Karin Wanderer Learns

In Part 1 of this earthshaking, dream making, groundbreaking blog duology I explained how temperatures over 90°F (32°c) can affect your watercolor painting. I explored various techniques that can help you watercolor in extreme heat, as well as a number of solutions you can buy to help you in this endeavor. Sadly, all the proposed solutions were outside my budget so I could only discuss options instead of testing them. Happily, this week we are talking about DIY options using common household items! Roll up your sleeves & strap on your safety goggles, Part 2 is all about #WatercolorScience!

You Can DIY A Solution

The internet contains a literally infinite amount of DIY art solutions. Some are sensible, some are ridiculous, & some, like a cat flap, are so ridiculously obvious it takes a real genius to point them out. With a small amount of time for testing I chose to limit my experimentation to 5 DIY solutions in 2 groups.

The Solution is in the Water

These solutions were added to the water I used to coat the paper before painting. I tested adding dish soap, ice, vinegar, & witch hazel. Some are meant to make the paint spread out faster, some are meant to make the paper dry more slowly, & some are meant to do both. The solutions make the paint spread faster by destroying the surface tension of the water. If you follow me on Mastodon, you’ve already seen my post explaining surface tension. If not, here we go!

Liquids like water (or, in the example below, oat milk) have a high surface tension; the molecules hold tightly together. That’s why water can ‘mound up’ over the top of a cup before spilling, & why some insects can walk right across the water’s surface. When you add a solution that lowers surface tension, like dish soap, the water molecules stop holding tightly to each other & instead spread themselves out as much as possible, as seen below!

This is the first video I ever made for this blog. It is truly an historic moment in both scientific & cinematic achievement!

Experiment Time!

I brushed on the solution, then painted a green flower shape using the wet-on-wet technique to see how the paint flow & drying rates were affected over time. Vinegar & witch hazel behaved so similarly I only photographed vinegar’s results. Here are my super science results:

The ‘A’ card is my control- just plain water. On a day over 90°F (32°c), with no fan, it was bone-dry in 7 minutes.

Dish Soap The ‘B’ card was soapy water. As you can see, the paint disperses faster, just like the food coloring in the video above. However, it also dries a lot faster. It hardly blurs from the 3 minute mark on, whereas plain water was blurry past the 5 minute mark. Considering how many claims I saw online about soap slowing drying time, I was surprised!

Ice Cubes The ‘C’ card is for icy water. Cold water evaporates more slowly. It seems so obvious when I say it out loud! I felt genuinely foolish that this had to be pointed out to me- but it works.

Vinegar or Witch Hazel The ‘D’ card is for vinegar, which behaved exactly like witch hazel in that neither worked as intended. The paint dried noticeably faster, even though at this point the temperature had fallen & the humidity had risen slightly! I declare these both to be complete failures.

Winner: Ice water. Who knew?!

The Solution is in the Paint

This was suggested for watercolor paint that comes in a tube instead of pans, so I could only test it with gouache. I mixed the smallest drop of honey I could squeeze out of the bottle with about 4–5 times the amount of paint using an old supermarket rewards card as a palette knife. It mixed up much more easily than expected! That was the last part that went more easily than expected…

Mixing honey with pigments to make paint is old- we have literally found this mixture in cave paintings from Neolithic times. It was also used in Ancient Egyptian paintings & illuminated manuscripts. People still use it to make their paints today! It makes your colors brighter & shinier. If you use a light-color honey it barely affects your colors! I have seen honey that is practically clear that would be perfect for this. I was using black paint for this experiment, so I didn’t worry about the color of honey.

This worked much too well. As you can see from my test papers, there is an enormous difference in drying time between the lines.

