Trying to do more things.

Spent some time yesterday getting reacquainted with some of my hobbies after a fairly long break, due to travel, and various other things. I busted out the Karaoke for about an hour, and sang my way through my favourite songs, was even able to hit my current favourite twice! Even worked in some new (to me) songs I’ve been vibing with. That made me want to play guitar, so I did that for an hour as well. Jamming along to the JBL Boombox. It’s a concert in my office people. After I was done jamming, I pulled out my airbrush kit and finished off some cheapo 3d printed minis I had lying around. I did them up with a black base colour, then two shades of green, followed by a slime green dry brush. I plan to use this group as an undead/spectral horde. No need for fine detailing. Which reminds me, should I ever actually receive that Blacklist mi iatures I bought from Kickstarter 2.5 years ago, they’ll have all the details you could ever hope for, for a finely painted set of monsters and such. Followed that up by playing Diable 4 for a bit. Watched some baseball, and finished the night off watching a hockey game at my buddies place. We were hit with the mother of all tornado warnings (luckily for me my friend Leslie works for a weather tracking/mapping/research facility and was able to tell us we were really far south of where the actual threat was, but to be prepared for a heavy downpour and lightning) which was very helpful.

Today I had a moment so I took the inner frame of my resin kit and added a cohesive layer of light grey primer. I fear I thinned it too much. I hate having to unclog the machine once the primer kits off, but I might have gone overboard with the thinner portion. Live and learn. I’ll try it again with less thinner, see if I get better, and a more saturated (in colour) coating.

My cardboard box spray booth. Mainly to collect over spray, and save the stuff around me from getting coated in misted paint.

I was able to replace the innertube on my daughters bike the other day, cut the grass, and go grocery shopping, and do laundry. So it’s been a full week regardless of the holiday long weekend which we just celebrated.

If I can work in reading my book, rather than Twitter, and try to get some more of my Ninja turtle bust sculpted, all that’s left is to do some wood working and I’ve done just about everything, except painting on a canvas (which I substituted painting on minis, and on the resin kit so all good there) and trying to do some creative short story writing. It’s too much. I know I have a finger in too many pies, but I plateau and get bored fairly quickly. I find moving around between them all makes me like each one more, as it offers up some very different feelings, actions, and sense of reward for trying. Yeah I’d get much better and any one of them if I narrowed down to just one, possible two things, but I find that to be too inhibiting. Some of them I treat as seasonal endeavours, which really helps to open up the schedule to doing all of the things. Just not a once, this ain’t no fantasy camp for the arts here bud. That was college. Glad I went. Great times.

I personally would love to spend a week someplace where I could devote 16 hours each day to art stuff. I’d plan it like this.

8:00am wake up. 1hr work-out and a jog. 1hr for a shower and then breakfast. 2hr life drawing, 2hr painting, 1hr lunch, 1hr creative writing, 2hrs wood shop, 1hr music (playing an instrument or karaoke mixed) 2hrs sculpting, 1hr dinner, 2hrs free time (gaming/reading/model building etc…), in bed for midnight. For a week straight. Now that would be a vacation for the ages. That would be awesome, especially if there were talented folks there who you could ask for advice on stuff, or watch them for brief periods to learn new techniques. Fantasy artist camp. I’d go. I might squeeze in some computer software time to work in Photoshop & Illustrator to build some skills there too, if I had the option. A little skills workshop for the old day job wouldn’t go amiss.

I think my eldest daughter, and even my youngest might get a kick out of a retreat like that as they get older. My wife is quite crafty too. She used to paint rocks up as flowers, do beading, and stained glass projects. She might like it aswell now that I think about it. Ah, to dream.

It’s Thursday today. May 23rd I believe, of the year 2024. 2 years ago we had that massive Djericho storm that traveled 800km from Windsor to Montreal up the highway 7 corridor tearing up trees, rooves, and knocking down barns. Followed by a 26hr long power outage. What a day that was. Have a great day. Ciao Bella.

Wrapping up our Fair entries for the year.

This whole weekend will be spent painting, crafting, sewing, baking and running around town to get the last few fair entries finished, and in some instances started & finished ahead of next Tuesdays drop off deadline. Could get rather tense! I need to grab pumpkins with my BIL to deliver to the fair grounds too. Lots to do around here in the next four days.

We need to review our photography and get those printed off, mounted, and ready for display come Saturday. We picked up our badges, ribbons and parking tags, so that much is taken care of so far. Probably need to go shopping for rice crispies so that I can make my last project on Sunday/Monday. Don’t want to make them too far in advance as they’ll go stale when it’s time for judging on Wednesday of next week.

I love fair time. If the weather holds out we always get some terrific photos of the midway and the kids smiling & having fun. Blooming onions, funnel cakes, burgers and ice creams, the occasional candy floss, or candy apples thrown into the mix. It’s great. I hope we get to see the horse pulls, demolition derby, and the monster trucks too. I’m pretty partial to wandering around the home craft building looking at all of the complex quilts and art work. My sculpting never wins any prizes but I enter them anyway no painted ceramics this year, so I have to go in for the “Technique Not Mentioned” open category. I just like having one thing to show to people.

The food trucks and the Smashed Burger folks have really good food. I’m sad that I can’t eat more of it in a day. I’ll be searching for their blue banner again this year. As much as I usually enjoy the chicken tenders and fries from the fair, the Smashed Burger really piqued my interest last year.

You should come out to see it. Parking is free, and there are nightly fireworks shows. It’s a really fun agricultural experience. Ciao Bella!