Category Archives: watercolour

Butterflies & Art for October 2026: Ink & Life

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After years of stubbornly resisting planner season, I finally succumbed to the lure of trying a Hobonichi. The plan is to use it as a daily art thing.  But it’s a particular kind of torture to have all these fancy new planners arriving and then having to wait until 2027 to use them.  (Or December 2026, since the planner has monthly calendars that start then.)

So I picked up an A6 notebook and decided I could experiment a bit with how I wanted to do my updated health/creativity trackers, and I could draw daily.    It’s an Oasis notebook from Profolio and I got it on sale for $10 at the art store and it felt so absurd to get such a nice little notebook for so little after all the time I spent mentally shopping the hobonnichi lineup.  It’s not the same paper, but it’s similarly thin and coated so hopefully it’ll help me ease in to 2027.

So far my favourite is a joke I drew for my kid: He likes the new fire-dog Pokemon starter Pombon but he is very concerned over the question of whether it’s going to evolve into some bipedal monstrosity instead of staying dog-like.  So of course, being the terrible parent that I am, I had to draw it as if it evolved the other way and got 6 legs.

Watercolour paintings of the new pokemon Pombon, which looks like a fiery pomeranian, then a fake evolved version which is a giant puppy dragon with 6 legs drawn like a big asian serpent.

Watercolour paintings of the new pokemon Pombon, which looks like a fiery pomeranian, then a fake evolved version which is a giant puppy dragon with 6 legs drawn like a big asian serpent.

Maybe I’ll draw another one with even more legs like a centipede or an inchworm later?

I’m getting better at using the watercolour pencils on thin planner paper and I’m having fun taking pictures of things and then drawing them, or coming up with goofy ideas like the pokemon above.  Very excited to talk about all my planner, uh, plans, but I’m waiting for my last order to show up before I sit down to write a post about the whole setup  Still, I’m excited to already be using the Hobonichi cover and pencil board, and I’m hopeful that my daily art plans for 2027 are going to work out.

 

Stationary setup for October 2026

October 2026 stickers and ink (described in detail in the post)

Fountain Pens & Inks

  • TWSBI Eco glow green <M> – Jaques Herbin Orange Indien
    • Love this pairing.  The ink is a bit light compared to the Noodlers Southwest Sunset sample it was replacing and the shading is less dramatic, but it doesn’t have dots that take forever to dry and wind up smearing because I missed one tiny point.    So overall, absolutely better.
  • Hongian Maple <long blade> – Diamine Red Dagon
    • Last time I used this pen I found it a bit hard to use for longer writing sessions, but I’m not having any trouble this time so I’m not sure if the ink is just a bit more lubricated or my hands are just a bit stronger from all the extra drawing time?  It’s a pretty pen and an interesting nib and pairs well with this ink.  This is the first time I’m using Red Dragon in a pen and it’s working out as I’d hoped.
  • Pelikan Pura <B> – Wearinguel Mary Shelly Frankenstein
    • I wasn’t super impressed with this ink the last couple of times I used it, but it is waaaay more impressive in the wetter Pelikan so I get to actually see the shimmer more in the writing.  Glad I gave it another shot, but I still won’t be buying a bottle because I use dark purple maybe twice a year so this giant vanness sample may last me a decade.

Stickers

I think all of these are from the stickii halloween countdown circa 2024 or maybe 2024?  I haven’t bought another since then because it was so many stickers, but I picked up the 2026 cute one for my kid’s birthday because he loves countdowns, and he’s been anxiously awaiting 12 days before halloween to start it.

  • Square halloween icons by Laurel Mae Art
  • Green frankenstein doggies by Cytusss__
  • Vampire bears and bunnies by Pippustudio
  • Kitties ghosts and bats by Ilbyde

Butterflies

A friend gave us her extra tickets to the butterfly show at the university greenhouse and my kid was very excited to feed the butterflies:

A child's hand holding an orange with a butterfly on it, having a drink.

A child’s hand holding an orange with a butterfly on it, having a drink.

Kid and I painted some thank you cards.  Apparently I forgot to take a picture of my kid’s but here’s mine and the butterfly that inspired it!

A glasswing butterfly at perched on a leaf.

A glasswing butterfly at perched on a leaf.