Line ‘B’ was plain gouache. Whether used fresh out of the tube or left to dry on a palette & rehydrated, it dries on the page inside of 3 minutes. Honeyed gouache just… doesn’t dry at all. 30 hours after the initial experiment, the gouache on the test paper was still tacky – like it usually feels about 2 minutes after painting. The gouache on my palette was still wet! It was shiny & sticky, like fresh tar on a hot street. I have watched videos of people making paint with honey so I know that works, but adding it to already-mixed paint was not the easy solution I was promised by internet randos.

[Friendly Neighborhood Karin here. 60 hours after mixing honey & paint, all the honeyed paint was still wet. 90 hours after mixing, it was still a bit sticky but dry enough that a sealant spray might have worked. I have no sealant spray & so just threw all the honeyed paintings away.]

Winner: Nobody. Well, maybe the ants who find these honeyed paintings in the trash.

Xtreme Climate Conclusions

I’m so pleased that ice water is the clear winner here. What an easy, inexpensive solution. I’ve started dropping one ice cube into each of my 2 water glasses when I start painting on a hot day. Adding a lot of ice (as I did for the ‘C’ card) means that sometimes a bit of ice can stick to your brush & you end up carrying it to the paper, which messes with your water levels. One cube is plenty. Put the rest of your ice into your drinking water- you need to stay hydrated too!

This multi-part extreme weather blog has been a blast! Thank you to everyone who sent me suggestions. I am spending this week doing a series of free watercolor workshops (made possible in this weather by ice water!) See you next week!

This is an ongoing series of #WatercolorScience articles about how different types of weather affect your painting, even if you work inside.

Extreme Heat & low humidity: We're Having a Heat Wave & I Started This Heat Wave Freezing Temperatures: When Winter Comes Howling In Humidity & Rain: Lost in a Fog

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Human Beings Are Like Paints

Both react poorly to heat. Dehydration becomes a larger & larger concern as the temperature climbs. Where I live, the temperature rising is generally combined with the humidity falling, which leads to even faster dehydration. As extreme heat waves become more & more common, we are going to have to adapt how we do a lot of things, from growing our food to building our homes. Those are issues I will leave to architects & agricultural experts, however. I will be talking about a different subject: how to watercolor in extreme heat. There’s a lot to talk about because, as you will see-

Paints Are Like Human Beings

There are myriad tips & tricks to weather the heat a little better while painting.

1. Do not paint in high heat, if you can avoid it. Working early in the day or late at night when it is comparatively less hot & more humid will be more comfortable for you & your watercolors.

2. Be aware of how much heat your light source is contributing. Painting in direct sunlight (even if you are inside) or under a hot lamp will dry everything out quickly! When it gets over 90°F (32°c) I use my somewhat dim ceiling light to paint as much as possible. I turn my bright/hot lamp on only for mixing color & painting details. The difference it makes is remarkable!

3. Work smaller, if you can. When it gets over 100°F (38°c), if I absolutely must paint, I won’t paint anything larger than 2 x 3 inches. If the paper is small enough, you can paint fast enough to beat the accelerated drying time!

4. Add water to the back of the paper, then tape it to your work surface. The paper will stay damp longer if both sides are wet! I have seen this as a tip to avoid the paper rippling, but it also helps keep everything hydrated on hot days.

5. Add water to everything! Mix your paints a little thinner than usual, wet your paper a little more than usual… You know the poem; “water water everywhere, so let’s all have a drink.” Get yourself a spray bottle with a very fine mist, & you can mist your paper, your paints, even yourself!

6. Switch to a different medium entirely! I recently had to switch from watercolors to ink mid-painting as the temperatures climbed so high the “water” part of my colors was evaporating before I could work.

While ‘art differently’ is certainly a tactic, it may not be the best tactic.

Happily, there are many other solutions. In fact-

You Can Buy A Solution

Several, even. There are a variety of products you can add to either your water or your paint to extend drying time. These products can also make the watercolors more glossy, more transparent, more textured, or more pearlescent, so test before using! I have not tried any of these products & therefore cannot make any recommendations.

