It's been five months since last I felt the need to write something public. Perhaps that's because my regular, private diary satisfies most of the thought-organization need; or perhaps because there's too many social media channels for my taste, and it feels like either a job or advertisement, not sharing my thoughts.
Anything about life, Blender and such is at the end of this post; the rest is me being excited about watercolor.
Watercolor excitement
But today I really want to share excitement about a technical art discovery, just like I used to feel when I regularly did Blender. So I'm still obsessed with watercolor, and it's nearly a year now, and I enjoy plodding my way through figuring it out without any clear goal except enjoying the challenge. And one of the constant challenges was that I couldn't keep the paint on the paper wet. All the books and tutorials show beautiful diffusions of one paint blending into another, of different transparencies with the same color, and mine, no matter how fast I worked, got dry withing seconds, not minutes. Ten, fifteen seconds tops.
Imagine, in a tutorial: the painter draws a wet brush with green to paint a thin stalk, washes the brush a bit and extends tine branches from that stalk, which come out a charming, transparent green and blend in a gradient. They then touch the split points with a brush thick with pigment, which explodes in the wet water channel painted on the paper to deepen that area with a new color, seamlessly blending with the existing ones. Like the yellow in this moment, in this tutorial.
Having failed at that for around four months, and came up with various theories as to the reason, I finally managed it! So the reason is, as expected, the fact that I live in a very dry area (the Middle East) compared to where most of the tutorials and books are made (Western Europe or the more European-weather of the US). I also have constant air condition in my study, so it's all very dry.
The solution was two things!
- Blending Medium. It kept the paint mixture wet for longer, but also made it sluggish; took me a while to realize I need to mix it with water (1:1) and dip my brush in that before I pick up the paint.
- Having painted my first wet layer with that mixture, I recently learnt that if my brush isn't wet enough - aka doesn't have enough water on it, not only wet pigment - the paint just won't travel! Even if I touch the brush to a pre-wet, Blending-Mediumed layer on my paper!
So I'm excited and happy and I want to be painting 24/7, that is, I spend 100% of my waking hours wishing I was painting with watercolor.
Anything which isn't watercolor - Blender, life and everything
I miss Blender, but I'm so obsessed with watercolor that there's no time left for Blendering. Between sharing a house with my man and his two kids, to being bedridden around 70% of every day (I'd rather not go into that), there's around 4 hours a day for me to do anything in - including cooking, showering and spending time with my man. I even joined a Warcraft guild, which had a super-nice leader and some people I wish I had more time to get to know, but... no time.
I miss Blender; I miss my Blender community even more. I feel that I let them down by not resuming regular streaming. But so little time, and right now my enthusiasm burns, the way it can only burn for ADHD people with hyperfocus, for watercolor.
Life is very good. Having started doing Pilates thrice a week, a lot of physical problems just vanished! Including the limp from that leg surgery in Thailand in 2023, can you believe it? As long as I do Pilates, the pain doesn't return and not only can I walk normally, I even chug the staircases on the house with no effort. I can bend and move and rotate and twist and it's like someone shaved 20 years off my body, despite the obesity.
About the obesity - something wonderful happened; I learnt to accept it. It's like magic. I can't say I'm thrilled to be 150kgs, but I don't feel mortally ashamed about it anymore, and last month I even wore a swimsuit in public for three hours and forgot about my body, just enjoyed the pool, the sun, and making loads of conversation with strangers.
Mounjaro, the weight-keeping injection, makes me nauseated and sleepy for two days each week, and costs 350€ a month, and it's still a blessing. When I was 170 kgs I couldn't handle basic bodily functions and was miserable to no end. Those 20 kgs that the injections peeled off me, combined with Pilates, gave me my well-being back.
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If all goes well, in three weeks the man and I will do the signing of legal papers that declare us married (for all practical purposes). Since the divorce from the last one has been dragging since 2018 and isn't done yet, there might be a situation where I can say I have a harem! With two intelligent, hilarious, talented, beautiful, geeky men I'm married to! I don't think I ever imagined that kind of situation. And I really hope the divorce is done at some point soon; it seems both the ex and I are displeased with how long the legal part is taking.
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There's a cat. I'm sure I wrote about that in the past. His name is Charles Weasley-Xavier, because he's a paraplegic ginger with an attitude and no brain. He's also paranoid. I'd have never taken in a pet, as it wrecks my heart when they die (lesson learnt from the family cat passing when I was 11), but since I moved into a house with a cat I just have to accept it, and gods above, the amount of joy that derpy, brainless cat brings into my life is off the scale. In the past two months we got him sleeping with us in bed at night, and falling asleep with a purring cat next to my face, under my hand, is another kind of joy entirely.
Charlie can't evacuate his bladder and bowels on his own, so boyfriend manually empties him once a day; at night we put a diaper on him, since that one time we discovered that, while he sleeps and dreams, he actually does pee. It's a spray, really. Right on my face. It was either cry of laugh, so I'm laughing.
He's my Smol Happiness. Boyfriend is Tall happiness. And life... life is just good.
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It's peaceful. It's fulfilling. I laugh endlessly, because boyfriend is hilarious. I'm at peace with my body. My health is annoying on the well-being front but it's not dangerous nor suffering, and, being 50 and obese, I'm grateful it's only that. And who knows, with enough Pilates maybe I'll be able to dance again? Imagine that!
But I do, I do miss my Blender community and Blendering. If I could add one thing to my life, that would be it. Not even roleplaying; the Blendering gang and streams.
And until I can be bothered to add those links here, if you want more constant (and less deep) life-bits from me, I (currently) post art on social media quite regularly: Instagram, Blue Sky, Twitter (don't give me that X nonsense).
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This art has no pretty diffusions yet, but I hope the next post will have one that does. Until next time...
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