PotatoPixie

Do every year I try to do a piece where I point smoke bombs at some watercolor paper and paint over, and usually I have no idea what to actually paint but this year with certain current events I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to paint lmao.

I also used acrylic gouache!! It's my first full piece with it, I think it turned out well!!

If anyone were to replicate my technique of using smoke bombs on paper, here's what I did/used:

-colorful smoke bombs

-tongs

-watercolor paper

-spray on sealant

-any opaque medium

Grabbed onto the smoke bomb with the tongs and the fused pointed AWAY from you, (also do this outside obvi)

Light the smoke bomb and point it about a foot or half foot away from the paper, you might point it closer carefully if more intense color needed.

Also be aware of the splatters of goop that'll go onto the paper as it goes, I normally let it dry and carefully scrape it off later and makes a nice effect

If you can leave the paper outside for as long as possible, cause that paper will stink like suffer for DAYS

Spray some sealant after a few hours, and leave it overnight

It'll take a few days for the smell to dissipate, but when you're ready use whatever medium over the paper, (also sketching before the smoke bomb is recommended)

Afterwards I'll leave it for a bit if it still smells, spray another layer of sealant and/or go over with varnish!

Visual mending!

I've been getting into visual mending. Things are expensive, and I like the idea of using some colorful thread to make little repairs over time to my favorite jeans!

When I first started learning to mend, I used a loom I got off amazon, which works wonderfully! I've used it for a few of my cardigans, but it's mainly for embroidery thread, which is nice but mainly thicker material and the hooks are farther apart, so for this i tried to do it freehand!

It was a little trickier going around the edge where most of the damage was, but hopefully it'll hold up!

Vendor day!

So a few weeks ago (it's been a v chaotic month lol 🙃) I did a booth at an art/craft show at a dispensary!!

It was my first solo show, but unfortunately the weather gods decided to say fuck you and rained all day. We still had the booth, and we're doing another show in June with the event organizers for free since this one got rained out.

I worked my ASS off trying to make enough stuff for it, especially my bunny plushes. I didn't get as much as I wanted done, but it's a start!

Finally got my grubby mits on some Holbein Gouache paints via anniversary present (thank you honeyyyyyyy)

First post of 2025!!

And to celebrate I got an About the Artist whipped up!

Hi, I'm the Potato Pixie, and I like fairytales. One day, I'd like to make comic adaptations of some of the weirder ones, or some well-known ones but the original versions, cause those get weird as hell.

I'm specifically going off from this book, a Barnes and Noble exclusive edition that I got for Christmas in 2015, but the inside specifically lists this as the Margaret Hunts translation from 1884.

So, I'm going to tell you all the broad strokes of the story, any important details, provide my shitty commentary, and how it could possibly be adjusted to a short comic.

My goal is to, when I can, make the characters more human, or give them more character. When I do character designs, and I'll post those as well, give traits and characteristics that aren't conventionally attractive.

Anyways, we're starting with the Frog King!

It's the first one in the book, and I'm interested in adapting it, so we'll go with that!

So it starts with the unnamed Princess tossing a gold ball, which is her favorite plaything, by a well.

Eventually, she tosses it and it falls in the well, and it's so deep she can't see the bottom or her ball.

She cries so much that the stones would show pity, (or maybe she thinks they would, this version very much has spoiled brat vibes) that soon a talking frog comes out of the well and asks her what's wrong. The princess though disgusted at the talking Frog, tells him about the ball, and he offers to get it for her, if she agrees to take the Frog back to her castle, and let the Frog eat with her, play with her and sleep in her bed with her.

The Princess fully intending to ditch the Frog agrees, and as she gets her ball she runs off, and frog croaking and yelling for her

At the castle, the Princess and the King are eating until they hear a knock at the door, and the king questions whoever it could be as the princess is freaked out knowing it's the Frog, and after said Frog asks her if she doesn't remember the agreement they had, the King tells the Princess that she has to keep her promise, and she begrudgingly picks thr Frog up and takes him to the table, to which he seemingly eats off her plate with ease, and she choking down every bite. (Like man that'd gross me out too, the princess is kinda a bitch but like, same)

Eventually, the Frog decides he's full and wants to go to sleep, and the Princess carries the Frog with two fingers by his leg up the stairs. When the Frog insists upon being carried up onto her bed, she gets so angry she takes the Frog and THROWS HIM AGAINST THE WALL.

Nah, no romance, no character development of like a spoiled brat learning to be nice, fucking YEETS the slimy bitch to the wall.

The weirdest part is, THATS WHAT TURNS HIM BACK INTO A PRINCE??? I have the whole scene planned in my head, bitch goes splat, slides down, the bottom half of the shot is like covered by the bed in the foreground and there's like a delayed POOF and then his gets up as a human holding his head.

Anyways, the Frog King (we're still gonna call him Frog) tells the Princess that a witch had cast a spell onto him and no one but her had taken him from the well (So I guess it was the well that was keeping him a frog?? But the Princess didn't do shit, she ran off!! So idk)

And then in the morning as mentioned, a carriage of white horses rolls up, and weirdly the only Named character, the servant Faithful Henry is said that he was so unhappy that his master was turned into a Frog, that three iron bands were laid upon his heart, lest it should burst from sadness.