Gum Arabic is the hardened sap of Acacia trees. It is a common ingredient in many watercolors already. It will make your paint dry more slowly, giving you more time to work, while also making the paint appear more glossy & transparent. You can mix it into the water or the paint.

Ox Gall Liquid is not vegan. It is a fluid harvested from bovine (usually cattle) gall bladders & mixed with alcohol. Some watercolors use ox gall as an additive ingredient. If having a vegan art kit is something you value, check the ingredients for each individual color- especially shades of black.

Synthetic Ox Gall Liquid is vegan. Both versions of ox gall reduce surface tension, increasing how much & how quickly the paint flows. They both extend drying time. You can mix both into the water or the paint. You only need a few drops! Too much can dull your colors.

Watercolor Medium is a confusing name. All the products in this section are referred to as watercolor mediums. Watercolor Medium, however, is a specific product. It increases the paints’ gloss & saturation, like gum arabic, as well as the speed & extent of the paints’ flow, like ox gall.

Tune In Next Week For The Epic Scientific Conclusion!

I thought this could be done in one week but it is getting long. I’ve been experimenting with adding various solutions to my water & paint to beat the heat. Next week I’ll share the #WatercolorScience I’ve been engaged in!

This isn’t a mess, it’s science!

Making this a 2-part series means you had an opportunity to share your watercolor wisdom! Thank you to everyone who sent your tips & tricks to me via Ko-Fi & Mastodon! I absolutely loved trying as many as I could that week!

This is an ongoing series of #WatercolorScience articles about how different types of weather affect your painting, even if you work inside.

Extreme Heat & low humidity: We're Having a Heat Wave & I Started This Heat Wave Freezing Temperatures: When Winter Comes Howling In Humidity & Rain: Lost in a Fog

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, a year-long art challenge!

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Art supplies are expensive. Artists are broke. Greedy CEOs refuse to pay living wages, forcing people like WGA & SAG-AFTRA members to go on strike. Not everyone has the protection & support provided by union membership – for example, VFX artists do not have a union – so not everyone has access to strike funds, or programs that help union members buy groceries. As millionaire & billionaire executives choose to shut down production over sharing their record-breaking profits, artists are forced to tighten our belts more & more. If you would like to support film & television workers, donate to the Entertainment Community Fund.

Make A Peppermint Palette

This is a very flexible DIY to make a Travel Watercolor Palette, you can work with whatever you have in the recycling bin.

1. Go raid the recycling bin. We are going to upcycle a whole bunch of different things! I ended up with a tin that held mints, a lot of differently-sized bottle caps, & a bottle that held juice. The bottle was clear, & the back of the label was plain white.

1. The lid of the tin was grey & I wanted something white to mix paints on. I had a juice bottle & some round plastic from inside the bottle caps (that ended up falling apart too easily). I cut the oblong shape (see picture in step 1) out of a juice bottle so the white back of the label makes a good place to mix the paint.

2. Try different numbers & configurations of bottle caps inside the tin. I have black & white tube watercolors now, & I want to add primary colors in the future, so I needed to have 5 caps fit in the tin.

3. Any glue would probably work. Use sandpaper to rough up the bottoms of the caps & the inside of the tin a little, to help the glue hold extra well. I used hot glue. Try not to burn your fingers- the tin will get hot!

4. Add your paint! This works exactly like filling half pans in a store-bought palette. Here is a lovely video explaining different techniques.

5. Dance the Dance of Victory while the paint dries. You just made a travel watercolor palette!

6. The Last & Most Important Step: Share your creation with me! Send me a picture of your upcycled paint palette on Ko-Fi or Mastodon!

You will need tube watercolors or the ability to make your own paints, which I cannot help you with… yet. I painted the Mr. Turners in this meme with my new travel palette. I will be upcycling more art supplies in the future, so let me know if there is something you want me to make!

This is my paint palette. There is only one like it, because this one is mine.