A painting of the same glasswing butterfly with some creative liberties taken because my kid was using my phone so I couldn't look at the reference photo. It's painted on a card that we gave to the person who gave us her extra tickets, though this is before I wrote thank you on the painting.

A painting of the same glasswing butterfly with some creative liberties taken because my kid was using my phone so I couldn’t look at the reference photo. It’s painted on a card that we gave to the person who gave us her extra tickets, though this is before I wrote thank you on the painting.

Creative goals 2026 mid-year checkin

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Time for a mid-year check in on how my Creative Goals 2026 are progressing! I’m a bit later than usual because I was busy doing some other creative projects at exactly the 6 month exact-middle-of-the-year point, which honestly feels like a good sign.

 

1. Set up my new creative space

This has been such a joy!  My new office is still messy and filled with boxes that I haven’t quite figured out how to unpack, but it reached functional early on and has been going through a lot of refinement.

Some highlights:

  • I’ve co-opted the glider chair we bought when I was pregnant and I used for late-night nursing when my kid was little.  It’s now my reading and knitting and writing space and I love it.
  • I put curtains on the window so I don’t have to use the finicky blinds and it’s made such a difference.  They still need hemming but I at least know where my sewing machine is even if I haven’t got it set up so that’s something.
  • I rearranged my vintage yellow table and crummy apartment ikea desk so they function like an L-shaped desk and I’ve got enough space for painting during long corporate rah rah business quarterlies.  Or just painting because I feel like it.  It’s great.  I probably need to upgrade the lousy ikea desk but this works while I figure out exactly what would suit me best.
  • I got a pegboard to put in the tiny space behind the door when it’s open, and the little shelves on those have been great for putting up art and organizing stuff that I’m more likely to use if I can see it.  After I took the picture below I put up two more above and below so it’s a full wall of art and supplies.
My reading/writing area in my office by the window, showing lots of mess but also the new curtains, the comfy glider chair, and the pegboard art setup on the wall.

My reading/writing area in my office by the window, showing lots of mess but also the new curtains, the comfy glider chair, and the pegboard art setup on the wall.

 

Some lowlights:

  • The office is noisy when the AC is going strong and too cold in the winter.  It’s got 2 exterior walls and one that backs onto the garage, and I suspect the garage one in particular doesn’t have enough insulation (it was noticeably colder than the two exterior walls), but it could be all three causing varying amounts of cold.  We’ve hacked things by plastic coating the window which helped but I also had blankets and even a small electric heater in here for when it got too cold.
  • I still own too much yarn, so not all of it fits on the shelves.  Having this visible and in my space is really reducing the amount of shopping I want to do, but I’m going to have to make some decisions about how to handle the rest of the shelving because I don’t love having 13 giant plastic bins plus a pile of smaller ones in here that i have to rearrange every time I want something in one of them.
  • I don’t have a setup for my spinning wheel, which is a bit of a shame and it’s part of why I didn’t do tour de fleece this year: I forgot but could have joined late if setting up hadn’t felt like a hassle. I’ve got a new espinner coming and it should fit nicely on the painting table or the table by my glider, so I think that’s going to be the plan for spinning for the next 6 months anyhow while I get to really know the new gear.

Despite those annoyances, I’m really happy with how things are taking shape.  I’ve unpacked all the boxes I found that seemed to belong here and rearranged stuff into various plastic bins for now while I decide what stays and what goes.  I spend a lot of time in my office writing and just enjoying my space on top of the times I need to be in here for work or to play our regular guild wars 2 night.

Dahlia watercolour painting (from a book exercise).

Dahlia watercolour painting (from a book exercise).

And on top of all that, kid and I have co-opted the last upstairs bedroom to be a craft room!

  • Nice big table right under the window for painting and drawing, with two chairs for us to sit.
  • Single bed for sitting on and so it can be used as an emergency guest bedroom or “Everyone has allergies and is snoring really loud” option.
  • My sewing machine desk is up here, though I haven’t really set it up yet.
  • I’m slowly migrating the craft supplies into the closet.
  • We replaced the light with one that doesn’t make a horrible high pitched noise that only my kid can hear.  (most of this house has ancient halogens and some of them are bad enough that I can hear them but this particular one was out of my hearing range)

We use this to paint or draw pretty regularly, sometimes because I’m doing daily drawings and just invite my kid to join me, but often he’ll instigate drawing time too.  We got some really cute how to draw chibi dogs and birds books plus I’ve got a rotating set of painting books out of the library, so there’s always inspiration or lessons to try.  I think J had some vision of our craft space being in the basement, but honestly the lighting is so nice in this room that I don’t think we’ll be moving even when we finally get the basement into a usable state (it’s currently a disaster of half-unpacked boxes, but thankfully not an outright disaster since we were spared the flooding that hit a lot of our neighbours).

