The current WIP...please pardon the uneven lighting. Am going with the fast-to-slow-n-detailed method I used for two pieces in the gallery:

Hope I don't mess up her hair...

Am tired today. Someone please send me some extra sleep.

Politically speaking, Bluesky is an echo chamber as far as I can tell. Quite a few leftists of various stripes migrated there after the Muskrat bought Twatter, renamed it X & started messing around & making it even worse than it already was...when you find accounts whose taglines unironically include "woke AF", you know you're in their country. Got a few out-&-out socialists on there...probably an anarchist milieu, too. I'll have to make sure to avoid getting sucked into the stale maelstrom ("stalestrom"?) of online hysteria & vitriol. Gotta remember: I am only there to post my art & updates on my land project.

Speaking of, I recently scavved maybe 300 lbs of rubble. One of the gas stations in town has been getting something installed under it, so it's been a construction jobsite for almost a month now...yesterday a dumpster was brought in to haul it all away, but I picked over the pile a couple times before that. (Would've gotten more but the pile was mostly pinned down by four large pieces of concrete, each one too heavy for one man to move) At some point my property will need some infill so as to bring the ground above any grade of flood zone, so until then if I can get any of it for free, I'll take it.

Haven't done an awful lot besides the above in the last two weeks because my health issues have been getting in the way. Recently I changed my health insurance...now we'll see how useful it is. ',:-/

Aside from that, I've been doing some art here & there. This past weekend I drove into town...painted a little while I was there. Pics will go up once I've processed 'em, etc.

And of course...

In other unimportant news, I've been scribbling here & there...not much, due to being busy (& more recently, being sick. My sinuses were made in a Chinese t-shirt factory). Check this out if you wanna:

First, the somewhat edited screenshots...my replies are on the low end of each:

Now about my time here:

As of today, it has been two years, three months & almost seven days since I opened this account. Overall it hasn't been bad... Some people are funny as hell in the forums. (Others are just weird to me, but then zoomer humor goes its own way) It's always great when people look at my work, & that's certainly happened since I started posting it here...take a look if you wanna. While NG isn't necessarily the best option for exposing one's art to the public, it's a fine one for getting the eyes of other artists on it. Other artists' input on one's work is necessary if you want to grow as an artist, & I still do even now.

There is a problem, however: that very growth & change is what keeps me from fitting in here. Female bodies have started to bore me as of late...when you've studied them for well over two decades in a few different ways, at some point they don't surprise you anymore. These days I'm getting back into lettering & slowly into landscapes. But those are not what most Newgrounders want to see. You & I both know what they prefer, dear reader...I was into that in my late teens through my twenties into my early thirties. But that was then, & this is now. I also mostly stick with traditional media--that's one thing that has not changed about me & probably never will. Meanwhile, almost everyone else here works all-digital.

In short: even with my time on NG, I still don't really fit in here.

It's kinda bothersome every so often.

I don't believe Virginia Giuffre killed herself. No...no more than I believe Jeffrey Epstein hung himself in his cell even though the jail administration had put him on suicide watch.

Just who was behind their deaths, I cannot say because I don't know & likely never will. I do not invent wild conspiracy plots from a few pieces of suspicious info; too many people do that already. But Epstein's island was a destination for wealthy people he knew. His circle included socialites from the US & Europe....if he was known to certain oil sheikhs in the Gulf states I wouldn't be surprised. Bill Clinton took the "Lolita Express" flight to Epstein's place some 26 times. The point is there are plenty of people who would have a motive to take out Giuffre.

Also, at one point she was hit by a bus when she was in the back seat of someone's car. She wound up in an emergency room for that.

I believe Giuffre died because she knew too much. That is all I have to say on the matter.

________________

Also - tonight I've been reminded why NG is a better place to hang out than Bluesky, all things considered. A few weeks ago I opened an account on the former, for the same reason I started up on here: exposure for my works. How good Bluesky is for that I don't yet know...it resembles X/Twatter but with many more leftists, practically no others of a different political persuasion & overall better control over one's feed.

The feed control, I like. Certain other art-themed accounts there I also like, though some make me look second-rate...guess that can't be helped. But the leftist/wokeist accounts... 🤮😤 Their biases aren't even the worst part--I'm rather liberal on certain issues myself. But they show all the traits of their right-wing enemies: confirmation bias, fanaticism, intolerance of any opinion unlike theirs, black-&-white thinking, & an inability to understand why anyone would differ with their stance for any reason besides the stupidity & double-distilled evil they ascribe to all of the enemy tribe. Those people exist inside a bubble...I'm inclined to believe they can't have a conversation with any non-leftist person in real life.

That's what I've noticed for a while now: the differences between online pol-mobs are verbal & surface-level, while what they have in common comes through their actions.

All this, & I'm supposed to believe in a pluralistic democracy... 😒

...for a couple days, maybe longer.

I accidentally injured myself while chopping a small fallen pine in two sections. One of those dumb mistakes that everyone makes sooner or later. ("Smooth move, ex-lax") Strictly a minor wound but...it's one of my toes. When you live out in the sticks your legs & feet must be up to snuff. If they're not then you gotta lie down until you're healed up. I hope I heal soon...

Did clean & sterilize the wound & wrapped a band-aid around it. Given the conditions I'm in, I wonder if changing the bandage regularly is the smart thing to do...or a way to guarantee infection? That's the last damn thing I need at this point.

In other news, I've been sketching again (not in a club) after too many weeks of no art at all.

May 12th Edit: My foot/toe is healing. I suspect there will be a thin scar left, but that's no problem. Scars are evidence you've had a life of more than just sitting at a desk in a cubicle.

A new sketch-painting will post in a week from now...& a two-color one before that. Stay tuned, folks!

In other news, I am staying on the antibiotic prescribed after my last emergency room visit. My phone screen keeps going dark & staying that way for too long...brought it to one place to have it fixed but there wasn't much he could do. Finally I brought it back to my service provider's store & told 'em what's happening. Turns out I purchased insurance on the thing a while back...who knew it would actually be useful? The replacement phone should arrive in three days from now.

Moses on a mustang, I hope it's not a fucking tumor... Even a microstroke would be better news than that.

...& one post on an article from Yahoo,

for your perusal:

Other than that, nothing exciting. Was out working on the land Saturday...thinning out small trees on one end & cut up an oak I felled in the central area two months back. The next day I burned some charcoal in my grill (so I could season the outside with grape seed oil). My stuff in the storage unit is mostly organized now. Life goes on as usual. If I can, I will post some sketchy stuff later this week.