This sucks. This sucks so hard.

I’m on Blake’s computer right now because mine…is FUBAR. It was/is a MacBook that was about 6 years old, I’d guess, that I was given when it was about 4. At the time, Blake had built me a new computer so he put Windows on it so the kids could play Sims 3 on it and I just used my big box.

Fast forward about 2 years and he says, “y’know…the Mac is actually a little better than your desktop and it’s a laptop so you should use that” and I reluctantly did, giving my desktop to the kids so they could play Spore and Sims 3. (The reason we were running Windows on the Mac was because I couldn’t get Spore or Sims 3 installed on it using Mac OS but both worked fine with Windows, I don’t know why this is.)

So I used the Mac for about 4 or 5 months and had *just* gotten it broken in and all set up the way I wanted it and then last week I woke up and the Mac wouldn’t wake up. I shook the mouse, pressed every key on the keyboard, closed and opened it and finally had to do a hard reset. When it started up again, it was running slow as molasses. iTunes was unusable, FireFox was also unusable yet somehow TweetDeck was working fine. It wouldn’t restart of its own accord to I had to do about 5 hard resets until I called Blake at work in tears not knowing what else to do. He suggested that I use IE to download Chrome, so I did and Chrome seemed to be working okay, so I made that the default browser and imported my FireFox bookmarks. But iTunes still wouldn’t work, it would load up but you couldn’t make it play or press any buttons. Then I tried to open Photoshop, which I use pretty much every day, and it wouldn’t load due to a program error, even though it was working fine the day before.

So I put up with this wonky machine until yesterday when I backed up all my stuff and Blake wiped it, with the intent of putting Windows 7 on it, which he had had on it at one point when the kids were using it but the key expired or whatever because it was only a trial, so he had to put XP on it, which was on it when I began using it. (Yes, using Bootrcamp, which I’m told isn’t the most stable, but what the hell else is there?)

Well, he couldn’t get Win7 on it because he was using a key from work and I guess the computer had to be on the network to authenticate or something so that was a bust and that’s when he tried to put XP back on it. It kept freezing during the install and then when it was installed, trying to put other programs on it, like Photoshop, it would freezer and stall out and he’d have to start over and finally he got maybe 4 progs on it, one being iTunes and another being FireFox (which I prefer because of all the extensions) and they were doing the same things they were doing on Thursday so basically my computer is totally fucked, meaning that I basically no longer have one.

What sucks is that I have absolutely zero way to get a new computer so my only temporary solution is to hijack Blake’s for now, but for how long? He needs a computer too and this is the one I won at Camwhores expressly FOR him so I can’t just take it back (and if I did, what the hell is he going to use?)

So I don’t know what to do.

Sometimes, because Camwhores buys so much shit from them, Dell gives Kevin a deal on computers but there aren’t any right now and I wouldn’t have the money for one even if there was one.

Long story short: I’m completely fucked and have no way of updating my cam, doing shows or running my business and I’m at a loss as to what to do and freaking out completely.

I just drove our new car for the first time. I went to the grocery store, put things in my basket (very fast as I was FREAKING THE FUCK OUT INSIDE MY BRAIN), made small talk with the cashier guy who reminds me a lot of my friend Scooter, paid with my DEBIT CARD (which is a great source of anxiety), packed up my own bag and DROVE HOME.

I’m shaking. It took 2 Ativan and a lot of Twitter encouragement but dammit, I wanted pie and I went to the goddamn store and got me some motherfucking PIE.

And y’know what? I was so proud of myself that I got CAKE too. And crumpets, pretzels, watermelon for the kids and baby cans of gingerale.

I’ve been to the grocery store with Blake 100 times and it’s only about 3 minutes from our house, but I went down the wrong street and got lost-ish which made me sorta panic, but then I got on Yonge St. and knew the grocery store was up the road (I’d missed the grocery store’s street by about 2 or 3 streets – oops) so I didn’t freak out. I mean, the town’s only so big and it’s pretty much impossible to REALLY get lost.

It also took me like, 10 minutes to figure out how to work the car. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to move the seat up or how to turn the lights on but I finally got it. Also our car has like, D3, D2 and DL and I have no idea what that means so I just picked D3, which was the closest one to N and went with it. I probably did it wrong but it worked so, whatever.

Blake’s gonna be pissed that I bought fairly useless stuff with his money, but again, whatever, I FUCKING DID IT and that’s what matters.

Now I’m going to allow myself to freak out and cry and y’know what else? I got pie AND cake and I’m going to fucking eat BOTH of them and then I’m gonna go to bed. Yeah, you heard me, BOTH OF THEM.

The end.

Edit: Okay, so I was too full after the pie to actually eat the cake, but dammit, pretend I did! And for those who may be curious, it was lemon meringue pie & chocolate cake.

