Charlotte Riley--Monochrome Portrait

A speed coloring video in which in color a portrait of actress Charlotte Riley using only the B90 family of copic markers!


And the finished product:

A monochrome copic marker drawing of actress Charlotte Riley. My reference was taken from the PBS adaptation of Wuthering Heights. #artistsofinstagram #artistsoninstagram #copic #instaartist #art #drawing

A post shared by Mary DeMauro (@marydemauro) on Aug 27, 2017 at 1:31pm PDT

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Makes me feel as though my art skills aren't so hopeless after all! :)

Notebook Flip-Throughs: Episode 1

I started a new video series: flip-throughs of my notebooks! Here's episode one, where I show you my first two notebooks.

Various things I mentioned in this video:

Artist Linda Sayegh

Celebrity cats Shorty and Kodi

Artist Goldenwolf

The online game Horse Isle 

LadyeStagsleap on deviantart

LadyeStagsleap on youtube--first channel

LadyeStagsleap on youtube--second channel

My Elsa video

Marisol on the Frozen Wiki

Marisol on the Disney Wiki

The 45th Nail, cover art by me

Really Long Journal Entry!

So recently I went on a long vacation with my family, and when I got back of course I wanted to write about it in my journal. But it took me a couple of days to finish writing it, and when I was finished I had written about twelve pages! But that's why I have a loose leaf journal--so that I don't have to put aside everything else I want to write while I finish writing a long journal entry. I can write multiple things at the same time! As to how I date it, I generally use the date on which I finish.

Journaling with this nice brown ballpoint pen by #staedtlerpens . Unfortunately the ink flow is a little weak... hope it doesn't run out before I finish...

A post shared by Mary DeMauro (@marydemauro) on Aug 15, 2017 at 6:35pm PDT

So I'm journaling about my vacation, and I know it's going to take me forever to finish writing about everything I did. But that's the nice thing about loose leaf journaling; if it takes me a couple of days to finish something, no big deal. I'll just date it and put it in the notebook when it's finished, and in the meantime I can write other stuff! I can work at my own pace. #journaling #amwriting #notebooks

A post shared by Mary DeMauro (@marydemauro) on Aug 15, 2017 at 7:43pm PDT

One fun aspect of loose leaf journaling: I don't have to guess how much space I'll need to leave for photos. I can leave, say, half a page empty, and then go and fill up the next page with writing, because later I can insert as many pages as I need to hold photos! #journaling

A post shared by Mary DeMauro (@marydemauro) on Aug 16, 2017 at 7:31pm PDT

Eight pages in to this journal entry, and my faithful brown pen hasn't dried out yet! #journaling #amwriting #staedtlerpens

A post shared by Mary DeMauro (@marydemauro) on Aug 17, 2017 at 8:02pm PDT

Forgot to post that I finally finished my journal entry about my vacation! It was twelve pages when I finished; whew!!! #journaling #amwriting

A post shared by Mary DeMauro (@marydemauro) on Aug 20, 2017 at 12:13pm PDT

Resolution for an Earlier Post

Awhile ago I made a post lamenting the loss of web show episodes from the former site Blip.tv. I was particularly mourning some lost episodes from the show What We Had To Watch, made by IlNeige. However, some good news! IlNeige has made a page on the website vid.me, containing all his lost episodes. Needless to say, I'm thrilled.

What We Had To Watch

I highly encourage you to check this series out. IlNeige is hilarious, but his analyses of movies and what makes them good or bad is really well done. My personal favorites are his Pokemon reviews. So check out the show!

Back From Hiatus!

Hello world! It's been a long time, but I'm finally back from hiatus! And I made my first video in almost a year!

As I explained in the video, I needed a bit of a "mental health" vacation from the internet. But I really missed my blog, and I missed making videos, plus I have a bunch of new ideas!

So, what have I been doing these past months? I've discussed this in my video, but here's the rundown:

1. I've been editing one of my novels, and am now looking for a publisher.
2. I now keep my notebooks in binders, rather than in folders (but if you follow my blog you know that already).
3. I've started collecting hardback books.
4. I now own a kindle, and I love it.

So glad to be back!

Hiatus

Just a notice that The Spiderweb is going on a temporary hiatus. Thanks for reading!

Blur App!

For awhile now I've struggled with wanting to show pictures of my notebooks, my writing workspace, my decorated journal entries, etc. without actually showing what I'm writing. But I'm experimenting with a couple of apps that let me blur parts of an image before posting it to instagram. Ta-da!

A post shared by Mary DeMauro (@marydemauro) on Mar 5, 2017 at 9:21pm PST

A post shared by Mary DeMauro (@marydemauro) on Mar 5, 2017 at 9:36pm PST

Well that last picture isn't very exciting, I know... but I like to think that first picture of a notebook page still shows you that I'm woking on an outline in the form of a bullet list. The other picture of my computer screen was mostly me experimenting with the blur app.

Right now I'm using "Touch Blur." I may switch to something else, but right now it seems to be working well! :)