Unsure what to do with this acct now that the project is over. Part of the reason I spun it off from main was cos I wanted something I could link family/normies to, but honestly I haven't told many about it, and I just send my mum photos every now and then. New stuff can just go on main now

#52 "Freedom" (Accompanied by soundcloud.com/robynmeows/f... , read on for explanation) With this project's end, I wanted to do something ambitious & showcase what I had learnt, after throwing myself into a year-long undertaking of something I had no natural talent or inclination for.

#51 "Demon II" Acrylics, ink Back when I made #17, "Demon", I made a second identical version at the same time. I then sat this copy in the windowsill, or even outside when dry in the summer, to try and deliberately sunbleach it.

#50 "In the Mountain" Originally this was supposed to be #31, depicting a scene in my pirate d&d campaign where the player-characters come to a cave near the summit of a mountain, inside which is a void that acts as a direct communication point to the villain, Davy Jones.

#49 "Lily" Afraid there's nothing too deep about this week's one. I had some paint left over after doing a separate piece, and I decided to paint something colourful in the "wrong" colours. Kinda gives a negative vibe.

#48 "Wolf" I've been dipping back into digital art recently, during which I've been trying to drag myself away from my old MLP-derived style to something closer to my paintings, with mixed success. This week I tried learning how to paint realistic-looking fur, leading to this study of a timber wolf

#47 "Adrift" I have a naive outlook on life where everything eventually works out in the end. But I know, in reality, things don't always work out that way. You can fail, you can be mistreated, some major event can send you reeling, all of which can send you to a place that you don't recover from.

#46 "A Better Life" There's a recent art installation on Cheese Street in Bristol, in one of the financial areas: a phone box, a postbox, and some lamps twisted and contorted like they were made of rubber. I visited it last Saturday morning when I had some free time, and found it desolate.

#45 "New Life" I got a lot of new paints and art tools for Christmas (new hobbies make for easy gifts, plus with multiple artists in the family, they knew what they were doing). One of said gifts was a watercolours travel set and uhh, I might prefer this to acrylics. Maybe I picked the wrong medium.

#44 "Oak" Something about painting trees is very satisfying, dragging a brush upward and letting the paint form itself. I got a bunch of new stuff at Christmas (paints, brushes, easel etc) so I used those to do a study of an oak tree where my parents walk

#43 "In Memorium" In the last D&D session, my longest-running character, Siross the lv8 minotaur forget cleric, died when the party were ambushed by giant mimics. He had been lacking a bit of purpose for a while, but as excited I was to bring in his replacement, it's still sad letting him go

#42 "Galaxy" Inspired by, and using, my favourite nail polish combinations, which comprise a blue or purple base colour with a glitter layer on top, affectionately referred to as "galaxy nails". Enormously busy this week so the patterns were freewheeled

Fucked up the numbering, my bad. "Anxiety" is 38, "Friends" is 39, "Wake" is 40, "Desaturation" is 41

#40 "Desaturation" Acrylics I had greater ambitions for this one, but after so much travel disruption from Storm Darragh I had limited time. Despite starting to learn colour theory a few months back, a lot of my pieces have kept the same vibrant pigments, so I wanted to do something much gloomier

#39 "Wake" Struggled the last few weeks as I've fallen off the painting wagon. I've felt less inspired & motivated, and more pressured by the work I'll need to do in order to get as good as I'd like. This week I needed to revert to the simpler pleasures: smearing lots of paint, and bisexual colours

#38 "Friends" I was at a convention for the weekend. Met a bunch of friends, new and old, and had a great time. I love the people around me. This week's piece is by them and for them, all gifting their own little contributions to my project.