So we went to The Square Foot Show last night after debating the idea for the past few weeks, but intensely over the past few days. What it really came down to is that if I didn’t go, I’d probably regret it for the rest of my life, so we dressed the kids up, stuffed them in the car and off we went to The Big Smoke (aka Toronto).

After much debate, I ended up wearing my ruffled Free People dress because it was easier than the other two outfits I had planned. I bought the Free People dress specifically for this show and why it was even in debate that I might not wear it is because when we picked the kids up from Muskoka (up North) where they’d been up visiting Phil & Lisa for the week, we were all outside talking and I got about a dozen & a half mosquito bites. Y’know, I’m not implying that I’m some kind of unique snowflake in saying this, but mosquitoes LOVE me and worse, I seem to be ultra allergic to them in that the bites itch so bad that I scratch them into bloody scabs in my sleep (sometimes I sleep with gloves on to prevent this) and even after they’re gross, bloody scabs, they’re STILL itchy for up to a month or more.

Unfortunately, most if the bites I incurred up North were on my legs so I didn’t really want to wear a dress that showed off my legs because the bites looked like lesions from some nasty illness or something. I tried my very best not to scratch the bites since I got them, but that was impossible and I ended up scratching a few layers of skin off. To prevent further damage to myself, I got Blake to buy me this stuff called AfterBite, which I don’t think is sold in the US, and what AfterBite is, is basically a mixture of pure AMMONIA and “natural oils”. And it stings like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. It doesn’t make my mosquito bites any less itchy longterm, but for about half an hour or 45 mins after putting it on, I don’t feel itchy. But it’s just a temporary solution and I still scratched the shit out of my legs, the result of which won’t be totally healed until, oh, October, because I just don’t heal very fast.

So long story short (too late!) that’s why I didn’t want to wear my dress. My other options were a new pair of jeans that my friend Charlie bought me and this corset-like t-shirt that he also bought me, which is so cute and super lacey and I love it, but the jeans are brand new and about 5 inches too long (which always happens when you’re 5 feet tall) so that meant I’d have to cut the bottoms off, or get Blake to, and then wash them a few times so they’d fray evenly and we didn’t have enough time to do that so that outfit idea was a wash. My other outfit idea was this white tank top I have that’s like, embroidered with eyelets (I forget what that’s called), that I’ve never gotten to wear because I didn’t own a white bra until a few days ago, but the jeans issue was still a problem so I had to go with the dress. (My other jeans are all way too big because of all the weight I’ve lost but I haven’t lost enough to fit into my old jeans yet.) So dress, grey tank top, knee high Doc Martens and my crystal necklace it was. I blew dry my hair to give it more volume but the rain & humidity killed that so I don’t even know why I bothered. Also the lipstick I wear ALL THE FUCKING TIME seems to be missing and I’m really pissed off about that because it’s only ever in 3 places and it isn’t in any of those 3 places, so where the fuck is it? GRRRR. I can’t afford to just replace it either. :o(

The drive to Toronto was pretty uneventful. Blake knew where we were going because it was the same place we dropped the paintings off to last weekend and it’s actually pretty easy to get to. The actual show is in a theatre building a few doors down from AWOL Gallery and you have to go upstairs to get to it. So we went there and a security guard stopped us at the door because they were only letting so many people in at a time as not to crowd the space. (Really, I think they should have been more diligent with this because there were too many people and seeing all of the paintings was difficult with so many people milling about.) There was free food there, like baby carrots and dry bread with some kinds of dip and a fruit platter type of thing that as mostly grapes which I forbid the kids to eat because god only knows who double-dipped and it’s an events like these where people get sick the next day from food poisoning.

The paintings…it was a good mix of awesome and awful. I think my favourite was one of a turd with a smiley face that said “War is poop.” My other favourites were the two Tascha pieces that leapt off the wall. One was a Frida Kahlo riding a bicycle down a hill and the other was a fortune teller with a glittery crystal ball. They were awesome. Everything else was kind of a blur to me. With so many people in the room I was feeling a little panicky and the sheer amount of paintings was overwhelming. I think we should have gone with our original plan to come today (Sunday) instead, when there would be less people. Basically all we really did was do one circuit around the room to try and see everything and we also tried to find my paintings.

“Shimmer II” got NO love at the show as she was hung on the very bottom row (H64 if anyone’s planing on going to the show) which was just about to the floor, where you couldn’t even see her shimmer and shine, but hey, someone’s gotta be on the bottom, it’s no big deal.

“Red & Gold” got prominent placing, just a row or two below eye level (F101) and there were people talking about her, according to Blake when he did another circuit of the show without us, trying to find “Turquoise Love Fairy”., which none of us saw when we were looking at all the paintings.

