Yarrabyte hasn’t come home
Beep Beep 🚚
🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋Something extra noodly please
🍜🍜🍜
I intended on having a quiet weekend but instead had to go up and down slides at a play centre then shepherd the kids around the city. I don’t feel as sick but I feel like I’ve had a massive gym session now
View from the kitchen window. Am starting to feel like Tippi Hedren…
is there a telephone booth nearby?
Oookay. I found a plastic palette knife that actually was the right shape and had some matte medium to thin some white acrylic. 3 inch, one inch and fan brushes too. So I decided to give the Bob Ross method a try.
It wasn’t bad… I made a passable painting (which does NOT reflect on my skills) but believe me when I say you really do need to use the materials he says to.
spoiler
The wet base wasn’t as much of a problem as expected. I used heaps of medium with a little titanium white and applied it excessively as a base because I knew of the tendency of boards to absorb moisture and acrylic to dry very fast. Thankfully it was enough.
Blending was hard. Very streaky, brushstrokes galore, I had to blend very gently to minimise them. Especially with synthetic brushes. Many hairs and pieces of dirt to pick off with the corner of the brush.
The clouds ended up blobby and smeary cotton balls because the paint was too thin and wet.
Again, the paint was too thin and wet to ‘break’ on the highlights of the mountains and give the desired texture. As you can see I gave up halfway.
I couldn’t get nicely detailed trees or give the highlights on the trees enough definition because it was hard to get the brush dry enough to give thin clumps of bristles with concentrated pigment. I gave up.
There is a reason Bob Ross beats his paintbrushes so viciously. It’s because of the moisture that is so hard to completely get out and will badly mess with your painting.
Wayward drips removed paint from the sky. And as I tried to paint the ground and then to highlight the ground, instead of applying paint the brush removed the paint beneath it. I blobbed brown on to get the dirt down but had to do the same for the highlights because the alternative was the brush taking off everything beneath it.
I almost didn’t want to post this because of embarrassment but wanted to show what happens when you use inappropriate materials.
I didn’t finish this so much as give up in disgust. I hate the smeary blobby clouds the most. Trust me if I had had thick dry pigment they would have looked very different.
Also MELBCAT STEPPED ON THE PAINT PALETTE
that’s awesome 🌞
I thibk that’s beautiful tbh :)
Thanks dude
It really could have used some more texture on the middle of the mountain and/or some more trees there but the paint really wasn’t cooperating
painting pretty
I like it! I like all the different colours in the trees
I’m wondering if I should just go for it and get some cheap oil paints and linseed oil. See how things should actually turn out. But that takes cleanup from dish soap and water to the risks of spontaneously combusting rags and Melbcat licking something genuinely toxic off her fur.
(She’s currently traumatized/sulking because I
bullied and mauled herforced her to unwillingly stand up and give me her feet to clean of paint. It was an ordeal and I don’t think I got it off.)I cannot stress how much more complex safety and cleanup would get with oils. Also like, money. Melbcat has just gone onto a much more expensive food and is eating very well on it so I don’t want to be spending on proper gear or an easel. I want her to be safe and for there to be plenty to cover her needs.
Also there is a particular texture to the paint, it has to be thick and dry enough to stand up 2-3 inches by itself when squeezed from the tube. You’re either trying to get a specific quality brand in Australia or really taking your chances. Both sound expensive.
Turns out I have income protection insurance through super. That should help a lot.
That’s only if you’re off due to injury or illness, doesn’t protect you from unrelated job loss
You can buy insurance from being made redundant, but it’s bloody expensive.
Noted for the future. Will definitely be looking into more comprehensive income protection in the future.
I’ve never seen the value in it personally, but I work in a field where you can usually get a job.
Yeah just looked into it more :(
Time to jump off a bridge I suppose…
With this could you take sick leave for mental health or undisclosed reasons to get the insurance and spend that time job searching? Just wondering how it works
In theory yes, but there is generally a 90 day (could be different but this is most common) waiting period before payments kick in - and it’s not backdated. So it’s really only useful if it’s an extended absence, and you have enough to get by for a few months without income
Woolies would like to remind you that Christmas is only 4 months away and it’s time to start thinking about spending season.
I think they’re just trying to dump stock early. At least I hope so.
Also painting here, just finished the first coat of the chair of the vintage bedroom suite. It was fiddly.
Well done you. I used to repair and paint salvaged furniture (before all this) and the painting is very fiddly
Thankyou Melba for the post
A bit windy out there. Wind + van on the Western Fwy gives an extra challenge to the drive. Seeing all the lights in the city is rather pretty, as is the view off the West Gate Bridge. The flashing lights of the emergency vehicles attending an accident were also rather pretty, although I suspect the drivers of the cars involved didn’t really appreciate the effect (looked pretty minor, lots of dents and inconvenience rather than trapped inside mangled wreckage type accident).
Driving down the Fwy at night is always fun, especially in patches where there are no cars in front of you. Something about the lack of reference points starts to give me the feeling that I’m sitting still and everything outside is moving, or like it’s a video game.
2nd interview here we go 🤞
🤞
You still turned up even if it’s online so that looks good for you
For sure. He emailed back and apologied and the message from the recruiter was a very strong “yes they definitely want to speak to you”.
Mental struggle street today. Not sure what’s going on, but fighting the urge to just run away. Found myself browsing flight prices. You can’t run away from yourself though.
That’s a mood. But where would I go (and wherever you go there’s the same issues)
actualleee, going somewhere else is called geographic solution by psychs and it can be quite effective
we won’t encounter as many triggers, anyone who was abusive won’t be there , the relief from these stressors gives us breathing space, a rest, and that can give us the energy to understand people and events around us
So deeply true but I risk running into the same type of environment :(
Life is really tough. I’m trying to take it day by day, rest a lot, and think about other things.
Art rambles
I’m trying to break this art block by drawing small things. Little exercises/doodles. I’m doing so little and stressing so much. I don’t know how this was so easy and automatic when younger.
The Bob Ross painting method looks fun and easy, much less rigorous than drawing or traditional painting. But when you look into it the actual materials and tools aren’t very accessible.
The palette knife is a particular style and proprietary. It can be bought in Australia but is like $30.
The magic white is proprietary but can be duplicated by diluting titanium white in linseed oil. However I don’t want to work with linseed oil due to the risk of spontaneous combustion of the rags, and don’t want to use turps in the house around Melbcat. Mineral spirits is also something I don’t want in the house.
I don’t know how I’d go about getting paint that is thick and dry enough without hunting down a particular substitute which could be expensive.
I considered water based oil paints but they are softer/spongier and don’t cure well, are much more expensive than straight up oil paints, and I don’t know what medium is appropriate to thin them.
Wet on wet with acrylic has been tried by others but it’s not suited to the purpose and involves a lot of additives like thinning mediums and drying retardants that would add to the cost.
That’s all without getting appropriate canvases. It needs to be stretched rather than a board (which would suck up all the moisture) and not treated with gesso (same result).
It’s fine, I’d probably just be too lazy anyway
it doesn’t have to be perfect
use daiso paints, really cheap, very good, and it’s not a problem if you waste it, the daiso paper is also very good
many op shops have unused art supplies too
The problem is doing wet on wet (the easy painting)
Doesn’t really work without some very specific materials
Thank you for posting Melba 😊
Yarrabyte on a bender.
