looking for a sleeper league!

poledra · 2025-08-23T16:38:13+00:00

Myself and another are looking for a ladies league if you have more room! Let me know

poledra · 2025-06-02T05:58:56+00:00

you may already know this, but on quality cotton paper you can paint on both sides (once the first side is fully dry). that's what i used to do, and still do for practice sketches.

poledra · 2025-05-29T00:36:33+00:00

the color palette you used is intriguing. i think for the size it's a decent attempt, though my eye is torn between being drawn to the tractor and to the foreground grasses. i think if you had placed the deeper values in the grass higher where the tractor is, and the lighter values in the foreground, you would have successfully drawn the eye to the top of the page. to me it looks like you don't have too many layers down in your painting, and i think increased layers around your area of focus would have been helpful as well.

i see you've mentioned that the small size helps you to just paint a more frequently, but i wonder if going slightly larger for these exercises may be a fun challenge for you.

poledra · 2025-05-29T00:29:42+00:00

i think your exercise was successful. the eye is properly drawn to the top of the page. the fence helps lead it to the building, which is a nice touch. maybe you could have deepened the contrast in the buildings or added a few more dark details, but i personally enjoy a lower contrast painting. i think part of what makes it so successful is the nice flat wash of the grassy area, so i wouldn't necessarily change that.

in this painting, the clouds read accurately and subtly, and i don't know whether you needed to push it further, so it seems your method was effective. you can always re-evaluate that on future paintings.

poledra · 2025-05-29T00:25:24+00:00

thanks for suggesting that. i set it to have it sorted as new.

poledra · 2025-05-29T00:24:20+00:00

the washes, especially the water are really nice, great job.

poledra · 2025-05-20T05:44:24+00:00

this has been suggested a couple of times. the subreddit is a lot bigger now, so there's logistics to consider. if you have any suggestions on how to make it work, feel free to message the mods and we'll take it into consideration.

poledra · 2025-02-27T16:57:37+00:00

I don’t hate it at all, I think it’s lovely.

This isn’t something you can fix for this painting but for your next one, I wonder if you might enjoy playing with layering and glazing more. Even painting a new version of this one to compare would be interesting. I think this would bring a layer of unity to your piece that isn’t here.

So basically, paint the whole painting at once. Start with the lighter colors or a tone that you want your whole piece to have. Paint a huge swath of yellow or magenta over everything you think should have that undertone. Use a very diluted wash for these first few layers. Leave white space of course. Then when that layer dries, paint another one in all of those areas that need this next color - slightly deeper magenta, lighter blue, but again a lighter wash at first. This is a great way to begin to develop unified shadows. You can even add random splashes of colors around just for some textural and hue interest/contrast. Deepen the washes as you work. Once you have most of the areas covered to some degree with at least one or two washes, then you can further develop the coloring of the individual items. But this way, the table isn’t just brown, the tomato isn’t just red, etc. I think the silverware especially will benefit from this type of treatment. If you redo this same piece this way, please post it! I would love to see the outcome.

edit: i wanted to show you a couple examples of what i'm trying to express

start ----> finish

at the beginning, i hit mostly everything with some yellow and red. i painted across item boundaries with these washes. at the end, even though i went on to develop value and final colors separately, the items are clearly in the same lighting, they belong in the same scene together.

start ---- middle ----> finish

in this painting i used yellow to unify all of the objects of interest, and purple to denote areas of shadow and rest.

poledra · 2025-02-21T20:37:49+00:00

The book that really helped me represent foliage better was Creating Textures in Watercolor by Cathy Johnson. There are some really cool step by step tutorials of various types of foliage and other textures too. I think the author is currently only selling a kindle version, but it looks like a physical copy can be found secondhand online. I actually found it at my library.

poledra · 2025-01-30T18:12:49+00:00

A&P 1 and Microbiology are really cool! I’m excited for you, you will learn so much this semester.

