 Headed out to go try to pack up without hitting anything. Oh, yeah, yeah, sometimes it's a bigger challenge than others. Okay. Uh, welcome to Monday morning. Hey guys, it's Sunday afternoon, nearly three o'clock in the afternoon. We are getting ready to do one of my least favorite things on the planet, yard work. So yeah, that's a thing. All right, I guess we better get it done because it's not going to do itself. I'll be back. You know, there's just nothing like it taking me like 20 minutes to adjust the camera mount in the car before I can even go anywhere. Welcome to Monday morning, people. It's Monday morning, July 19th, I think. It is 9.54 a.m. I am headed out to go try to pack up without hitting anything. Oh, yeah, yeah, sometimes it's a bigger challenge than others. Okay. Uh, welcome to Monday morning. Okay, the vlog is edited and loading. The weekly posts are written and scheduled out. The ones that don't get posted today anyway. I announced in my creative year Facebook group that at the end of the year, the group is going to be archived and creative content will move forward in my original art Facebook group, which is the life of art and self-expression, which is where it was going to be to begin with. But anyway, it's a long story. Work smarter, not harder. I think it might be my motto for next year. Instead of putting myself in 5 billion different places, how about just picking a couple and making the best of those? So anyway, I am going to turn on the iPad in a minute. I have decided after yesterday's sketch, which I did post and I will put here. Not super happy with it, FYI, but I mean, I don't hate it. It's just not exactly what I thought it was going to be. Anyway, I might add a little bit more to it, but after yesterday's sketch where I pulled out a couple pens and immediately started using them on the paper and then went, oh, that's not the color I wanted. That I need to include in this drawing pen bag a swatch of these pens because I have a few different shades of gray in particular and they aren't all created equally. So yeah, so we're going to work on that today and make a little color card. I think I might do two of them, one here to live at the desk and one for the pencil bag for downstairs. And I might try to touch up this drawing a little bit and correct it a bit. You know, that sort of thing. Of course, we still have the tray for paper clusters on the desk because I don't want that to go too far. And I have two books I need to cut up that I got at the thrift store. The animal one over the weekend and the dictionary I found this morning. I was successful, yay. Anyway, what's to do? Always. I'll be back. Okay, while I still don't think I love it, I think that's a little bit better. I don't know. I think we're going to let it go and we're going to turn the page. Yes. All right. I'll be back. Morning, everyone. It is 1130 Tuesday morning, July 20th. Yes. I just had a Patreon and supporter live already chat and coffee and which we do once a week. And I was working on paper clusters. I made a little bit of a small dent in the giant overflowing tray of stuff because I keep finding things to put in there, but I need to work on what's actually in there first before I add anything else to it. So there's that. I think that's my focus for today is working on some stuff in there, in there. Anyway, I'm going to take a break. I'm going to get myself something else to drink, maybe grab some lunch, and then I guess continue to work on paper clusters while I watch YouTube. I probably should go check the kids mail at their house. I don't know if I need to do it today or if I can leave it till tomorrow morning. I probably can leave it till tomorrow morning. All right. That's it for the minute. I'll be back. It's hot down here. There's no breeze. But we're out for our evening walk. It's cool enough to do that before dinner, not like it's been lately. The ring just went off. It's probably the kids playing in the driveway or the squirrels. Yeah. Anyway, probably the squirrels. Rocky Rocky, the squirrel. Anyway, Rob getting some steps in, taking a little breather, and then we're going to go home and eat dinner. I think it's a salad night for me. Yeah, sounds good to me. All right, I'll be back. Good morning, everybody. So I was watching my friend Mike Deacon's vlog recently, and he was having problems with his phone holder in his car, his cell phone mount. And OK, as it was saying, I know my friend Mike Deacon was having problems with his cell phone mount holder thing in the car. And obviously you'll notice you're at a little bit of a different angle than normal, because I'm having problems with my mount this morning too. I have this part that usually sticks to the dashboard, but the sticky parts, although it feels sticky, it's not holding the phone. So I don't know. Anyway, I've got a little different gizmo work in this morning. That is what it is. Anyway, we're going to head over to the kids' house and check their mail. I want to go to Dollar Tree. I've got to go to Costco. I have a bag of batteries that I have to dispose of this morning