#37 "Anxiety" Computer troubles this week. After an update, it would freeze on the loading screen. I'm not great with computers, I didn't panic initially. But as I tried each solution, I'd see this same frozen screen & the hurt grew, knowing I may have to risk losing everything to fix this

#37 "Hanging On" CW: blood It's not sudden: for LGBTQ people, there was a noticeable downturn in public opinion around 2015-2016, and I imagine many other minorities would argue it's not been getting "better" for even longer. Now the worst person has been elected, and though that won't directly(1/2)

#36 "Folds" Been thinking more about my geology degree lately. Finished it a decade ago, sadly never made much use of it after though. This was from a field trip to iirc Bude, where down at the coast there is limestone and shale interbedded, and folded spectacularly in these zigzags.

#35 "Autumn" October has been a little erratic. Despite a couple of frosts it's been overall fairly warm, and it's taken a while for plants to catch on. My badly-overgrown hedge is still in the first stages, grading from green leaves to beautiful red-magenta, often on the same branch

#34 "Vai" Following on from last week, I got to paint again with friends, a larger group this time with a varied mix of styles. During the session I painted this portrait of Vai, a Siamese cat OC I'd designed last week to try and speed up painting furries (compared to my cheetah sona)

#33 "Yasmin" Made fairly last-minute plans for friends to come round and paint, like in August, but last second they fell ill & had to cancel. I spent some time painting solo instead, radiator toasting behind me, tunes to set the mood. The vibes of Match In My Pocket by Yasmin Lacey inspired this

#32 "Neon" Taken a few stabs at techniques for neon lighting, and this is the best I've managed so far. Done on a whim after 2 hours sleep, bold lines on white with a dry brush over. I need to get gayer with my art (though next time I should probably use references too

#31 "Andromeda Sunset" Originally I did another piece for my D&D campaign, an illustration of a future scene. Unfortunately, after this week's session, I realised it would be spoilers, and unfair to share with everyone else while asking them not to look, so I quickly cooked up something new

#30 "Night In The Woods" NITW is one of my favourite games of the last few years. When I re-bought it for the collector's edition, it included a set of acrylic dioramas. After watching a video on colour mixing theory, I challenged myself to recreate a setup with Greg and Mae at the Clik Clak Diner

#29 "Lakeside" As part of the continuing dive into painting, this week I started learning about palette knife techniques, and tried to make a piece using only them. Managed to practice 5 different techniques (lines, scoring, gradients, scumbling, and impasto, plus the texturing at the mossy shore)

#28 "Cathedral" "There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see" has been stuck in my mind this week. To me it has a dual meaning: that there is beauty and wonder everywhere if you look hard enough; that the world is terrifyingly complex if you stop and think about it for too long.

#27 "Rainbow Dash" Not everyone knows this, but I started making art over a decade ago by drawing ponies, and I got reasonably OK at it over 3 years, before dropping it when I lost interest in the show. The skills I picked up then are the foundation of my digital art over a decade later

#26 "Kindness" I can't shake the feelings that contributed to #25, the enormity of what's to learn, and the pressure of feeling I need to start actively developing my skills. Need to remind myself to be kind and make ample room for enjoyment, otherwise I'll choke myself with the drive to be "good"

#25 "Roiling" For all I learnt last week, one thing that also came into focus was the enormity of what's still left to learn. The freedom and naivety I came into this project with felt like dipping a toe into a pool. Half a year on I want to push out to sea and develop, but I barely know how to row

#24 "Melted cheese man" This Sunday I spent a day painting with a friend, something I'd not experienced before. During this session I became obsessed with the idea of puncturing profundity, trying to skewer my own ego when I acted like every thought I had was revelatory.