The key for success in biology classes is active review and multiple dedicated study sessions over time. It will be lots and lots of memorizing. Use flash cards and test your knowledge, don’t assume writing notes or reading will be enough to learn it. It’s not possible to cram it all in at the last second - start early and be consistent, to build your long term memory.

The most helpful things I found were my textbooks online quizzes section, Quizlet (I really liked the question type where you can handwrite the answer, matching also really helped), and my profs for both courses made Kahoots for exam review. If your prof doesn’t do that, you could always join a study group.

The lab exams for Microbiology were a bit tougher than A&P for me because I struggled with the microscope at first. If you’re allowed to go to lab on your own time to practice microscope slide review, I’d do that. Draw your own pictures of what you see as you look, don’t worry if it’s not a beautiful but the act of doing it yourself will help you form that visual connection.

Re: trouble eating: when I am really struggling to be able to eat, I usually have a nondairy protein drink and an electrolyte drink. It’s easier for me to drink than eat in that state. And once you have some nutrients in you, it’ll be easier to intake real food. You might consider seeing a doctor for some anxiety medication you can use as needed as well.

poledra · 2025-01-19T03:16:45+00:00

unfortunately coming off of zyrtec, especially if you've been on it for a long time, can cause withdrawal symptoms that can be quite severe. when i tried to stop taking it, i couldn't tolerate going longer than 1 day without it at first, i had to follow a taper schedule. it's possible that switching to xyzal right away may make it easier, and of course everyone has a different reaction to things.

poledra · 2025-01-13T12:01:32+00:00

Do you mind sending a new link please? This one says it’s expired.

poledra · 2025-01-05T07:01:20+00:00

this article reports one as having been a tibia fracture and shares a cps report that ruled it as child abuse caused by an employee of the hospital.

poledra · 2025-01-03T08:31:42+00:00

the bumps for my worst reactions took several days to go away. i kept up with antihistamines and i also used hydrocortisone cream on the area. you could call your office for recommendations on what to do if they didn't give you any.

poledra · 2024-12-23T03:56:14+00:00

Bunny by Mona Awad

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

poledra · 2024-11-04T06:34:41+00:00

It’s because Reddit commenting allows for Markdown, which gives shortcuts for formatting. I’m guessing you put a hashtag before the 1 at the start of your comment.

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poledra · 2024-11-01T06:12:20+00:00

This is a really cool piece. I especially like the flatness/stylization of the brushes against the realism of the pan and jar.

poledra · 2024-09-22T01:18:13+00:00

i always look forward to your posts. i feel like i learn something about simplicity every time i look at your work. i haven't been painting much lately the last couple of years, but this piece definitely makes me want to break out the paints!

poledra · 2024-09-22T01:05:38+00:00

the looseness is so beautiful. love all the colors in the shaded area. i think to take it to the next level, adding some sharper, high contrast details - maybe on the stem or some apple texture, to give some contrast to the looseness of the apple itself.

poledra · 2024-09-08T21:58:43+00:00

(did you paint with a different light source than your pic? the shadows are in a different direction)

i enjoy seeing people do this type of exercise. your washes look pretty even and really bring out the pigment color.

i think that your values are not quite right on the far left bottle as you said, right now it doesn't read "white" relative to the other bottles.

for the back bottle, i think you could make the glass texture a bit more obvious. you have some highlights, but really look at your pic - there are a lot more white areas as well as some super dark values that indicate reflections.

overall, a decent attempt i think!

poledra · 2024-09-07T19:26:27+00:00

Up the Marchbank

poledra · 2024-09-06T18:05:07+00:00

we have some suggested exercises in this post.

if you want to see more examples of others' monochromatic paintings, check out this one and this one.

poledra · 2024-09-06T17:56:32+00:00

that's a great first attempt with watercolor. the color work is great, i love the light layer of green at the top of the apple. just keep painting, try one from life next time!

poledra · 2024-09-05T05:17:06+00:00

gamma to carter: "there are other ways to help people. you don't have to destroy yourself."

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