They get in the carriage, and the Kings son (so like, it's not mentioned at all before that the Frog King has a son, neither the princesses father, and only the princess and the Frog King are described to get in the carriage. They mention that because the Princess agrees to be the Frogs companion and playmate, and that by her fathers will is now her husband, so where did the son come from? They go to the kingdom the next morning, so idk)

The Son thinks the carriage is breaking, but Faithful Henry says it's only the bands upon his heart bursting with joy and happiness that his master has returned.

The End

And that's it!! It's so weird, but I kinda like the lack of romance. And the Princess fucking Yeeting the Frog is great lmao

Also the servant Henry is giving Forbidden Lover vibes? Like how the hell is this dude THAT HAPPY that King is back? And what's up with the random Kings Son??

How do we Adapt this?

So keeping as much elements from the original tale as possible, here's what I got.

The Princess is spoiled, maybe she's got texture issues so she hates slimy things? Eh maybe not, but I am getting "POV The Girl You Think Is Mean Is Really Just A Girls Girl kinda vibes? Maybe I've just been watching thise too much.

I present to thee, Unnamed Rat King Painting!!

It took me a bit, I had to wait till I was back at my partners place cause I forgot my ink there, it works surprisingly well on top of acrylic paint! I've really been liking how it looks, I'm excited to do more!

My only thing is I recently learned more about value in my graphic design class, and part was making sure different elements in your piece doesn't blend together when you apply a greyscale filter, and I realized one of the rats and the tails kind of do that, but it's a lesson learned for the next project!

In my class, I'm attempting to work ahead and blast through the last two illustration chapters so I won't have to worry about it later, and the subjects are Illusion of Motion and Value, and I have to take notes that answers certain questions and make a sketch based off of the subject that has to do with our portfolio stuff, which more me is Character Design, Comics and Surrealist pieces, so I'll be posting those as well!!

Current wip! I've had this wood star thing from the dollar store for a year or two and could never decide what to paint on it, I wanted to do a weird thing, and for a while I had a barely started painting of a lady with a sparkle shaped scar on her forehead and big ol' eyes and cloud hair, but I wasn't vibing with it.

Then after I made my Kingfisher painting I really liked the usage of black ink for the wobbly line art and wanted to do another thing with it, and remembered Rat Kings existed and though 'well, it has 5 points, I can paint 5 Rats!

And then we'll I gotta make it funky, and decided to keep the pastel background the other painting had and added Peonies, but mostly cause they're my favorite lol

I got hyperfixated on kingfisher birds for a bit cause the colors are cool and I was in a 'oh god I need to draw something or do something productive cause I didn't do enough today' kinda mindset and spent the past 4ish hours painting!

I don't normally name my paintings cause they don't have specific meanings behind them, but I think I'd call this one 'Strain of Hunger' or something pretentious like that lmao,

First I showed my concept, now we're going to measure and cut out the pieces!

So I'm going to vocational college for graphic design, so I need a bag to hold a lot of books and papers. My largest paper pad I've used so far is this Bristol Board, so that's what were going go use to measure about how big to make it!

First you take your largest item and lay it on the fabric, and draw the shape of the bag around it, remembering to have extra material for seam allowance, and "opps I fucked up and now the edges are all frazzled"

(I forgot to mention that the canvas and other materials I have is doubled, from when they cut it off the bolt, so you only need the cut out the outer material once if that's the case for you.)

It's likely I'll trim this down a bit later, but its better to have more than you need, then less that you have to go back and get.

Next, stack the stuff you need in it and either take a leftover piece of material or paper and mark how wide the sides need to be. I had some leftover canvas that was about the width of the stuff I had, so I used it as a starting point.

From the bottom of the material I marked where the top of the lenght was, pretty much just made a line where I the top corner was.

Here I marked the width of the bag, but unfortunately I didn't have enough material to have one continuous line for the whole bag. But, since this material is folded, I can just mark about the middle of the bottom and have two halves.

Next, the Tazer Pocket I want to add to throw side.

The one on my messenger bag was fine, that one I top sewed the folded edges closer together so it wouldn't be completely flat on the side, if that makes sense.

But this time we're making side seams so it doesn't go inside the bag a bit, if that makes sense also.

Repeat the steps like with the Bristol board, giving plenty of seam allowance and trimming room. This scrap price was perfect to use, and I had enough to also use it for the side seam.

I folded that material hotdog style and that looked to be enough for the side seam, so it's good enough for me! If it messes up later it can be a snack pocket lol.

Next, I want to make a drawstring bag on the opposite side for trinkets or chapstick or whatever the hell, so I cut out a piece that was a little bigger than the side of the bag, which looking now I'll likely trim a bit of the lenght off later.

Sooooo, I forgot to take a picture of makeing the front flap for the bag. Since I used up the 10 image limit of the post, I'll make a drawing of how I made that later.