#23 "Ragwort" Ragwort, and the cinnabar moth caterpillars that eat it, are nostalgic to me, cos I associate them with going on summer holidays to my family's beach house as a kid. So I was happy to see the plant growing in my garden this year and doubly so when in the past weeks they've been swarmed

#22 "Mandala" In my living room I have a large mandala canvas, left by the previous owner, made largely of dots and bumps. It's a great thing to stare at and space out to while on shrooms (again, if family/work read this: hypothetically). I also wanted to revisit the olfactory angle after #9 Herbs

#21 "The Point of No Return" "Off the starboard, you see a shimmering wall that stretches impossibly high up into the sky, and beyond. Streaks of kaleidoscopic light flicker in and out, and the sea and sky beyond are tinted a warm but ominous shade of pink" A depiction of a scene in my D&D game

#20 "Mystery Box" I don't know what this is. I'd been trying to find a use for all these canvas keys that kept piling up, as well as the gold paint I'd bought for a different project, and for some reason this arrangement compelled me. Maybe it means something I don't yet understand...

#19 "Trans Politics" After 14 long years, the blue of the Tories has been washed away by the red of Labour. A party happy to pander to transphobic culture war bullshit has been kicked out, and in its place an ostensibly more progressive establishment (1/2)

#18 "Demon" A creature dwells in the darkness. Even when it seems far away, its long reach can catch you unawares. And then you're in its grip, the once-sharp pain of its claws dulled as they sink back into the familiar scars, almost comforting. You'll escape eventually, you always do. Surely...

#17 "Wildflowers" I have a small wildflower garden at home. Last year, the first time in bloom, it was full of poppies cornflowers and cow parsley, giving a real variety of colours. This year it's almost completely changed, with red campion, herb Robert, and foxgloves making it overwhelmingly pink.

#16 "Sunset" After how pleased I was with #14, I wanted to do another piece with a gentle gradient. It's a little cliché, but I love sunsets, and how dramatically they change the sky. Been a while since I've watched one. Also after 4 months I learnt that you're supposed to mix water with acrylics

#15 "Flirty" Left a lipstick kiss on the canvas this week in recognition of all the romantic flings, part present and future, that have lit up my life~ Except that's not quite right. I went back over the kiss to fill in any patches and bring out the colour more.

#14 "Underwater" I had a few ideas relating to an underwater theme (including using the silicone sealant from #1 to make jellyfish) but settled on these bubbles. I'm very happy with the blending of the sea colour

#13 "Zoom" There's so much to do at a big convention, sometimes I feel like I'm zipping between conversations like lightning, but then other times I feel guilty because there's SO much to do but I feel like I've done nothing

#12 "Masking" It's not a crippling lament, but sometimes I wish I could be more open about presenting more feminine or androgynous. I largely avoid it outside of hanging with other queers, cos it's just easier to avoid even the polite-but-confused comments, let alone any abuse

#11 "Blender" After weeks of saying I'm starting to learn Blender (3D modelling program), I've finally actually started. The tutorial I'm using has me model several doughnuts in a kitchen scene, and last night I finally finished it. Now to leave my PC on for a geological era while it renders...

#10 "Gateways" When I started sketching this, the idea was to do it freehand and have the portal-like effect slowly warp from the accumulation of small mistakes. Turns out I've become a little too competent

#9 "Herbs" One of the themes I like to play with in this project is having some factor that can't transmit through an image alone. Boiling down some herbs into a dye, I had hoped for an olfactory aspect to this piece. Sadly, smell is entirely absent from what might as well have been tea-stained.

#8 "A Waste Of Time" In the past weeks I've started planning to: learn modelling in blender; make music with both a cover & an original piece; a fandub of a friend's comic; start writing text-based games; work on an art trade piece. All these creative whims & yet not a single idea for this project

#7 "3D" Wanted to see the capabilities of printer resin if they were "painted". Mixed results, including the first catastrophe of the project: shaking the grey resin, I hadn't realised the cap wasn't secure and it spilled all over the canvas & surrounding area (there's still some stuck to my window)

#6 "Spiral" Spiralling has seemed to be the theme of this week, both downward and upward. They're not neverending though, despite how they look.

#5 "Beholder" I've tried eye makeup several times, but most of the time I end up regretting it. Even if it looks ok in the mirror, I'll see my reflection or photos later and think "God I hate how that looks" on a deep instinctual level. Maybe I just need to practice more