You Are Now Free to Wander & Paint

The initial idea for this Travel Palette came from The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws. I had to return the book to the library long before I had gathered all the parts I needed, so I don’t really remember how close my version is to the one in his book. The Laws Guide has quite a long waiting list at my library, for good reason. It is excellent, I highly recommend it. (See below for my policy on book reviews)

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

What is Alt Text?

‘Alt text’ is short for ‘alternative text.’ Just as the name implies, it is text describing an image that can be used as an alternative to viewing the image it accompanies. Alt text can be viewed in different ways on different sites & apps. Sometimes it pops up when you hover over the picture, sometimes it is displayed below the picture, sometimes it can’t be seen at all but screen readers & refreshable braille displays can still access it for people. Alt text is used by people with visual impairments, trouble focusing on/processing visual information, or weak internet connections. It is used by people, like me, who get headaches & turn the screen brightness so far down we can’t see the pictures clearly. It is used by people who can see the image just fine, but want to read the description anyway. Really, alt text is used by so many people I’m surprised it’s not universal!

If you are still not clear on what alt text is, you can follow this link & hover your cursor over the picture or use your screen reader to access the alt text for the picture below.

Look at this photograph, tell me what it is so I can laugh

What Isn’t Alt Text?

Sometimes people use the alt text slot to add the photographer’s name or contact info. Put that near the image- alt text is just for description!

Brevity is the Soul of Alt

Keep it as simple as possible without losing accuracy. Transcribe any text that is in the image.

The wonderful Curator of mastodon.Art explained the basic format for alt text for a single image so neatly I’m just going to quote her directly;

Describe the medium (“An oil painting”) Describe the subject (“of a cottage in a field”) Describe the mood (“the colours are warm and create a cozy atmosphere”).

The alt text for this image could be... A watercolor painting of a woman resting her chin on her hand. Her head is on fire. The colours create a cozy atmosphere.

Of course, if you are describing art, you may want to be a bit more descriptive. Depending on the art, you may need to change the format or write a bit more:

Watercolor & Ink 2 panel comic. Panel 1: Title Text reads “Calvin and Hobbes by Watterson and Wanderer”. Angry Calvin is marching with his fist in the air, shouting “I'm not tired! It's only 7:30! This is tyranny! I'm” Panel 2: Sleeping Calvin on the floor, voice bubble has a picture of a bee & says “zzzz.”

Make sure you use proper punctuation. It is especially important to add a period at the end, so the screen reader pauses before moving on to read the next part of the screen.

Every person, every app, & every text reader is different. I have given you the broad strokes, but it is worth looking into how/if the different websites/apps you use employ alt text. If you don’t add alt text, most screen readers will just say ‘image’ so trying to write alt text can make a huge difference in someone’s ability to enjoy your pictures! For more information, see organizations like the American Foundation for the Blind & Web Accessibility Initiative!

When You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover

Most book covers – even for audiobooks! – do not include alt text. Book cover design is its own category of art work. It is an integral part of the reading experience. The designers deserve to have their work appreciated by everyone! On 17 July, authors & artists are encouraged to share alt text for their book covers. Readers are encouraged to @ their favorite authors, publishers, etc., & ask them to provide alt text for covers. Be sure to use #AltTextCoverDay!

Mea Culpa

All the pictures shared in all the articles in this blog are mine. They are hosted on my page, where they all have alt text. Somehow I only realized the alt text wasn’t accessible here as I was working on this article. It should work for screen readers now. Please let me know if it does not, & include the program/app/etc you are using to read this, so that I can fix it.

See you next week!

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Last week, I wrote about the art & music in Studio Ghibli movies. I also touched on where some of the stories came from, but I didn’t have time to explore another major influence on Studio Ghibli’s work: folklore.

