Lately, I seem to only focus on two projects per week, or mainly one and another to do while waiting on the other.

Been mainly focused on one project. Have been wanting to see what the end result if I use three specific things, has turned into four. Got two blank canvas board, then covered them in (Crayola) watercolour. Then, after that layer dried, covering them in painter’s tape (made the mistake of using packing tape which I’m not sure why I assumed it wouldn’t ruin the back), then on the exposed areas use oil pastels. Originally was going to just put fixative over it, but my genius brain thought to put linseed oil over it all, in hopes to smooth down the oil pastel as much as possible. Smoothing it out with my fingers still left spots where it wasn’t completely smooth. I didn’t use linseed oil, instead used drying poppy oil. Also, never leave the tape on the panel or such while it’s drying. Still. I have quite a bit of time on my hands while it finally reaches the stage where I can handle it without oil smothering my fingertips.

This is how they look, after the tape has been removed. The tape slightly outlines the pastels on the right, which you can’t tell from this photo. To make the smaller circles, I used those circle label stickers. More than one popped off when I was rubbing the oil pastel over it. For the big one, I taped on one of the ends of the cardboard from a ribbon spool. Using yellow stickers under that colour was mildly comical as I had to remember where they were attached, so they could be removed. It’s also kind of annoying that my intention was that, positioned this way, it would be left leaning, but the size gets more attention than the intensity of colour. The cool colours were supposed to lean right, and the warm colours lean left. The official thing will be changed so it reflects that, and it’s obvious they will soften into each other, and not be hard like these examples. Right now, the materials is more important than anything else.

I’ve stuck thumbtacks in the boards for two reasons. I can safely lean them against each other without their accidentally touching, so they don’t smear onto each other. Also, that’s to give me a rough idea of the path where I’m applying the embroidery thread when it is finally safe to handle.

After everything is finished, I want to do a comparison and take the best elements from both and incorporate them into something more cohesive.

While they’re drying, a bit of playing with yarn.

This is an experiment with different textures, as in changing the yarn so it’s crocheted or knit a bit before weaving it in, but staying with monochrome red yarns. It looks nice with the blue peeking out. My problem with weaving, thought, is I never get it tight enough so it doesn’t hang weird. Perhaps because I don’t have that bar underneath it.