Here’s the thing with Square Foot: when you give them your $20 participation fee or whatever it’s called, you are only guaranteed to have 1 of your paintings in the show, even though you can submit 3. This is because of the sheer amount of people who contribute to the show and the sheer amount of paintings there are as a result. There’s only so much room. The overflow, they said, would be hung at “an off-site location” where it “could be seen by request”. So with the way it was worded on the application, it sounded like one of your pieces not being in the actual show was a bad thing.

However, I don’t think that’s the case. Some paintings, the supposed “overflow” were hung at AWOL Gallery itself and that’s where “Turquoise Love Fairy” ended up. Personally, I think that’s better than being in the mess of the actual Square Foot Show and when we looked in AWOL’s window to see if we could see my painting, it seemed as though the paintings hung there were less crazy than a lot of what was put in the actual show. So I think being hung there was a good thing.

“Turquoise Love Fairy” is at the second row from the bottom, 4 paintings in from the left (M10).

I wish the gallery had been open when we were there so I could have seen all of the paintings hung there, but it wasn’t so we just took that picture with Blake’s Blackberry through the window. In the pouring rain.

Next year, if we go to the artist’s reception, I’m bringing my camera. I didn’t bring it last night because I think it’s rude to take pictures of other people’s art, but at the show EVERYONE was doing it so I guess it’s an accepted thing? My anxiety at the show was through the fucking roof, so we only stayed about 15 or 20 minutes before getting out of there. And also next year? I’m wearing jeans and a hoodie. NO ONE was dressed “nicely”, so next year, fuck it, neither will I. I also think that next year we’ll go on the Sunday and skip the artist’s reception altogether.

So that was my Square Foot experience. I don’t think any of my paintings are going to sell there, but that doesn’t really matter to me because the whole point of doing the show was to have it on my resume. I would like to do more art shows like that in the future, but I just don’t know where they are or how you find out about them. It also sucks that they all seem to be in Toronto.

The call for entries for Touched By Fire is in a few weeks and I don’t think I’m going to be submitting this year unless I get all 3 of my paintings back from Square Foot, in which case I’ll submit those. I just don’t have time to paint anything new for the show. Square Foot had me so stressed out that I couldn’t paint at all so I spent a lot of this week in my Sims Bunker instead.

Anyway, I need a friggin’ sandwich and I have nothing else to say except that if you want to go to The Square Foot Show an see my stuff in person, the info is here.

HOLY FUCK! THERE IS FUCKING FOOD GROWING IN MY BACKYARD!

This fact, from time to time, when I really think about it just blows my tiny little mind. I don’t really know why I think it’s such a big deal, but I’ve been examining that tonight and I think it’s the whole “not being dependent on the grocery store” thing. And maybe the fact that I nurtured these CRAZY HUGE PLANTS from teeny tiny seeds since March, not really knowing what was going to happen. It’s not like my frontyard garden where I scatter seeds, let them do their own thing out there with very little help from me except watering them twice in the beginning and then I know more or less what’s going to happen to them. They are going to grow into purple, pink, white, blue and sometimes yellow flowers that grow into this one gigantic bush that people walking past marvel over.

And here’s where I might as well segue into what some of you will see as bad news: this is the last year I’m going to do the Keep Off the Lawn Project (which is just a stupid name for my wildflower frontyard garden for those not in the know). Blake’s going to weed whack the garden in a couple of weeks before everything starts going to seed and next year instead of spreading wildflower seeds we’re going to be spreading grass seed or laying down sod. :o/

Here’s the fact of the matter: I love my frontyard garden, like really really love it, but at the same time it gives me massive anxiety and this week, after I went out and took pictures of it and noticed all the weeds and fretted over the seeds that never grew or the fact that the back half of the garden is all bachelor’s buttons and the front is all cosmos and it should be the opposite because cosmos are taller that bachelor’s buttons. Also, the bachelor’s buttons bloomed in July and started going to seed at the beginning of August while the cosmos just started blooming a couple of weeks ago so the whole thing looks uneven ad unkempt, like in a bad way. And unless I spend hours and hours and hours out there transplanting, there’s no way to fix it (and even that probably wouldn’t even be possible, everything’s way too close together).

And here’s the thing, which I’ve explained before: I can’t spend hours and hours and hours out there. I can barely spend the few minutes out there it takes me to take pictures of the garden. I feel like I’m being watched and judged by people n the cars going by and I’m terrified of someone walking down the street talking to me or worse, my neighbour who I barely know and our relationship is super awkward for a million reasons I won’t go into right now. So I sit here and fret about the weeds and how REAL gardeners walking by are judging me and my garden. I paid the kids twice this summer to weed the garden (and again to deadhead the bachelor’s buttons), but kids aren’t very good weeders, they aren’t very strong and I can’t be out there telling them what to pull or what to leave or how to do it. I mean they do their best and really weeding the garden is just an excuse for me to give them money anyway, but that doesn’t help my anxiety over weeds.