Japanese folklore is woven throughout every one of their movies. The Kodama, or tree-spirits, that populate the forest in Princess Mononoke also feature in The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu over 1,000 years ago. Countless other people have already written about the many, many spirits depicted in Spirited Away. Anyone who’s a fan of Pom Poko might enjoy reading more about the the bake-danuki, who are shape-shifting tanuki. Myths & folklore are stories that have proven they can stand the test of time. It makes sense that people would reuse & rework them as a form of cultural shorthand.

My work also features Kodama; Lady Murasaki & I are practically twins!

Folklore is a basis for countless modern children’s tales, not just Studio Ghibli ones. It can be used in so many ways & incorporates so many styles! For example…

Some play with the ideas found in folklore. Marcus Ewert & Susie Ghahremani’s picture book She Wanted to Be Haunted is the most Ghibli-like in that regard.

Some tell the story directly, like in The Princess and the Warrior by Duncan Tonatiuh. Some tell it with a few key changes, as Sanjay Patelas does in Ganesha's Sweet Tooth.

Some use folklore as a jumping off point to not only tell a story, but teach about a culture. In Mooncakes by Loretta Seto & Renné Benoit, we get to see how one family celebrates the Chinese Moon Festival as a framing device for telling several traditional Chinese stories about the moon. I can remember my teacher reading A Story, a Story by Gail E. Haley to me when I was so small, so small, so small. This book opens with a page of information about “Spider Stories” & how African storytelling uses repetition for emphasis. It has stuck with me ever since!

Some take characters from folklore & put them into new stories, as in Rabbit Moon by Jean Kim.

Some will retell a familiar story in the style of a different culture, as a way of introducing something new alongside something familiar, as Tomie dePaola does in Adelita

Some do a little of everything with folklore. Some, like Walter Elias Disney, have built empires out of it.

... and the Soot Sprites rejoiced.

What fantastic folklore have I forgotten? Let me know on Ko-Fi

I would like to reiterate my policy that all reviews are unpaid & unsolicited. I am a preschool teacher who loves to read, I can only go so long without talking about books!

See you next week!

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Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio whose name has become synonymous with the enchanting anime style that they have perfected over the years. Studio Ghibli has made dozens of movies, 3 of which are in the top ten highest grossing Japanese movies of all time! The sheer amount of movies, books, clothing, home decor, toys, games, & all other official Ghibli merchandise is mind-boggling. They have a museum. They even have a theme park! The volume of officially-licensed Ghibli things are, however, nothing compared to the overwhelming number of loving tributes that generations of fans have created. Ghibli fans are a worldwide, multigenerational, force of nature. Just researching Ghibli for this post has been difficult as the enormous volume of fanart, fanfic, & other Ghibli-inspired works threaten to bury the original work in each & every search response.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

So much has already been written about Studio Ghibli. I could talk all day about co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, who directed most of the studio’s biggest hits. I would give a TED talk on Ghibli’s extensive use of Yokai. I will, someday, probably write an article about the various movies' amazing casts of characters. However, I feel there is one major aspect of every Ghibli movie that always distracts me the most.

These 2, clearly, are not distracting at all

The backgrounds in Ghibli movies are practically an extra character in each scene. The landscapes, in particular, are so good! Some of the landscapes & backgrounds are almost as popular as their characters are. An image search of “Ghibli-style landscape” will bring you practically infinite responses.

I’ve painted Howl’s flower field several times, & I’m not the only one!

These iconic backgrounds are largely the work of Kazuo Oga. He travels to collect reference photos for his work, as well as drawing on inspiration from his childhood. You might think such an accomplished & talented artist is using top-of-the-line materials to make backgrounds for award-winning movies. Nope! He paints them using relatively inexpensive Nicker Poster Colors, which work like gouache. This gives him bold, opaque, yet still water-soluble paint colors to play with.