and figure out how to do that. Normally my husband takes them into work because they have a disposal thing at work. He hasn't got into working over a year, so I like every video. So anyway, all right, let's go get it done, shall we? I'll be back. Hey, guys. It is 321 p.m. Thursday, July 22nd. Anyway, I spent the day again making more paper clusters. I don't know what the deal is, you guys. Now I have an overflowing amount of them, but that's okay. But it's really what's screaming at me at the moment. I've got to add these. My little drawer's full. So people who order from the Etsy Shop physical merchandise, you're probably going to get one of these in your envelope or box. Anyway, I also figured out I had these beautiful women on postage stamps from, I don't know where. Anyway, there's this one. Oops. This one, this one. I have five of them, this one. And this one. I don't know where they came from. I have had over the years a few different people give me used canceled postage stamps. One in particular, a former daycare dad. And I'm still, David gave me so many. I'm still, decades later, still going through them. But those four stamps, I found them in the drawer and immediately was like, you beautiful ladies have got to be paper clusters. And I don't know what I'm going to use them on yet, but they made some really great paper clusters. I did do a little computer work and I did also start another pendant ink drawing from a photo that I took recently. And I've just been watching YouTube. Well, actually, I've been watching the iPad, not YouTube. I've been watching House on the NBC app. Anyway, while I'm making paper clusters, but it's probably time to turn the computer off since it's after three and go downstairs and actually try to get a couple of chores done like the dishes, because, yeah. Anyway, I do need to finish this. It's been drying a long time. And I think that there's a lot of paint on here, but I think it's nice and dry. I do want to add, when I like the inspiration photo, I want to add at least one water lily to the painting right about here. I may add like hints of more, like maybe down here, maybe over here. I don't know yet, but I won't know until I get started, but I wanted the underneath layer completely dry so that when I first start putting those marks of paint on, if I just like it, I can wipe it off. But yeah, I do like where it went already, so I can't wait to finish it. What else? Oh, I do also. I'm still working on the book from Felix Scheinberger. Get it out. Hold on. Urban watercolor sketching. And I will say I was also watching the Frugal Crafter yesterday and one of her, it's in a new, new video. It's an older video. It's been out a few months. Well, she talks about the Van Gogh newer colors that they came out with called dusk, dusk yellow, dusk green. Well, I think a dusk red and the dusk purple. I don't think those are the exact same names. I'll try to find them and link them below. Anyway, I'll link her video below. She does a bit of job explaining at it. She talks about pigment, the pigments used to make the paint and the scientific reasons why this paint works to create this granulation effect. And I will be honest with you all, most of the time when you start getting into the scientific reasons behind art supplies and pigment colors, and my brain just wants to go take a nap. I'll be honest. Most of the time, my brain just wants to go take a nap. My mind uses like, yeah, and... But Felix in his book, the reason I'm talking about this, he goes into depth about some art supplies, pigment colors, paint types, and things. And her video also, they were both very interesting. So I don't know what that says currently about my normal napping routine with scientific information about art supplies, but they both did a good job explaining it, at least so far. So anyway, I'm going to be practicing with Lindsay's idea for creating your own DIY version of these paints coming up. And I also am going to finish this book. I want to finish this book by tomorrow. Yeah. So that's it for the minute. I can't think of anything else. My brain's kind of on hold lately, as is everything else, because we're just waiting for the whole family's and holding pattern with regards to my mom. And I think it's starting to bleed over into my art and my work. And yeah, I'm at one of those stages where I just am like, I don't know what to do with myself. Anyway, that's where I'm at at the moment. I am loving the paper cluster tray. It's working out really well for me. I do wish I had one that wasn't made out of foam core, but it works really well. But in these days, I'm going to meet somebody that can do work work. And I'm going to say, can you make me one of these? Only better. Anyway, all right. That's it for the minute. I guess I better go do those dishes now, because yeah, I'll be downstairs and do some dishes. I almost forgot to count myself a new barrier mat for this journal. And what am I talking about? So in all of my journals, and I think I've shared this before, I have some sort of a barrier between the page I'm working on and the other