Wayne & Judy’s house, well “old house” I suppose, on the left of us is for sale right now for only $99,999.00 (it was purchased for $150,000!) so it’s getting a craptonne of people looking at it and they make me nervous as all hell. Wayne & Judy’s backyard and back deck, as I’ve explained before, overlooks both our front AND backyards so there’s absolutely no privacy ad lately every time I’ve gotten up the courage to go out and do something in either garden, there’s been some stranger either touring the house with the real estate agent or ever crazier, people have been pulling over, because the price of the house is advertised right on the “for sale” sign, and have gotten out of their cars to look in the windows and come right into the backyard and look around. To even GET into the backyard you have to open a latched gate! I don’t get the nerve of these people!

AND WORSE! GET THIS! Two weeks ago some creepy balding guy knocked on my door and wanted to know if I knew anything about Wayne & Judy’s house! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK, RIGHT? I just about had a goddamn heart attack right there, I swear to god! And I was SO STUPID about it too. When people knock on our door, the dogs generally bark like crazy until they sniff whoever it is (no matter who it is) and then they go lay down. This guy knocked gently enough that he didn’t set off the dogs, which I always see as a good thing (I’ve trained just about all delivery people to do that because the barking makes me crazy and I don’t know how to make them stop – anyway, totally different topic…) so when I answered the door, I actually stepped outside and closed the door behind me. So the kids didn’t know I was interacting with this stranger and the dogs didn’t know and what if he was a crazy stalker person who wanted to kill or abduct me? No one would know I was gone or hurt or dead or whatever! In hindsight I was just like, what, are you fucking retarded? That was so stupid! Anyway…

So this guy, who again, was totally twitchy and creepy and I just got a seriously disturbed vibe from him, asked me if I knew about the house and I said that I could probably answer any question he had and he was just like, “well tell me about it” so I told him the downsides: electric baseboard heaters, no place for a normal furnace if you wanted to upgrade, because of the electric heat and the fact that it’s a seriously old house with no weather-proofing, Wayne & Judy had like, $400-$500/month hydro bills in the winter. You can’t get a queen-sized boxspring upstairs because the stairs are at an angle where you can’t get it around the corner, so if you want a queen-sized bed, you’re getting a mattress on the floor. One bedroom doesn’t have a window or a door.  Mice. Lots & lots of mice. No basement. Living room carpet was pissed on so much that it needs replacing and the house stinks of dog pee (unless the owner replaced it, which I doubt).  Blah blah blah. So I told him all this and he starts telling me about how he’s going through a divorce and “the bitch” is getting half of their $400,000 house and she took all of his “fucking” retirement money and he’s like, telling me all these details about his divorce, like the fact that he’ll be paying $1100/month in child support and I’m thinking “dude, what the fuck” but just nodding and hoping like hell that this creepy as fuck guy will not be my new neighbour…then two days ago I was in the backyard checking on the veggies and there that creepy guy was on the back deck of the house with the real estate agent. The house still has a “for sale” sign on it and a lot of people have been through since I saw that guy so I don’t know anything but man…I hope this dude doesn’t move in next door. I mean, he kinda leered at me when he was with the real estate agent. So creepy.

Wow, did I ever go on a tangent there.

My point is that the frontyard garden stresses me out more than it gives me pleasure so after talking to Blake about it, I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m still anti-lawn, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t have to deal with grass. Mowing is Blake’s job. There *are* two flower beds in the front where I will plant flowers, I don’t know what kind yet because the beds are in a shady area and I don’t know what to plant,  but I figure I’ll let the kids have one of them each to grow whatever they want from a list of what will grow there and they can start their seeds in March when I start mine for the back garden.

Speaking of the back garden, Blake & I are considering expanding it next year, although we haven’t decided definitively. Our neighbour on the right (named Frances, I haven’t written about him much because there’s nothing to write about), whose house is also for sale, never goes in his backyard EVER so I don’t have to worry about making small talk with him because we have no privacy. I will have to contend with new neighbours once Wayne & Judy’s house sells but I’m going to treat this as immersion therapy and try to just ignore them. God help me if they’re friendly, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

So that’s the plan.

Out of everything we planted in the back garden, which was a lot, the only things that thrived were sugar snap peas, burgundy beans, bobcat tomatoes, sugary cherry tomatoes and green and purple peppers. The tomatoes and peppers were started indoors in march and the bobcat tomatoes out there are fucking ridiculous. There are 3 plants, that are more like BUSHES, that have grown so big it just looks like one giant tomato bush. The tomato cages were useless because there were too small, so the tomatoes grew tall enough it pulled the cages right out of the ground and they’re all supported by leaning on each other in like, a tee-pee formation. Only one of my cherry tomato plants thrived, which sucks because they’re awesome, but the cage was useless with that one too because of it being too small. I had no idea how big tomato plants could get so I got the small 99 cent cages instead of the bigger $4.99 ones. Next year we’ll get the bigger ones.