I only have 2 colors of gouache & no poster paint, so I made this one digitally

Kazuo Oga is an inspiration & a reminder that we don’t need to splash out on every expensive artistic accessory being marketed to us- the basics can be enough if you have the skill & dedication. I sit here, side-eyeing my dollar store watercolors, & breathe a sigh of relief! That is a nice reminder, especially as the WGA is forced to continue striking & so we are forced to continue scrimping…

Oh wait, I haven’t even had time to talk about the books! Many Ghibli movies, such as Howl’s Moving Castle & Earwig & the Witch started as books by Diana Wynne Jones, a British novelist. Most of her books are speculative fiction for children. They are also a lot of fun! When I was little I read every one of her books my library had. One that didn’t end up as a Ghibli movie is called Fire & Hemlock, which I liked a lot. I recommend it both for being a fun story & also for name-dropping like 100 other really good books over the course of the narrative.

Oh, & the music! The soundtracks to Ghibli movies are amazing. Joe Hisaishi is a prolific musician who has, among other things, scored many Ghibli movies. I encourage you to look him up wherever you get your music! While you’re there, check out the overwhelming amount of fan-made musical Ghibli tributes. Most of my favorite covers can be found on Cat Trumpet’s album Relaxing Piano: Studio Ghibli Complete Collection.

Teto prefers ‘Tori no Hito’, but the Ohm likes ‘Inochi no Namae’ more

It has been one heck of a Ghibli month. I only have 1 day left in the challenge– “Iconic Detail” on the 30th. What iconic detail from Ghibli movies do you like best? Let me know in my Ko-Fi or Mastodon, linked below. See you next week!

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

We Made It!

Another 10 Tuesdays over already? Wasn’t it April yesterday? Apparently not! Every 10 weeks here on KWL we take a break. Please, take however long you were going to spend reading this week’s blog & relax instead. Drink some water, breathe a little, relax your jaw, & try my favorite vegan cake #recipe. It is very flexible, delicious, & easy. The ingredients don’t need refrigeration & they have a long shelf life, so I always have them in my pantry ready to go.

Basically, it’s everything I want in a cake!

Pantry Cake Recipe

(see after instructions for recipe variations!)

• 1 ½ Cups flour
• 1 Cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 5 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 Cup water

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F, grease an 8x8 baking dish.

2. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. Add wet ingredients, mix until smooth.

4. Pour in 8x8 baking dish

5. Bake 30 minutes.

6. Let cool completely before cutting.

I usually just dust it with a little powdered sugar. You can make an icing by mixing 1 cup of powdered sugar with 1 teaspoon your chosen flavor extract & 1-2 tablespoons of your favorite non-milk.

The Different Versions

• Chocolate Cake: 3 Tbsp cocoa/cacao powder, mix with dry ingredients
• Confetti Cake: 2 tbsp Sprinkles, stir in just before adding to the baking pan.
• Substitute any flavor extract for vanilla, add any spices you want. I like to use Fiori di Sicilia & a little ground ginger.
• Any kind of sugar works
• If substituting molasses, maple syrup, etc., only use ¾ cup of water & bake at 325° F (any kind of dry sugar works better than molasses, maple syrup, etc)

A Word of Warning

When I started cooking for my vegan friends I was surprised to find out that sugar, molasses, sprinkles, & food coloring often contain ingredients that are not vegan. Make sure you check the label!

Enjoy your break, we’ll be back to talking about art next week! See you then!

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Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
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CW: Nudity

This is La Fontana del Nettuno, or Neptune’s Fountain. It stands in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy.

This is what the ultra-rich used to spend money on, instead of social media sites

The Plan

The fountain was commissioned by Cosimo I de' Medici & created by Bartolomeo Ammannati in the mid 1500s. Both men sought to use this fountain to demonstrate their greatness- Medici with his largesse, & Ammannati with his skills. Neptune was the Greek god of waters & storms, which makes him a natural choice for a fountain. Ammannati supposedly modeled Neptune on Medici himself.

What are the odds he had a Captain America-on-the-run beard & literally chiseled abs?

I realize that Medici was paying the bills, but… come on…

As far as I’m concerned, that’s Tuscany’s Tookus!

