop and put like neon orange or something on there. Or like I said, you could mix a little bit of neon glitter with some modeling paste after the paint dries and put a little bit of that on there. And that would be good too. So are we talking? Oh, the sound is like an electric spark sound? I don't know. So I have the sound turned off. So I have no idea what you guys are hearing. I only know that the only sound device I have on is the mic in the webcam. Yeah, I'm not gonna do anything more to it. And anything staticky and weird sounding, like I said, you might hear is because when I have to walk away from the camera to the desktop, those mics should all be off, no guarantee. But that's gonna sound very different because it's trying to pick me up I'm too far away. Neon glitter is really a thing, Eve. It is really a thing. A lot of manufacturers make neon glitter, including Martha Stewart, who is the glitter queen as far as I'm concerned. So yeah, there is a thing such as neon glitter. If you can't for whatever reason get out to your local craft store, go to Amazon. I know because I saw it on there last night. And yes, I ordered some. I don't need more glitter, but I had to have the neon. Okay, so some people are hearing some weird sound but some aren't, I don't know what to say to that. I'm concerned about the picture and that you can hear me at all and the picture's great. So yay. We'll get this new computer thing figured out yet. All right, that's it for today. You guys don't forget the most important thing. Play with your paints, have fun with them. Don't be afraid to just make a mess. And what if it turns out ugly? Oh well, so then you just have a base for a new painting, not a big deal. Don't be afraid to get messy. I think I might need to clean my wedding ring again. All right, that's it for today. Go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. Don't forget to vote. If you're in the United States, you gotta vote. I did, I did absentee ballot. And that's it for right now. Go watch Shemi's video because it was really interesting and she used something different but I have this so I might use this. All right, that's it you guys. I will talk to you later. Have fun today. I am gonna clean up my mess now, holy cow.