And I guess that’s enough of my crazy talk, I’ll just get on with the pictures.

(more…)

“Red & Gold” is now finished and…not for sale in my Etsy shop because I’m submitting her to The Square Foot Show, along with “Shimmer II” and “Sparkle“. If she doesn’t sell there,  I’ll put her up on Etsy when the show’s over, which is September 5th. (The show starts on August 21st at AWOL Gallery in Toronto. I’m still undecided if I’m going to go to the artist reception…I’m leaning toward “no”. But still, it’s a cool show if you happen to be local and wanted to go.)

Anyway, here’s pictures of “Red & Gold”, which was my first real painting of a woman of colour, which I’m more or less pleased with. (I think her shading could have been done a lot better, but I think she’s pretty good for a first attempt.)

I used red and gold chunky glitter for her background, which I’m actually kind of in love with. The chunky glitter, that is.  After using it on this painting and my last one, regular fine glitter just seems to pale in comparison. It has its uses, don’t get me wrong, I used a fine glitter mix for “Red & Gold”‘s eyeshadow, I just don’t like it as much for the backgrounds.

I also made a video today showing “Red & Gold” and “Shimmer II” and how they shine, which you can watch right here. I just uploaded it and it’s not done totally processing so the quality isn’t the greatest yet. I also said in the video that “Red & Gold”‘s dress is embossed black paper, which it is, but I discovered after I made the video that the varnish I use is thick enough that it erased any trace of the embossing, which is unfortunate, because now it just looks like a plain black. Which is FINE, but I wouldn’t have used embossed paper had I have known it was going to do that.

So that’s “Red & Gold”…now I have to get back to work on “Pink & Green”…

My red & gold painting (creatively titled “Red & Gold”) will be ready to varnish tomorrow when I wake up and I’m thinking I’m probably going to enter her into The Square Foot Show, along with “Shimmer II” and “Sparkle“. Drop off for the show is Tuesday night but we have yoga, so Blake’s going to drop them off next Saturday instead. I’m still undecided if I’m going to go to the artist reception on the 21st or not. I’m mostly thinking “not”, especially because I don’t want to ask anyone to babysit and I don’t want to take the kids either.

At the same time, it’s a juried show and I’m kind of superstitious about things like that. Like, if you don’t show up, you can’t win. The universe won’t let you. Not that I’ll win anything if I DO show up (pretty unlikely) but if I don’t go, then there’s NO chance I’ll win anything. And if I didn’t go and I DID win a prize, I wouldn’t know about it until I picked up my unsold work in September and not knowing that long would probably kill me.

But at the same time I really don’t want to go, so…yeah. :o/

Anyway, this is what I’m starting tonight while “Red & Gold”‘s arms dry on my coffee table:

The chunky glitter on the left that looks kinda gold is actually  a light, yellowy green called “olivine” and the pink paper is actually a metallic light pink that came crinkled like that.

When we went to Curry’s on Saturday to get watercolour pencils, I got a whole bunch of papers that are apparently going to be discontinued soon and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t go back and scoop up whatever’s left because there were some awesome Asian & paisley prints that were pinks that DO NOT turn orange when I apply varnish on top of them (I bought one and tested it – at $4.95 a sheet, you’re goddamned right I’m gonna buy a tester first). I sold “The Devil’s in the Detail’s” today (well actually, I guess I technically sold her last month because that’s how Blake & I got to go see Hole, but my friend paid off the rest of her today so she’ll go out in the mail on Monday) so I could buy up that paper, but at the same time I’m broke as fuck right now and waiting on a cheque (that’s mostly going to go towards school supplies/new clothes for the kids) so I probably shouldn’t. It’s a shame to let those papers go, though. I wish you guys could have seen them.

That’s enough babbling out of me for tonight I think. Better get back to work.

Since joining a certain Live Journal community that I’m a little iffy about and slightly afraid of posting in, I’ve learned the word “ableism”. This is what “ableism” is:

“a·ble·ism
–noun
discrimination against disabled people.”

Here’s Wikipedia’s entry on ableism, which I’m not going to put in quotes anymore because now you know that the word exists too and you know it’s a real thing.

As I’m learning about ableism by reading the posts in this Live Journal community, I’m learning that ableism applies to mental health because mental illness is a disability and the thing with mental health ableism is that most of it is inadvertent. Because people can’t see your disability they assume you don’t have one, but a lot of the crap I’ve experienced over the years by people who full out know I have a mental illness is also ableism, but a more insidious kind because it’s meant to degrade, hurt or devalue a person’s very real problem.

Want some examples?

My mother while I was in the hospital due to psychosis lamenting on the fact that she didn’t have the “luxury” of losing her mind.

