Art/Crafts Meetup Log #7
10/18/25
Went to a later No Kings protest (2-4pm) so I didn't end up getting to the Arts & Crafts meetup until 5pm (it was running from 3-6). So I can't say I got a ton of art done, but it was better than nothing and I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out so far.
I watched some basic coloring technique videos recently and am actively reworking how I conceptualize of shadow and light, so I'm reworking a piece I did earlier this year that I tried to submit to a game contest. I wasn't quite happy with the coloring on that, so it's nice to be able to know how to change the coloring so that it looks better. I also hope it helps solidify better coloring in my brain.
There were only 4 people at the meetup including me, and 2 of those people were the organizers (Teacher Lady and Glassblowing Guy). The other person that showed up was Old Guy. When I pulled out my tablet and started drawing, he said, "Uh-oh." I've also heard him say that when I was looking at comics in the bookstore before, and I starting to wonder what he could possibly mean by this, so I asked him. He said that it's because I pulled out something that he has no idea about, and I was focusing seriously. He finds it "scary," which I'm taking to mean unfamiliar and surprising. Looks like he just defaults to saying that whenever something is obviously out of his wheelhouse, even when no one is even asking him to participate in the thing. Very weird, but at least I know now that it isn't meant to be insulting.
The more I talk to Old Guy the more I feel like I simply don't understand how ideas connect in his head, so I feel like I'm not very good at responding substantially to all of his tangents. He asked me if I had figured out how to solve the issue of intellectuals being out of touch as stated in Fanon last time, and I was like, uh, no. This is primarily a social problem and I'm bad at social, so you're asking the wrong person, frog. I feel like when I talk to him it becomes mostly an exercise in responding with some kind of quip or half-heartedly trying to follow whatever labyrinth of logic goes on in his head. Which is funny because he clearly spends a lot of time thinking about academic stuff and philosophy, but none of it seems to be articulated in a way that I could follow.
For instance, he brought up that he was at war with himself lately for trying to figure out how to format footnotes when there's like four major styles. He then started talking about how stuff like this shows the need for universal standardization. I disagree, naturally, as my opinion is that universal standardization for absolutely everything is usually a question of enforced violence. And on the other hand, usage will always win out if there is no such threat of force, which is how we get stuff like dialects and whatnot. But I didn't say any of this because, honestly, I wanted to draw, and I wasn't really coming to this meetup to debate Fanon when I haven't even finished my notes for that book (at this point, it's looking increasingly like I won't have proper notes for it because I just feel burnt out from the other stuff in my life).
Teacher lady said that she wasn't so sure about that, because at what point is universalism harmful? Old Guy then said it was like a lot of rules protect you from yourself when you follow them, like how he accidentally caused a fire in his microwave by not following some rules. This is a metaphor that holds no relation to the question at hand, from my point of view anyway, even though he said it was part of a bigger question about how rules are created and standardized.
So anyway, at that point I figured I had lost the plot and just joked, so how's that related to footnotes? But I was also half serious, because what was the connection, indeed. Everyone just laughed it off, though, and then the conversation turned to TV shows and whatnot.
Glassblowing Guy was cutting apart little tubes of what I can only assume to be glass to prepare them for glassblowing into marbles later. Apparently you can arrange them and they'll create a pattern inside of the marble that will hold true even after you cut them. Glassblowing seems cool but also pretty intimidating.
They all seemed to like my art piece when I showed them it at the end (since they asked). I walked a bit with Teacher Lady afterwards, but she seemed too tired to do much socializing. I really wouldn't mind becoming closer to the idea of friends with Teacher Lady and Chill Lady, but who knows if it'll happen. Chill Lady seems to be going through it rn anyway, and she didn't show up to the meetup though I hoped she would.
While waiting for the train, Old Guy messaged me saying that he'd still be interested in any answer I might find. Immediately responded by essentially saying that my answer is Taiwo's "think outside the room" and talk to more people who live very different lives from you, but also that I do not have sway over intellectuals and I will probably not even take my own advice due to my social anxiety. He seemed to take that fine and made more of his jokes about how step one will be to solve elite capture, and the second will be to use whatever rules Teacher Lady sets up.
I hope I can get it in me to finish coloring this piece ok. The little animal that I'm workin' on right now is a bit confusing to color. The question with magical creatures who you assume are soft is always, how fluffy should I make this that will fit with the style? And the success always varies. I'm no pro at drawing animals.