Snow Mushrooms and Other Events of the Week

Today was nuts, but I got a whole list of uninteresting things done. I walked the property tax payment down to the town hall and found these snow mushrooms on the shoulder of the road.

They look huge, right? Nah- about 8" tall. This is the best one, and you can see other items for perspective.

I finished the jigsaw puzzle I'd been working on. It was an easy one; Churchyard Christmas by Charles Wysocki. 1000 pieces. (And started a new one that Om bought me last fall- it's 2000 pieces and pretty hard.)

His puzzles are always fun because they have so much going on with people and little details. There was a one-man band who had an accordion.

And speaking of accordions, there was even one in my game this week. Neither of these is a piano accordions (the kind I play).

Last Sunday had a beautiful sunrise. And the really deep cold is over for a while. I'm not sorry about that.

It took just about forever to get the things done that I had to accomplish today. I started the next page of Moose In Boots, but will have to finish it tomorrow.

Miles walked in 2026: 36.5
Road walk to township hall and back 3.0 miles.

See Accordion posts

Moose In Boots - back to Page Four

You have to think back to when Morgan had just found the trail, and was stretching his lanky legs. This comes next.

The reason I had to wait on this was because I needed new masking fluid. What do you do with that, you ask? When you want a texture in the background that is "unbroken" by the figures in the foreground you cover the foreground areas with it. All it is is liquid latex that you can brush on.

I fooled around with it a couple of times before I started the real page. The first time, I didn't get good enough coverage, so when I started for real I put two coats on the moose. You can just barely see it's there. Some is shiny, and it's all sort of off-white.

When it's dry, you paint right over it so the lines in the water (in this case) aren't different on one side of the water lilies and the moose than on the other side.

When the paint is dry- completely dry- you rub it off.

Then you have the blank white areas remaining. In this case where the moose and lilies will go. I also added the far trees.

This was the first of the pages where I did a major goof with the ink. I fixed it on the computer. Hopefully, you can't tell where. Probably not at this size. I'll need to print a full size page to be sure it's ok.

Not sure if I'll get another page done tomorrow. I really need to do some other things. I linked to page 3 below if you want to refresh your memory.

But I did get the body of the prayer shawl finished today and started on the edging.

See Moose In Boots- page 3 See Page 9

Moose In Boots - Page Nine

I got off to a really slow start on this page because I had to do a lot of things before I could actually begin drawing. But I got it done.

I got the background shading better than page 8. That page is too dark. I managed to lift some of the color off the original, and I think I can fix it even more on the computer. Also, I added the green, and that looks good. But you'll just have to wait for the actual book to see all the tweaks.

Here's the original concept page, again with some computer coloring on the old verson.

What I had to mess around with is due to the fact that originally I had the text for this two-page spread on the right side. (if you missed yesterday's post, that's where the text is- on page 8.) This confused everyone who read the book. When I went back to the book after a few years, it confused me too. So I needed to switch those pages.

That meant Morgan needed to be flipped to face into the center of the book. I also needed to move some of the segments so they weren't too close to edges. I think it was 11 o'clock before I had a decent, updated concept page to work from.

(Just FYI, I try to get the concept pages pretty close. Then I trace the basic outlines on the better paper, use light pencil to fix shapes or whatever. Then I get out the picture I drew the original from- thankfully I also had printed those out and they were with the original drawings. Then I start with the ink, work from the photo, and try not to mess up. All mistakes with ink have to either be corrected on the computer, or if too terrible, I have to start over.)

Then I took a junk page that I printed by accident (see parts of Morgan's hooves that don't belong) and used colored pencil to decide what background colors I wanted, and tried to keep them very light.

I was almost finished mid-afternoon. But then we needed to go to a memorial visitation for someone. So I finished the inking when I got home.

Then I put in the colors, and did the computer work for text and a few minor tweaks.

My other art supplies arrived, so now I can go back and do page four.

See Moose In Boots- page 8

Moose In Boots- Page Eight

I was afraid I was going to have to do this page at least a couple of times. Or, at any rate, sections of it and then put them together with digital magic. But, I didn't mess up!

You need to understand that this is the left side of a two-page spread. You'll see the rest of the pictures another day. But some of these words aren't going to have anything to go with them yet. I may add some darker green for the trees above the wolf. Actually, I can test how that looks on the computer to see if it looks good.

Here is the concept page with some color I added with the computer a long time ago. It makes it hard to see the pencil drawings, but you get the idea. I actually had a few different concept drawings because I changed one of the animals and the placement of some things. (Just this week I thought about adding a spruce grouse because they also have special feet and they are very pretty, and they live in the northwoods. But I decided I should stick with familiar animals.)

And here are the pen drawings before I added in the color. I did the hardest one first and then held my breath until I finished the rest.

It was a really busy day. I did all of this except the color in the morning because this afternoon I had to do errands, grocery shopping and bell choir. I also managed to walk 3 miles.

Miles hiked in 2026: 33.5

Ludington School Forest, various trails, 3.0 miles/

See Moose In Boots - page 7

Moose In Boots - Page Seven

One more page.

I'm beginning to feel like I have ADHD. I do one thing on the painting and that has to dry or almost dry. But that means I can do something else for about 15 minutes and then I need to go back to it. I'm beginning to feel a little bit fractured.

Not too much to show on this one. Here's the concept. I used two printed copies of this to try out a couple of colors on the tent. But this picture is before I colored things.

Decided on blue and gray. A brighter color drew the eyes to the tent too much. Here's the first wash.

And the second wash. Basically, I colored every area before I started putting in details with pens.

What I actually spent some serious time on was trying out techniques for page 24. That one has to be different and I don't know what the heck I'm doing. But I fooled around- watched some videos and sort of made up something else, and I think I'm getting close to what I want. I'll show you those when I get to page 24, which will be a while.

I also managed to edit some.

Don't know if I'll finish a whole page tomorrow. It will be a busy day, and the next page is a little different too.

See Moose In Boots- Page 6