People telling me to “just get better”. The whole “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” argument that no one would ever give, say, a diabetic, but for the mentally ill, it’s okay because it’s all in their head anyway, right?

People saying I’m lying about my mental health issues so I don’t have to work/don’t have to drive/don’t have to do groceries etc. Because psychosis and a 14 day stay in a psych ward is such an easy, fun thing to fake. And psychiatrists are so stupid, they all fell for it. Damn I must be a GREAT actress!

People saying I’m lying about my mental health issues AND taking all the pills I take for attention. Yes I’m taking approximately $1000/month worth of powerful psychiatric medication for attention. Ya got me.

These are ableist statements and most of them have come from people who are supposed to love me and support me. But now that I know that these statements have a name? Have like, a category? I can compartmentalize them in my brain as such and have them not affect me anymore.

So that’s all I really had to say. I just happened to see another post on this Live Journal community about ableism and then this Post Secret showed up today so I thought I’d make a short post about it.

We have peas! Lots and lots of peas! They started being ready 2 weeks ago (when these pics were taken) and we’ve been picking a large sandwich container full about every 3 days ever since. They’re mostly finished now, but the beans are almost ready!

Anyway, I thought since I took them and haven’t done a garden post in a while, I’d post these pictures. Right now the front garden isn’t doing a whole lot. Last week I paid each kid $3 to go out there with a pair of scissors and “deadhead” all of my bachelor buttons, which they did with gusto, so as things stand, the cosmos at the front that should be in bloom within the next two weeks should coincide with the 2nd round of bachelor’s buttons and I’ll take pics of the whole works then.

On with the pictures!

The kids picking peas.

Madison picking peas.

Peas & beans.

Baby peppers that are now significantly bigger.

Bobcat tomato which is also now significantly bigger.

Cherry tomatoes which we have LOTS & LOTS of.

So that’s the state of the garden right now. The peas taste like nothing I’ve ever had from a store, but then again, I’ve never seen these kind of peas in stores before anyway. I haven’t tried the beans yet because I jumped the gun in picking the few I did two weeks ago thinking there were more that were ready than there actually were so those ones are still in my fridge because there’s not enough of them to really have with a meal. All of the beans should be ready to pick in about another week I’d say and then I *think* they’ll actually make another batch of beans in September but don’t quote me on that because I’m just going by memory of when I grew this type before and honestly, things are a bit foggy,

Alright as I said in my previous post, it’s the long weekend here so it’s time to turn my brain off and get my Warcraft shit in order! Have a great weekend!

And it’s always been my goal to reflect that in my paintings. Now I’m a little bit closer with thanks to Tam for the inspiration to quit humming and hawing and standing there with my mouth open and just try. Like really really try, not just a half-assed attempt.

So what I did this week was I got up early on Monday morning, watched Tam’s videos for this week for her World of Whimsy 2 class which included a video on how to shade girls with darker complexions that was a result of me asking Tam how to do so and directly after watching I took 3 sheets of watercolour paper, drew lines on them cutting them into quarters and started drawing girls in each box. Then I painted my ass off all week until my hand ached from holding a paintbrush.

Admittedly, the first two pages were a bust with a lot of shading mistakes and poor colour choices, but the last 3 girls did I were pretty good so I figured I’d share those ones with you guys now, plus a 4th girl who was intended for a full painting but I’m not sure I’m going to because I’m not sure I like her shading.

This one was done using a dark brown watercolour pencil to do the shading, then painting over it with a mixture of acrylic paint and acrylic glazing medium. The tricky part in doing all of these girls was in trying to get their complexions even and as you can see, this one’s complexion, especially above her nose and between her eyes, is pretty uneven so that particular paint mixture wasn’t optimal. A final wash of the same mix, but thinned with water was put over this girl before I called her “done” and that helped even out her skin tone a lot. She has a beauty mark because some kind of black schmutz got on the page and it wouldn’t come off.

For all of the girls’ hair I had two options for black:

1. Premixed “metallic” black acrylic paint called “Black Pearl“
2. Mixing my own metallic black using black acrylic paint and DecoArt’s pearlizing medium (available at Michael’s)

I went with the latter because I thought it looked more authentic in that it appears a little texturized because the pearlizing medium does make it a little bit texturized. The Black Pearl paint would have been too smooth and is also a real bitch to draw on after the fact if you need to do touch-ups on the lines in their hair, which is the main reason I don’t like to use it.

Anyway, the girl above was definitely better than the first 2 pages of girls I did, but she still wasn’t there. The first 2 pages of girls were basically experimenting with colour and getting frustrated that I couldn’t get their complexions even. By the 3rd page I figured it out.