Flattering your patrons is clearly one of the oldest art forms. From his official portraits we know that Medici looked more like Brendan Hunt.

The Execution

Quite a lot goes into building a fountain today, so you can imagine how much harder it was before computers & global supply sourcing & all the other modern conveniences we take for granted. Florentine artists incorporated all manner of materials in their art, but the most popular were marble, bronze, & wood. Obviously wood does not make for a very long-lasting fountain, so Ammannati planned to use marble & bronze. The fountain’s scale was so large, however, that they had a hard time finding enough materials! Neptune himself is made of Carrara marble, known for being snow-white. This earned the statue of Neptune the nickname of Biancone, or ‘great white’.

Two of the horses drawing his chariot are also white, but the other two are made of completely different marble. The marble was a brand new type called mischio that had been discovered in a Medici quarry. Ammannati wanted to use Medici marble for his Medici fountain. Sadly, the marble was so delicate it broke easily during shipping & carving. This meant they needed to transport & sculpt all new marble. It was starting to look like Ammannati was going to miss his deadline. So what does he do? He builds the rest of the fountain out of stucco & plaster!

He’d already made his barely-chinned patron look like this, what was one more fabrication?

The wildest part of the story is, it worked. The part-marble, part-stucco fountain was unveiled at the wedding of Francesco de' Medici I to Grand Duchess Joanna of Austria. Cosimo de' Medici looked like an amazing Duke, to give the city such a large & beautiful fountain. Ammannati looked like a genius sculptor. Then, once the party was over, Ammannati went back & actually finished the fountain!

I Want to be Like Ammannati

No, I’m not taking up sculpting. Well, I… No. No, I’m not taking up sculpting… Not now. I can barely fit painting into this tiny apartment! When I say I want to be like Ammannati, I mean I want to emulate his confidence in his vision. He was going to make the biggest Neptune fountain in Italy, & even running out of marble wouldn’t stop him!

I have been lucky enough to see this fountain twice. In 2005 it was tagged, broken, & kind of gross. Recently they finished completely repairing & restoring the whole fountain. It is gorgeous, not to mention wildly popular! I had to go there at 6 am, before they even turned the fountain on, so that I could take pictures without being overrun by the absolutely massive crowds that go there every day.

Ammannati had to rework his plans over & over. He had to make compromises. At one point, he had to literally fake it until he could make it. And here we are, 500 years later, still appreciating his work. Do you think that was part of his vision?

See you next week!

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

What Is MerMay?

There are an infinite number of themed art challenges online. MerMay is a popular one, with a different mermaid-related prompt for every day of the month of May. I talked before about how this art challenge has already gotten me to learn better scheduling/time management. Now it’s over & I’ve had a week to reflect. I completed all 31 days of MerMay on theme, & it almost broke me.

What Happened?

I decided to add some extra rules for this art challenge. The goal was to push myself to expand my skills. The rules were:

1. Finish all 31 days.
2. On schedule.
3. Follow the official prompts instead of just doing something vaguely “mermaid”ish.
4. No more than 25% (8 of the 31) prompts can be done in watercolors.
5. Use more pink & yellow, limit green & black.
6. Stick to form- & environment-purist mermaids..

The month started out great! I made some silly pictures I am quite fond of, like this one As well as a Mermaid R2-D2 wearing Slave Leia’s bikini which I still categorically refuse to apologize for. I was limiting my watercolors & trying to incorporate something new when I did use them, such as salt water or drawing textures with my left hand. Things went well, until they didn’t. In the second week I had to force myself to sit down & draw. It was a fully-fledged burn out. I have experienced burn out before; working in early childhood education in the US is an endless series of burn outs. Artistic burn out was brand new. I hated it! Following the 3 steps in my problem-solving strategy helped me find the solutions I needed.

