I ran out of most of my blues. Acrylic Blues. Painted a quirky thing that I can't properly categorize, don't know whether it is hideous, or genius. Too subjective - another way of saying I'm too involved to make an impartial judgment of quality.

I've been exploring a type of painting which we named Puddle Painting. Lots of bottled acrylic paint, put on the canvas right out of the bottle. No palette to clean. Sort of like palette knife painting in that the results are rough, but distinctly different looking due to the smeary bits.

This summer I did not paint with acrylics. The fan dried them out too fast. Watercolor could be re-wet, so I used a lot of that. I used oils (better ventilation for the thinner in summer). I used dry media also, my oil pastels, colored pencils, chalks, and felt pens.

Then the felt pens dried out. Manufactured with HOLES IN THE CAPS! The caps on my old favorite Pentel Pens now have VENTED HOLES in them, which cause the pens to dry out in just a few weeks of purchase. How tragic. So I can't use them for large works until I find a way to re-wet them again. Yeah, I know, alcohol works, but the mending of the caps with glue means you can't put alcohol into the cap without losing the glue.

I've not been able to use oils lately, I can't tolerate the thinner yet. I'm getting better, and should be able to finish the waterfall I'm working on in a few weeks. But oils are not on the list today.

Watercolor I can do. But it means stopping the project of pursuing more skill with Puddles. I've also been working on developing skill for Assembly Line Art, and Acrylic is the popular media for that, watercolor far less so.

I can also do smaller detailed works that take less paint, and I can do those with acrylics. I can also use my tubed acrylics for other types of work. I wonder if I can make them work with a palette knife, or if I will just make a big mess? (Yes, I know, people DO that, but I wonder if I, PERSONALLY can do it.)

I can work in about seven different media, not including variations with them. But each one has a limiter at certain times, or the vagaries of life push me one way or another.

Felt pen takes patience. LOTS of lines. It takes three times as long to make a felt pen work as a regular acrylic work of the same size. And Puddles takes only 1/6 of the time of a Felt Pen work. If I am fatigued, worried, or otherwise distracted, it is much harder to use Felt Pens than to use Puddles, or watercolor, or even oils.

Colored Pencil is the same. Lots of overlaid shading, LOTS of tiny lines, and it just takes more time to FILL the parts of the picture. It is a patient and exacting skill, and if I am not feeling well, forget it. It is just too hard.

Chalk is FAST, and pretty easy, but it only produces a good result for me for specific types of work. Chalk brush paintings take the same time as acrylics.  If I do not want to feel that horrid dry feeling on my hands, I don't work with chalks, either.

Oil Pastels take some hand strength, and a lot of color overlay, so you work the colors over and over. It takes patience and skill to get it to look good, and I can't always do it. It takes a little more time than painting with a brush, but cleanup is a lot simpler. You only do certain types of work with Oil Pastel, they are not good for small details.

Acrylics are either very fast and simple (using Puddles or Daubs), or somewhat patient with moderate cleanup. 2-3 hours for the average painting that has good detail but not FINE detail. A week or two, with multiple sessions for one with minute detail or exacting lines. Either way, we have a lot of wasted paint, for reasons I don't have time to explain - so I run out easily. I have two types, the liquid in the bottles, and the firmer stuff in the tubes, and they CAN be interchangeable, but for me, they never are.

Water color is easier to clean up than Acrylics, since the paints do re-wet and come off a little easier. It can be either fairly simple, or very complex, depending on the subject and the style. I only use Gouache methods, the comprehension of fully subtractive methods for watercolor completely eludes me. But I can PAINT with these things, and I can use them all year round, whenever I have the patience to paint and endure the cleanup. I have two types of these also, the pressed watercolors in a plastic tray, and the tubed ones. These are like the Acrylics, they CAN be interchangeable, but they never are for me. I find the tubes are easier for more intense Gouache, and the pressed are better for lighter and airier works.

Oils are harder to clean up, and the toxins in the paint thinner do cause issues for me. So I can use them in the summer when the ventilation is good, or in the winter when I am in good condition. But oh, the things they can do!

I have other media also, such as metallic paints, glitter paints, acrylic pens, and Sharpies (which are just felt pens with some variations in how I use them). Mostly I use these with other media, but sometimes by themselves.

Today I am limited. I do not have the blues. At least not for liquid Acrylics.

So I must adjust my agenda.

I can do the watercolor that I have been putting off. I can do THIS floral in watercolor instead of Acrylic, and perhaps give myself a little fun with adding glitter to watercolor (so far I've only done that with Acrylic).

I can draw Averie's eye. With pencil. Once I was good at this, but the photo is small and grainy, and the paper is large and intimidating, and I've not been able to fully face it yet. I've eyed it a few times, but not dove in. (Yeah. Bad pun. I know.)

And do you really care anyway?

Blogging is just that whole vomit up my life onto the page thing, and never mind whether anyone is interested anyway.

I think I better go sort images, and settle on one to make a mess with.

My latest poor efforts are on display at FirelightHeritageFarm.com, along with my books.