 

2. Crafting for my new climate

Made a sweater for me, a fluffy scarf for my kid, and I’m still slowly working on that double-knit dr who scarf for J.  Plus I’m always always making more socks as bus/work/out-and-about knitting.  I kind of want to start another sweater but I think the scarf will never get done if I do so that’s probably all the projects for this year unless my kid wants something.

 

Time of the Doctor double knit scarf, about half-finished.

Time of the Doctor double knit scarf, about half-finished.

3. Painting with Fountain Pen Ink

I have done *so* much painting.  Relatively little of it actually included fountain pen ink, but the skills I’m building will transfer so I’m not too concerned that I’ve abandoned this goal.  I had the idea that I’d paint with the leftovers from my pens every month, but it turns out that because I choose fairly contrast-heavy colours they don’t blend well and I did’t like the way they looked when I tried them in a single piece at the end of the month in one of those ink colouring books.  Trying to plan out colours and spread them across a bunch of pages and hope I eventually used inks that went well with them didn’t seem like fun to me, so I’m going to regroup and try something else.  Here’s today’s effort, using some “leftover” ink (Teranishi Guitar Brilliant Mint, I think?):

A notebook with two dogs painted in watercolour. The top one is labeled "Doggust 2026 Dunker" and features a beagle-like dog with a striking grey dappled pattern on middle and tail that contrasts with the tan and white on the rest of the dog. The one below that is not labelled but features a white and black Tibetan Terrier with long sweeping hair, and the area around the dog is coloured in a bright blue-teal using the Brilliant Mint fountain pen ink.

A notebook with two dogs painted in watercolour. The top one is labeled “Doggust 2026 Dunker” and features a beagle-like dog with a striking grey dappled pattern on middle and tail that contrasts with the tan and white on the rest of the dog. The one below that is not labelled but features a white and black Tibetan Terrier with long sweeping hair, and the area around the dog is coloured in a bright blue-teal using the Brilliant Mint fountain pen ink.

The fountain pen ink definitely beheaves differently than the watercolours (doesn’t quite absorb the same way on the paper) but I think I might be able to have some fun making my doggust stuff more colourful and maybe even sparkly while I make use of some little leftovers in sample vials and inks that I didn’t love in pens.

Other than that, I’m really enjoying painting in general and I’m excited to keep doing that!

A couple of flower painting exercises on my beloved vintage yellow table. They depict a magnolia and snowdrop.

A couple of flower painting exercises on my beloved vintage yellow table. They depict a magnolia and snowdrop.

4. Write for joy

My biggest writing project in the first half of the year was for a fandom event and I have never ever gotten so many comments on a work.  It was a really playful story and as a result my readers were having fun, I was having fun, it was absolutely the bringer of joy.

Beyond that, I’ve been trying out some weekly prompts, joining events, did a fanfic gift exchange, and I’ve just been having such a good time with fanfic and writing.   I’m constantly entertained that my new fan writer community is not entirely dissimilar to my open source communities — I supposed it’s not surprising since they’re both the sort of people who put things for free into the world, even if the skills they’re sharing are different.  And as I’ve mentioned before, it’s been really motivating to have “sprinting buddies” so there’s folk to write with even if we barely interact other than cheering each other on and gossiping in between timed writing sessions. Having a little community continues to be a source of joy and motivation.

 

I’m also starting to add a bit writing about life to my monthly posts here.  Nothing fancy and carefully thought out, but it’s nice as a warm up.  I’ve got some ideas for more technical blog posts I’d like to write but haven’t made the time yet because writing fiction is more fun.  That said, I should have some writing opportunities at work and I’m hoping to take advantage of that as I find them!

 

Overall, I think I’m doing well on goals, but I am going to have to push myself a bit to try more fountain pen ink art experimentation, so hopefully that’ll come up more in the last chunk of the year.  And if not, my painting practice has improved my life regardless of what supplies I’m using!