What I Learned

There were too many rules! If someone else had tried to impose 6 arbitrary rules on me during a fun art challenge, I would have told them to go pound sand. Somehow when they were my own rules with all my own justifications behind them I didn’t realize how they piled up. If I had picked 2 or 3 from the beginning it would have been fine, but all 6 combined were too much. They disrupted my workflow, lessened my enjoyment & increased the amount of time each piece took to complete.

What I Changed

I got rid of half the rules!

4. No more than 25% (8 of the 31) can be watercolors

I love watercolors. Trying to go most of the month without them was less of a challenge & more of a drag.

5. Use more pink & yellow, limit green & black.

I should experiment with more colors, but I will focus on that instead of shoving it into a larger challenge.

6. Stick to form- & environment-purist mermaids.

This forced me to practice drawing humans, which I dislike but want to get better at. Unfortunately it would have forced me to practice humans for 31 days straight, which would have been tedious at best.

Did It Work?

Getting rid of rules #4-6 allowed me to enjoy the rest of the month much more. All of my favorite MerMay submission were created after, like this Striped Marlin Submarine Or this Friday the 13th parody poster that came out pretty much exactly as I wanted it to. Consistently assessing my limitations & being open to change paid off! All the rules pushed me to try new things initially, but once they became unsustainable they needed to be discarded.

The month started off erratically but it has certainly turned around. I’ve come out of MerMay energized & ready. For now I’m sticking to more fun art goals. For example: the last time I painted Usagi Yojimbo was probably 2 months ago. That needs to be remedied. Friendly Neighborhood Karin's Friendly Neighborhood Edit: I remedied it!

See you next week!

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• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.

Who?

Andy Warhol was an artist who worked in many different media such as paint, sculpture, film, etc. He is most widely known for his work in & influence on the pop art movement of the 1950s & ‘60s. It is fitting that some of his best remembered works in pop art feature a pop icon; Marylin Monroe. Over time, Warhol did many screen prints using an old publicity photo of Monroe from her movie “Niagara”.

What?

Screen printing, sometimes called silkscreening, is at least 1,000 years old. Fine mesh is used to make a stencil, which then has ink or paint spread thinly over it. Multiple stencils & multiple layers eventually create a picture. Warhol worked with professional screen printers such as Michel Caza to create many of his signature prints, including multiple Marylin Monroe series.

My version of this iconic celebration of publicity photos

Why?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Even I, a person who did not go to art school, can name quite a few of Warhol’s iconic pieces. This month I have been participating in MerMay, a 31-day Mermaid themed art challenge. Yesterday’s theme was Barbie. I decided that the 90’s Little Mermaid Barbie of my childhood was another classic icon which deserved a similar treatment as Marylin Monroe. In true Warhol fashion, I appropriated someone else’s photograph. Warhol was sued & ultimately settled with the photographer whose publicity photo he used for the print. Hopefully whoever took this Barbie photo is more understanding; I used a straightforward photo that had been reposted so many times I couldn’t find its source! I don’t have screen printing supplies, so I used a digital art program called Krita to color the Little Mermaids instead.

It was all so simple quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. ~Andy Warhol, as quoted in “Popism: The Warhol Sixties”

This is how Warhol described his screen printing work. Instead of trying to control every aspect, he embraced how the “chancy” nature led to imperfections & irregularities in his work. Some artists may have seen the prints as flawed, he saw how they made each piece unique. I’ve been thinking about this quote since I first read it. There’s an urge to keep fixing something until it’s exactly what we want, & to throw out what we can’t fix. There’s a need, especially on social media, to pretend that we are perfect beings who never make mistakes! I’m working on embracing my mistakes. I’m starting to realize that sometimes they aren’t mistakes- they’re just a different form of success than I had anticipated.

Get my art on mugs & vinyl stickers in my Shop!

Donate to support my works & get cool perks on Ko-Fi

Join us for #ArtABCs, a year-long art challenge!

Find me

• All pictures posted are my own work.
• All reviews are my own unpaid & unsolicited opinions.