This is the one I personally like the best because her skin tone is even, her shading is a lot more apparent than in the other examples I’m going to post, I like her expression and I like her hair style/colours (the reddish brown colour is called “Royal Ruby” and is a dark metallic red that isn’t showing up well in the picture – trust me though, it looks cool). How I got her skin tone even was that I used the watercolour pencil to do my shading, then I went over it about 50 million times with a mixture of acrylic paint and glazing medium that was really thinned down with water. Like, too thinned down. The next time I use this shade (which is the same shade as the last girl, but she had her problems which I’ll explain when we get to her) I’m going to thin it a little less so I don’t have to do as many coats.

Obviously with this 3rd girl, I was going for a darker complexion and an even one at that. I think I was mostly successful, but I think if I were to do this colour again (I have a lot of practice left to do!) I might try using either a dark purple or possibly even a black watercolour pencil to do the shading because with how dark the skin tone is, a lot of it was lost. In person the shading sows up a lot better, but when I took pictures in natural light you get what you see here. Again with this one, I used the thinned down mixture of acrylic paint and glazing medium, but because this particular colour is a highly pigmented one, she only needed 2 coats to be considered finished. If I did any more, all of her shading would have been lost.

So those were my practice girls, which I’m pretty proud of. Of course I’m not showing you my other 2 pages of mistakes because they were REALLY awful, just know that I made them and we’ll move right along…

This girl was supposed to be “the real deal”, the one I made an actual painting out of, but now I’m not so sure because I don’t really like her hair and her shading got washed out by having to do so many layers of watered down paint. (Granted, her shading doesn’t look as ashed out in person as it does in this picture, but still…)

Originally I painted her to be a white girl that looks identical to everything you see here, but for her skin tone obviously. In the finished piece, she was going to have a black petticoat with red underskirts and a large red bindi jewel on her forehead. The background of the canvas was going to be red, black and gold splatters on a crackled white background with red and gold “chunky” glitter sprinkled over top. But now I’m thinking…should I go through all that effort  and use all those supplies on a girl I’m not even sure I like? I have two weeks until The Square Foot Show so realistically whatever I paint right now should be my 3rd painting for the show and I’m not sure I’d want to put this one in because I’m not sure I like her. At the same time, I’ve not liked girls at this stage before and the finished product has ended up being some of my favourite pieces so I should probably just keep going with it.

Being the August long weekend here in Canada, my plan is to forget painting for the next 4 days and play WoW with Blake so in that time I’ll give it a lot more thought and by the end of the weekend I should have my answer. I didn’t mention it but the paper I’d be using for her petticoat (I don’t even know if that’s what it’s called – the outside part of her dress) is black and embossed with vine-y flowers. I think at the very least I should give her a dress, even if she’s only going to be put in my sketchbook as a failed experiment.

Anyway, as far as art goes, I think I have the women of colour thing pretty much worked out and out of all the paint I have, I have 3 main complexions I can do: sort of a honey brown like the 1st and last examples shown, the darker one shown and one I haven’t actually used yet because I just found the bottle of paint this morning, but it’s actually called “Chocolate Brown” and that’s exactly what it looks like. All 3 of these colours can be darkened or lightened. (I have like, 10 different shades of browns, not counting metallics, but these 3 were the only ones that look like realistic skin tones.)

My next art objective is to figure out how to draw and paint Asians without them looking like bad caricatures, but I think that’s going to be something that’s kind of on the back burner while I perfect my women of colour. I cannot even tell you how excited I am to be able to, after the stupid Square Foot Show is out of the way, go back and recreate some of my favourite pieces with girls of darker complexions. And I keep saying “darker complexions” or “skin tone” or “women of colour” specifically because my girls don’t have a race necessarily.  They just have colours. Like, the one that may become a painting? She could be Indian or Black or Hispanic or even a multicultural mix of races. I’m not gonna specify. Does it matter? No it does not. I’m just happy to be able to paint them and have them be beautiful, that’s all.

So that’s what I’ve been up to this week and what I intend to be up to for quite some time.

So obviously, “She’s Like A Rainbow” is finished and I’m really really proud of her because in person, she just looks amazing but now I’m thinking about future projects and the things coming up and I’m becoming completely overwhelmed by it all. When I become overwhelmed, I’m unfortunately the kind of person to just sit down wherever I am and cry and I’m trying very very hard not o do that.

I really wish they made a suitable paper planner for me to keep everything straight because right now, my TELUS calendar is just not helping me. I miss my Big Fat 5-Star planner. I don’t know why they stopped making those, they were great.

