Played with the travel watercolor brushes. I thought I’d prefer the black based ones, but the gold base feel much lighter when I grip close to the ferrule for detailed, controlled strokes. The gold brushes also hold their tip much better. Even though the bristles stained blue, there really isn’t any loose pigment in there. #artstr #artsupplies #watercolor

Over halfway through the month and now consistently hitting my new goal of 7,000 steps/day. Walked to town today so earned a little extra. 👟👟 #proofofwalk #fitnessover50

Let the sorting begin!!! #jigsawpuzzle #someonehastodoit

FYI: There’s a free multi-teacher online watercolor event happening from April 21 and April 26, 2026 called Win with Watercolor:

Homepage

All classes are free during the event, or you can buy a $37 USD pass before April 21 to keep access past the event. You can also buy the long-term access during the event, but the price goes up. Name and email required to sign up. David Drazil of Sketch Like an Architect is the host, with 20+ watercolor teachers, including Anastasiia, whose Travel Sketching course I’m currently working through. #art #watercolor #onlineclass

Eight watercolor painting techniques from the online class I’m working through. #artstr #watercolor

The bakeries and cafes have the best treats up here. This is a blueberry oat bar. 😋 #foodstr

I bought a travel watercolor palette with the intention of filling empty trays with my tube watercolors. Ran out of time before my trip, so I brought the colors the palette came with. After I swatched them, I had some dismay. Fluorescent yellow? No forest green? Then I swatched all first-level combinations. Red vs every color, Peach vs every color, etc. And all the colors I was missing showed up. 😁 #artstr #watercolor

The 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of Brambly Hedge: Spring Story is now complete! 🎉🐭 This is my favorite kind of illustration because of all the details. You can pick up a piece and find it on the mini poster. Mom and I did the Summer Story last year, and are moving on to Autumn next. More info on Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem:

Brambly Hedge - Children's books and gifts

BRAMBLY HEDGE

Brambly Hedge is a series of eight seasonal children's books for Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, intricately illustrated by Jill Barklem

#jigsawpuzzle #details

Finished reading Martha Wells’ Witch King and the sequel, Queen Demon. First, these stories are in a unique magical fantasy world, so much more like Martha’s other novels than the popular Murderbot stories. I loved Witch King; it was one of those stay-up-waaaaay-past-bedtime books that I fell into. It could be considered self-contained, so you can read it, get a complete story, and not have a cliff-hanger ending. It tells the story of the characters in 2 timelines (past & present) in alternating chapters. Queen Demon takes place right after the end of WK in both timelines. Again with the alternating chapters, which didn’t bother me in WK. For QD, about halfway through the book, I did end up reading just the past chapters to the end, then went back and read the present chapters. There is an ending …. though it also very much a new beginning. I originally thought/read this was a duology, so I expected a WK cliffhanger (that didn’t happen) and expected more of a complete closure in QD (also didn’t happen), but that means Martha has more Rising World stories planned, which is exciting, because I really enjoyed my time with these characters. Side note: if you buy the ebooks, you do not get the world map, which is handy, so I included it as the last image. Cover art (tordotcom edition) by Cynthia Sheppard #bookstr #marthawells

Let the puzzling begin!!!

Hoppy Easter!!! 🐰

Wind, water, and wildfowl. With love, from Canada 🇨🇦 #vidstr #birdstr

@Damus - I’ve connected my primal wallet to Damus via NWC. It shows Connected/online (1st image) but I get a screen without transaction info (2nd image) and my zaps don’t seem to go through, even though visually they appear on a note. What else do I need to do?

For us, it’s a crazy amount of wind and temperatures bouncing from 70F to 90F to 60F (feels like 50F because of the wind. 😵‍💫 #weather #comic #spring

This. And putting in the hours of work. #artstr View quoted note →

Jody Bergsma, a Pacific Northwest artist I’ve followed for years, has a new website: https://bergsma.com It’s still being loaded with paintings/prints, but what’s there now is a good sampling of her known works as well as her newer style. #art #watercolor

I’ve launched several successful projects on Kickstarter as I always preferred the fixed-funding/All-or-Nothing model to the take-their-money-even-though-you-didn’t-reach-the-finding-goal model as on IndieGoGo. I just saw @Geyser has implemented a Kickstarter Bitcoin equivalent. 🧡 If the funding goal is met, the creator is paid. If not, supporters get their sats back. Now I just need to concept a project and figure out pricing for rewards. 💜 #artstr #crowdfunding #proofofwork View quoted note →

Worth staying up until 4 am to finish. Locked-room murder mystery with a great-aunt and second footman detective team during the panic caused by Halley’s Comet in 1910. #bookstr #reading #murdermystery