clean pages or prior work done. In some cases, in some journals I have two. Okay. So in some journals where I'm working on both sides of the journal, then I would have two of these barrier mats, these barrier pages. One to protect the pages that I haven't worked on yet. And another one underneath this other side page to protect the work that's already been done. Now in this book I'm not doing that. I'm just working on the single sides of the pages. But I do cut these out of sometimes leftover plastic packaging, but that's not my favorite thing to use. My favorite thing to use are these sets of two chopping mats from Dollar Tree. And it's nice thin plastic material lends itself really well to creating labels for my bins in my art room, which I do do from the small like scraps from making other things like the barrier mats. But I just can cut them up with scissors or my paper cutter. They cut out really well with my paper trimmer. And I can make them mats in whatever size I want. I will use plastic packaging when I have it, but most of the time I make them out of that. I don't know that I'd use these for actual cutting mats, but that is what they're intended for. But I don't think that's what I'd use them for, and I never have. But I usually get a few packs of them at a time when I start to run low and always have some around. That being said, I haven't had to buy them for a while because I kind of overdid it last time. There's still quite a few up here. But anyway, I use paper like wax paper or parchment paper, but I'm a really messy artist. I'm not. When I get with the paint, I'm not exactly what you'd call mis-meat and tidy. And so I just found that I needed something that was more water-resistant, especially because I'm usually using something like watercolor paint that tends to just go everywhere on the way I use it anyways. So these plastic cutting mats were great and they are cheap. And you can also make them out of plastic packaging. And I have done with like... Oh, here's one. So this is a pair of them that I cut to go into one of my smaller journals, one on each side like I just talked about. Obviously, these are not the cutting mats. These are from stencils. Now, I don't store my stencils on these. I don't need the design. This is, to me, this is just packaging. For some of you, this might be shocking and like a big sin. It's not for me. I sort of my stencils and DVD cases anyway, so these won't work. But I didn't throw the plastic away because it makes great barrier mats for me. So anyway, just a quick tip. I think I've shared it before, but there you go. All right. That's it for the minute now. I better really go do those chores. I'll be back. Okay, guys. Good morning. I think it's morning. Yeah, it's 11.23. Sorry. It's 11 a.m. Friday, July 23rd. Holy cow. I really have had my coffee today. Anyway, I spoke earlier this week about seeing the Frugal Crafters video where she is mixing DIY versions of the Van Gogh colors, dusky colors, which were very granulating. And she got a Mars Black PBK 11 pigmented color that she was able to take some of her existing watercolor pigments and mix it with and create a very good dupe. I took her idea and I mixed them. I did have to buy a PBK 11 because it's like the one I didn't have, but I created a palette of granulating dusky weren't those nice. You could go on with this forever. And the ones that I got, they didn't come out the way I thought they would. It was very interesting. Like this one and this one are very close. This one and this one are very close. This is like got bright lemony. It's got Hansa Yellow and Yellow Lemon in it. It looks green. At the same time, I'm going to have a lot of fun playing with these. So I created a little palette for these. I also finished Felix's book, Felix Scheinberger. And it's a really good reference book for drawing and watercolor painting. He has a lot of good basic information in it, tips and tricks for just stepping out of your box and just enjoying the process of art and drawing and painting without worrying about doing it for competition or for work or just enjoying the process and having the rest of it come as it will naturally. He also talks and gives ideas about breaking out of your box as far as color is concerned and trying things other than what your normal favorite color palette is. And that gave me the thought that so I have a lot of these kind of small, a lot of color boxes around and they usually are very curated colors palettes like this because I do find it challenging to take, say, just this out and create a painting with just these colors. I do obviously have space for one more and I may add one more here. I'm going to go back and look at Lindsay Weirich's video and see what other ones she made, what color she used. But anyway, I find it very challenging to use a limited color palette so these little boxes that have, say, 10 or 12 colors in them are, I like that and I just will take that and I'll just use that for a while and limit my color choices. I've got lots of paint around and sometimes I do break out the big palettes but it is more