Anyway…

The drop off date for The Square Foot Show, which Blake says I should submit to just to give me the exposure AND the option of going to the gala if I choose to, is 3 weeks away. If I don’t submit, that’s no longer an option. Also, there are prizes because it’s a juried show and it’s not like I think I would actually win something but it’s like the lottery, you’re not gonna win if you don’t play, so I might as well play. But what I’m stressing over is what to submit. What is representative of my work *and* what don’t I mind giving away for only about $100? (They sell the pieces for $200 & change but keep 50 friggin’ percent.) I’m allowed to submit up to 3 pieces and since I paid $20 to be in this show, I feel I should submit the maximum allowed. Right now I’m thinking “Sparkle“, “Shimmer II” and “Five O’Clock Abortion“. What do you guys think of that selection? I was thinking of maybe putting in “Turquoise Love Fairy” instead of “Sparkle” but I dunno. I just think it has to be one or the other because I don’t want two fairies in the same show. Personally, I like “Sparkle” better, but she’s been in my Etsy shop for the last 7 months & hasn’t moved so maybe I could sell her at Sq. Foot, is what I’m thinking.

Then there’s also the fact that there are 3 weeks left until the submission date which means I have enough time to do 1 more painting for consideration, 2 if I really haul ass and get productive. I have ideas and I’m going to start 1 tomorrow, but the 2nd idea is going to have to wait until I learn a specific technique in my art class on Monday and really, if that one goes as planned, I’d rather have it in my Etsy shop than Sq. Foot.

This is the shit that keeps me up at night, seriously.

Also keeping me up at night is the fact that Touched By Fire has already sent out their call for entries and I don’t know if I’m going to submit this year or what I’m going to submit this year. I think I have until October or November to decide, which is nice, but that also crosses into my Xmas season issues. I’m told, and I’ve seen this with my own eyes, that in October/November, Etsy kinda goes crazy with Xmas sales, so I want to have my shop as full as possible. That’s only like, 2 months & change away. It takes me about 2 weeks to do a painting and I can do 2 at a time. That means I have a lot of work ahead of me and I’m not sure if I can do Touched By Fire *and* stock my shop for Xmas.

Honestly though, Touched By Fire kinda pisses me off. The show is put on by The Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, which is why I call it “the remedial art show” and the first year they accepted me, my first year submitting, they chose “Mania in the Key of Psychosis“, which is apt, and they juxtaposed that with “Hope” and “Dream“, which also makes sense. But when I submitted last year, I submitted a ton of paintings, including my “The Devil’s in the Details” which I thought was appropriate for a show called “Touched By Fire” and they didn’t accept me. That’s cool, I can handle rejection, but the thing is that almost all of the paintings I submitted were shiny, happy paintings and I almost feel like I wasn’t accepted because I got better. My meds are working (for the most part) so I make shiny, happy paintings now and that’s not what they want. They want tortured, moody depictions of mental illness and to me, that kinda seems like defeating the purpose of the Association, don’t you think? I mean, isn’t the goal here to help people get better? So why isn’t that represented in the show?

So that’s why I might not bother submitting to that show this year. I don’t want to paint something dark and moody specifically for that show because if it’s not accepted and if it IS accepted and doesn’t sell, then what the fuck am I going to do with it? My online audience of customers don’t want that shit and I kinda don’t know if it’s right to paint outside of your own headspace/mood just to get in a show, does that make sense?

“The Two Sunnies” would have been perfect for the show, but I gave that one to my shrink, partially as a “thank you” because she HAS helped me immensely but also to show her “hey, this is actually what I do for a living so quit telling me I don’t have a job” (and she hasn’t done that since, as a point of fact, every session she asks me if I’m painting because if I’m not painting it’s probably time to adjust my meds).

You can submit work to the show that’s not for ale, but I’d kinda feel like a dick asking her for it back, if only for a few weeks. Especially if something happened to it (the Touched By Fire people were NOT gentle with my work when they sent it back to me…).

And then there’s just trying to get my shop as full as possible for the Xmas season. Of COURSE I want to sell things the second I put them up, that would be great! But at the same time, I need to have a full shop by like, mid-October which means that I need to start painting my ass off (which I’ve been doing, I finished 3 paintings this month!). And that’s fine, I can do that, but things like Camwhores and WoW are going to have to get to the back of the line. And YES WoW is totally a recreational thing and I can see how the outside observer might be like “well not playing a video game is pretty easy” but when you’re an officer in a guild, especially, it’s a little more involved than that. People count on you. Camwhores? Well that’s just another can of worms.

For someone who “doesn’t do anything”, I sure seem to have a lot on my plate right now and I don’t really know how to make time for everything. I think painting has to be my #1 priority, WoW on weekends, Camwhores when I can’t sleep.Oh and there’s yoga too, can’t forget that…the art class I’m taking too….

When the kids go back to school, I’ll have more time to get things done, which will help a lot, so I have that to consider as well, especially when it comes to fitting Camwhores into my schedule.

Anyway, as I said, this is the shit that keeps me up at night. Hopefully now that it’s all out of my brain I can finally drag my ass to bed and sleep like a normal human being. Maybe?