Knitting, Heed my Art-Prompt-Flavored Warning, Skills in General
November 1, 2023
Hey it's November!
For the 8 millionth time, I'm learning how to knit. The difference this time is that, if I ever actually finish what I'm working on, I will actually have a useable object instead of just a small swatch square.
This will eventually be a headband (a thick practical one, not a fashion one.) The rows of garter go: Mistake, Intentional, Mistake, Mistake, Intentional, Mistaked the inentional, intentional, mistake, intentional. Basically I decided to incorporate them instead of frogging because 1.) I'm a coward 2.) It gives it SOME visual interest, because my first project ever will not have tension even enough to speak for itself. I've gotten faster, but my hands are still very tense so I'm prone to taking breaks so long I forget I was knitting between rows. Which is also part of the reason I'm bad at remembering if I should knit or purl next. I know there's a visual tell but it's not engrained in me yet. My friend did say they were surprised at how I wasn't twisting my stitches; so that's something, I guess! Knit is so much thinner and uses so much less yarn. Stockinette, even with my bad tension, is so pleasant to look at.
New topic, I set up this years secret santa for my "art club" with my friends. Since it's the end of almost a year of art club, I was thinking about what did and didn't work with it. The first thing I thought of was how EVERYBODY would go through spells of not participating for weeks and weeks at a time, and feel guilty, even though it's just a for-fun thing with our friends. I think I figured out what the issue is. Out of the 27 weekly prompts we've done this year, most called for more than a couple hours of work.
Something I've witnessed online, is that when people make large art prompt lists (say a monthly challenge) I don't think many people give the logistics thought. I remember seeing one monthly challenge that called for 2 fully-realized "movie poster designs" two days in a row. Then I noticed how that published list was totally a first draft where someone was writing the prompts as they thought of them. I think artists are very prone to biting off more than they can chew.
Basically my warning is: really sit down and consider what the process of doing something will entail. (I suppose this could extend as general life advice too.) The idea of being able to dedicate 1-2 hours a day every day, every week, to bring a new creative idea to life sounds wonderful. That's not going to happen in practice LOL. And that's not a bad thing! My friends are people with families, jobs, pets, other friends, other commitments, other hobbies!
So going forward, the changes I'm making: Once a week the bot will now spit out a single word to inspire a sketch for those who want to draw a bit more often. Once a month will be the more involved prompts like we've been doing. Maybe I could figure something out to help relieve the guilty feeling of not participating; but also I know my friends -- we're in a hell of our own creation LOL.
Final, poorly cooked thoughts: I'm in a weird loop currently. I think I'm just insecure because I happen to be in a funk with my "old skills" while trying to build multiple "new skills" at the same time, and it's a lot of inadequacy to put up with at once. I don't know where recognizing this will get me, either.
Boring Yarn Talk Cont., Art Club + Art Goals
November 21, 2023
Happy Tuesday ðŸ¤
1.) I learned a huge reason knitting was miserable for me; I was using worsted yarn with size 5 needles. I'm working on something with baby weight yarn now and it's so much better. Medium weight yarn is my favorite to work with (and most of what I currently own) so I'm planning on buying a set of circular size 8 needles next. I don't know what material/brand I'll get yet. Oh also, I did finish that headband. My tension somehow got worse as I continued, but whatever, it's done.
2.) I frogged the brown cardigan I started crocheting in September. I don't even know entirely why, it just wasn't clicking for me. I'm now trying to relatively quickly make a giant shawl. I'm not actually a huge fan of shawls typically, but I learned a way of wearing them that really intrigues me so I decided some hours of my time to at least try it would be worth it. (Requires a rather large shawl; but you drape it over your shoulders as normal, pull both sides criss-cross over your chest, pull the ends around to your back and tie them.)
I was initially following the pattern for the Stormborn Wrap but there were a couple design elements that personally did not thrill me (especially with this high-contrast, variegated yarn) so I'm now doing a very plain pattern: solid rows with gradually more frequent "holey" rows. Also, if I end up deciding I really do dislike shawls, I'll be less sad to frog the low-effort design. It's definitely because I've been doing a lot of crochet recently (I started and frogged six cardigan ideas with the brown yarn before starting this shawl,) but man I'm so ...tired lol.
In other news, I got the secret santa for my friends' art club going a while ago! I have rather ambitious ideas for my piece, and am a little overwhelmed from the rough sketch already. I want it to have an extremely cluttered, almost hidden object feel. I'm debating switching to traditional, as that would make the linework easier for me, but I know that in turn would make coloring harder. I want to share updates, but I will have to find a not-suspicious way to test if that friend looks at this website.
Edit, 4 days later: I just noticed I never actually talked about art club or my art-related goals/ambitions...uh oops.
I Forgot to Talk About Art
November 30, 2023
Hey it's the end of November!
I forgot to talk about art club last time. I told myself I would stop talking about drawings without sharing pictures but having to just stare at it is...bleh.
This...is not going well. (Context: the art club with my friends has a secret santa - the person I got asked for something wizardy/fantasy/celestial/nature-y to ideally be a print on her wall to match her bedroom.) I've barely worked on it at all and I'm totally out of my comfort zone. I'm totally one of those people who just draw nothing but young characters existing in voids, and now it's biting me in the ass. My initial idea was a very cluttered scene that would basically be a hidden object game of things we're familar with/inside jokes/DnD campaign references/etc. But it is not going well at all! What is composition and perspective and aaaaaa!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, new plan of action. I've had art nouveau on the mind lately; and I think the abstracted objects, endless detail, yet soft human touch of the style lend itself pretty well to the intended themes -- so I'm scrapping this and am going to try a different approach. I just have to...actually make something nice LOL. Using art nouveau as my main influence does get me dangerously close back to "young pretty character existing in void" but I will try my best. Tonight is D+D so I'm going to do my best to subtley ask questions, and spend some time studying Alphonse Mucha and William Morris' work. Wish me luck and do absolutely suggest other relevant artists for me to check out because I love art.