interesting sometimes just limit your colors and limit your color choices. So anyway, I'm having a lot of fun with this, can you tell? All right, that's it for the minute. I'm going to go look at Lindsay's video, I'll be back. Well, I decided to do these things on a day where I'm wearing white. I have no idea, but yeah. Anyway, besides mixing up some paint colors, and boy, we're a little quick at our own. With the new, like, dusky colored palette and I have to figure out what I'm going to put on the lid of that little palette because I always decorate the lids. Anyway, in the process of doing that I found a tube of M gram watercolors. That's not that old, mind you. This is mineral violet and it was so dried up that I couldn't get it out of the tube. Now it wasn't like dry hard rock hard, it was like gelified, it wouldn't come out. So I ended up having to bust the tube open. I tried using my crimper thing to squeeze it out. That didn't work. So I ended up having to bust the tube open and I put it into a recycled container with some Oxgall liquid to aid in the rewetting and flow of the paint and some water. And then I've spent literally, I don't know, five minutes, 10 minutes mixing the lump of gelified paint into what it is now. It's very liquidy. I probably put too much water, but that's okay. So this is what it looks like right now. It's very syrupy, thick and like gravy. It's like the texture of gravy, which is fine. Again, that's fine. I'm going to, it's going to end up just being a giant pan of mineral violet. And I'm going to just leave it in here and I'll use it this way instead of having it in the tube. But yeah, it wasn't usable in the tube at all if I couldn't get it out. So I'm going to just make sure it's really well mixed. I didn't measure how much Oxgall I stuck in there, just dumped some in there. You probably only need a few drops, but I put more than that in there. Probably a cap full. And then some water. And then I'm going to take the lid and I'm going to write with Sharpie on the lid and then I'm going to just leave it open in a safe place and let it dry. I have had to already use a tide to go stick on my shirt once already today. So, you know, that's a thing. All right, I'll be back. Good morning everybody. It's Saturday morning. July 24th. It is 819 a.m. I didn't log last night because there was just a lot going on. So my dad is here for the, he was here for the night. He's still here. You hear the rumbling in the background. I don't know if the audio is going to pick that up. He and Bob are working on the Barracuda. I think they are going to take it for a spin for those that don't know. My dad is an auto and hot rod mechanic from way back. He loves to tell people that his favorite time to play, way to spend time with me. When I was a little kid, was out in the garage and he would teach me how to rebuild carburetors. Evidently, yeah. I still like the smell of gasoline. I don't know what to say. I do have memories of doing that. So anyway, as soon as dad got here yesterday, we got word that my mom is nearing the end of her journey. Her breathing has become very erratic and shallow and her circulation is poor. Her fingers and toes are starting to turn blue. She's still conscious. She's not in a coma or anything yet and they're keeping her comfortable. Dad asked if he needed to go home, told them where he was at. We're about two hours away. They said no, it's fine. It's eminent, but it wasn't that eminent. So we were prepared all night long for the phone call just in case. Yeah, I think he's going to leave here in a bit after he has some breakfast and he's going to go straight there and see her, but it will be any day now. All the arrangements, I think, are in place. The phone call list is ready. I don't really think there's much else we can do. So, you know, I am encouraging my dad to deal with the stress in any other way he can besides drinking, because yes, that's a thing and it's an easy trap to fall into if you're somebody who deals with depression and stress by drinking or overeating. Over-eater over here, whether you need to do are it like I do or walking or physical exercise or writing, doing some daily pages, which I'm probably going to pick back up again tonight. I haven't been sleeping well, so I think I need to do some writing at night before I go to bed. I told him about that and he's interested. He might give the daily pages thing a try. Anyway, that's where things are at right now, but Bob is keeping him occupied this morning with something other than discussion of my mother and her journey by having dad help him with the Barracuda, which my dad loves cars, he loves working with cars, and so that's keeping him occupied this morning, which is good. So anyway, that's a lot. I didn't do any daily practice yesterday or anything, so I've got a catch-up on all of that today at some point. I also need to go to the grocery store because there's a few things I forgot. We have a sprinkler head we need to replace because the one that's there is too tall. It's a 12-inch and we need like a 4-inch, so... Yeah. There's always