world's tiniest carnival

I am sick. My fave low energy creativity is colouring books. I like bold outlines and cute subject matter but also colouring books that come from a particular artist instead of the mills that are constantly churning out new books. This book from stephasocks of doodledate YouTube fame is my all time favourite. (They are also one of my comfort YouTube channels, I've been following them for ages and wish them all the best) If y'all have a colouring book recommendation, I'd love if you drop it in the comments.

I typical look in the arts and crafts section if the library a lot but the last couple times I had the thought to look in KIDS arts and crafts section and I definitely have come across some gems. Anyone remember those step-by-step drawing books that build up "simple" shapes. I don't precisely get how they walk you through the seal is supposed to be easier than free handing it. Maybe a five year old could explain it to me. I have had lots of fun recreating these little guys. I like how most of them have smiles and most of them face the right. Everyone know tigers are the only ones with left facing powers and that tortoises are built exactly like brick walls.

Not that I did it all in one month, but I was pretty single minded with my free time for awhile. Why? As a wise and fictional six year old once said "I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul."

I usually struggle a lot with poses, but with the power of God and anime on my side I did muddle through a couple iterations until I found something I was happy with. Very much inspired by  this animation . Yes it is Alastor Hazbin who definitely looks like something I would come up with in high school. Yes that is why I love him. (I should literally look at my high school drawings and see if I can do Alastor in that style. It would really suit him I bet)

An important aspect of the movie-going experience is that you get a too large beverage and then spend the last half of the movie desperately needing to go pee. Movies are better that way. I bet they've done studies. It's totally true.  I saw the Markiplier movie. Markiplier was indeed there. I liked it but it was not as spooky scary as I would have preferred. I didn't get bored of it like some reviews suggested I might, I guess I'm just happy to spend time with a tortured Markiplier and also there is a blood ocean there. Honestly I would say it seems like a good video game adaptation, keeping in mind I haven't played the game, if only because Markiplier acts how I feel a player character might react in that situation. I particularly like his annotations he writes on the map.   I also enjoyed having no context to what anyone is saying and piecing the world they live in together in my head with the scraps of information given. People who always want certainty in all p...

I am happy I am using this sketchbook I've had for years and only used sporadically before now. Today's page involved actually physically weaving the page paper with some scratch paper I had lying around. I like how it came out, I feel like it would be a good background texture for a future doodle. I also added more flair to yesterday's which I like best of all the versions:

It's always hard to know where to stop #1 #2 #3 All three states have their charm I think. Doing it is the most important part. Gotta keep experimenting.

Being in a stage of my life where I am not constantly in pointless meetings has been terrible for my doodle productivity. I got a fun book from my local library that is inspiring for space-filling, maximalist mind-wandering art stuffs: Here are a couple of excerpts that helped unclog some of my creative juices: Robin Cameron Justin Fines (www.demo-design.com) J. Namdev Hardisty Michael Perry  As is probably unsurprising given this is a book from 2008, a lot of the artists' included websites are dead links. Maybe I can dig and see if some of these folks have migrated their work to other corners of the internet. Here is my effort to get back to doodling today, inspired by what I've taken in so far: Kinda ended up looking like a Christmas tree haha

I found some sculpy I had lying around while tidying up and made some friends That's all for now folks!

I've been rewatching the Big Comfy Couch lately. I probably haven't watched an episode since elementary school before now and I'm finding it extremely charming. It feels like finding a chunk of my childhood preserved in amber. I love looking at old pictures of my life and this is a similar but even more visceral feeling. I am jealous of people who have video tapes of themselves when they were kids. I can't picture myself as a a baby moving, I'm just a series of stationary impressions. I gotta get those digitized next time I'm at my parents', or convince them/my sibling to do it. Anywhoozle, here's Loonette the Clown and her dolly Molly.

She is so cute! Also, stuffing things is such a good way to use up scraps. I will have to make more projects that allow for that, I have at least two more chickens to make anyhow!

Enjoy this old picture of my clown OC, back when I was realizing I like clowns genuinely and sincerely and not at all ironically like I had previously thought. She's cute, I need to draw more of her and flesh her out more.

As you can see, I have made a fair bit of progress thanks to my ability to stay up past my bedtime (that comes at a great cost, but so do most super powers). The problem is that everything to the right is off by two! Somehow I managed to make the green "arrow" part I've circled 22 stitches instead of 20.  Not quite sure what I was thinking when I didn't count that one and just went entirely based on my gut apparently. In the interest of having a good time, I am just going to power through as is. Maybe I'll recenter the text, maybe I won't. Everything looks so nice I don't want to undo all of it. Considering it's going to end up as a 3D object we'll see how much this affects things when it's all sewn up. Le sigh.

I got these wonderful treats while I was back home for the holidays. Finding nice chocolate while vegan isn't that challenging if you're into the dark stuff, but I think I'm still going to make picking up Purdy's chocolate a priority On top of the other treats people so thoughtfully got me, I'm set until Valentine's 😋 Cross stitch update for the curious:

I had to pull up a whole bunch of my work in my cross stitch because I got off by one and didn't notice for a while. I know there's better ways to keep track of where you are in a pattern by marking the fabric, but I tend to just wing it and count. Sometime I pay the price and it can be a little discouraging.

Got everything I needed to start my new project today. I was delighted to find a local art supply store to buy all the materials in lieu of going to Michael's. It was so charming and full of all sorts of fun stuff and the person who assisted me was so helpful and welcoming. I definitely found a new favourite spot. As you can see, I got started basically as soon as I got home. I'm so in love with the colours!

Call me crazy, but I thought most snow shovels were cordless!

I love unexpected gifts especially. It means someone was thinking of you when you weren't around. It's easy to feel sometimes like you might just not exist to people when you aren't around, but it's nice to be proven wrong.  Anyways for the D&D campaign I'm in my GM and his GF got all is players dice that she felt go with the vibes of our characters. So pretty and they glow in the dark: Also I feel as a bard I should have never learned fireball, because now any time I'm not casting fireball I'm like but what if I should be casting fireball.

I'm looking to start a new cross stitch and it's a gift where a key element has gotta be whimsy.  I'm thinking frogs. Frogs are whimsical, especially if they're doing things that people usually do. Or maybe geese? Currently scouring Etsy for good pattern ideas. Will report back when I settle on something.

Watching horror movies on your period is cathartic because you get to watch people having a worse time than you and arguably losing more blood. Anyways Sinners is a fantastic movie.