stuff to do. That's if we don't have to go to my dad's, so... Anyway, that's where things are at for the moment. I am going to finish watching some YouTube. By the way, DIY Danny, if you don't know her channel, I will link the video I'm watching this morning down below where she talks about a getaway. She had disconnecting from things, getting back to creativity, and recharging herself. And it's an interesting video, so I will link it down below. I liked it. I love the idea. Now I want to go on one of those little trips. I love the idea. Anyway, alright, that's it for the minute. I'll be back. Hey guys, so we decided not to do any of the chores that we're doing yet. And we're out for a drive. Right now, this is our view. How pretty is that? We're at the Lamb at Vineyards. Going to do some wine tasting. I think they have a restaurant here that might have some lunch slash dinner. We'll of course be near the phone because things are happening with my mom and they're trying to just take a break and relax as we can. So, it's not a fun time, but you know, it is what it is. So anyway, what a gorgeous view. Like hello. Alright, I'll be back. Okay, there's no getting away from the sounds of the air conditioner because it is hot outside. The car dashboard says 92, but it feels hotter than that. If you're watching this clip, you saw a few seconds of clips and or still images from an unexpected Saturday afternoon outing. We decided to go wine tasting. And we are at the Willamette Valley Vineyards. And it was such a fun time. We'll be back. And we'll be bringing people back with us. It was good. We had some homemade pizza. Really good. Wood-fired maybe because it was really good pizza. It was good. Some nice wine tastings. We bought a couple of bottles of wine. Beautiful views, which is why I'm putting in some still images because holy cow, it's gorgeous. I wish I had brought my sketchbook, but I didn't know we were coming. We're at the moment. I'm an idiot. Anyway, we're going to go do our grocery shopping now and then go home and just chill at home. I think the house is probably disgustingly hot. We're probably going to have to turn the air on when we get home. That would be my guess. Probably. That's okay. We'll cool off pretty quick. All right. I'll be back. It is about 8.30 on Saturday evening and we are going for a walk. It's still kind of hot and gross outside, but I'm like 1,000 steps from 10,000 for the day. And so I really want to get my steps in. So we're going to do that. We barely got any walking done yesterday. So anyway, things with my mom and my association, my dad are going to probably get worse before they get better, but we're dealing with it. And as my friend Leslie told me recently, trying to find the bright spots and the humor where we can and the happy memories. And I'm going to relay some of those to you all. So funny dad conversations. The first one was a few weeks ago. He saw me washing the wooden cutting board and he looked at me and he said, you can wash that. It still makes me want to laugh. What was he doing before at his house? That's my question. And then yesterday, I was prepping the charcuterie board before dinner and cutting strawberries. And of course I was clumsy about it and smacked myself in the chest with the strawberry. And of course I had a white shirt on. So I stopped what I was doing and washed my hands off and got the tide to go stick out and took care of the red spot. And he looked at me and said, what's that? How did you make that go away? So dad, that's called a tide to go stick. Everybody should have one at their house. So we had a conversation. He'd never heard of them before. I'm not sure before my mom got sick, he's done laundry. So that's a thing. Anyway, it's a fun set of conversations to have with him. Again, finding the bright spot and what's going on. I'm sure dad's taken laundry out of the washing machine and put it in the dryer, but I think that's probably the extent of his knowledge. I think he knows the basics. Stain removal, I don't think it's one of them. I think he just washes them and if stuff comes out, it comes out. If it doesn't, he doesn't care. He wears it anyway. Colors go in and whites go in separate ways. I think that's all he knows. I think Bob's being generous. I bet you my dad doesn't really separate colors anyway. It's a fun conversation. We're looking for the bright spots and what's happening, but it's going to be worse before it gets better. There will probably be a pause in videos and vlogs. Of course, I won't be filming funerals or anything, but I will probably put up a tribute video. No. Because that, yeah. Anyway, we'll see what happens. We're going to go for a walk and get some steps in. I hope you've all had a great week. Remember to breathe, remember to get your exercise, remember to do your art and your daily practice. Check out the video description for the relevant links and ways to support the free content here on YouTube, including the Etsy Shop and Patreon. Above all, go out and breathe. And ask for yourself because you deserve it. We'll see you next week. Bye, guys.