Chore Day, Jan 22, 2022: Chores and Rough Sketching

Today’s chores were doing the vacuuming and cooking next week’s food. I made some chocolate chip cookies from chickpeas (they were disappointing) and a big pot of chili (not disappointing). Tomorrow I’ll be making some vegan burgers. A vegan burger is really just another way of saying bean patty.

My copy of Rey Busto’s anatomy book arrived today. It’s awesome. Rey Bustos is the best teacher of anatomy I’ve come across. You can check out his book on Amazon by clicking here.

Christmas Eve 2021

Chirstmas Eve was a busy day of cooking brusselss sprouts and oatmeal cookies. Walking Nacho in the snow for the first time was educational — all of his favorite stops were snowed over and he was confused.

I’m tired tonight, but I found the energy to do a little sketch of some kind of cat-like creature.

Chore day, Dec 18, 2021

A Pomeranian done with Rebelle 5

Today I did the laundry, vacuumed the house, and walked Nacho the Pug. Tomorrow I’m going to do some cooking: a golden curry with tofu and a big pot of borscht. All of the food is vegan, and it’s delicious.

I had an hour to explore Rebelle 5 and ended up sketching and painting a Pomeranian. I used a reference even though I have a Pomeranian sleeping next to my desk. Willy has zero interest in anything I do and I don’t want to inconvenience him — he’s really cranky when I wake him from one of his precious naps.

Tuesday at the Doctors -- You Are What You Eat

Today was a productive day. In the morning I went to two doctor appointments. They were yearly checkups for several of the bullets I’ve dodged over the years. The news is good: I’m ready for another 70 years .

To make the day even better, I dropped by the food truck that does business next to the hospital and picked up four Thai Peanut Curry meals, with organic tofu. In the years when I was seeing a doctor almost every month, I would reward myself with a Starbucks espresso, bear claw, a half-pound of Sees chocolate candy, and then a Thai peanut curry bento. Thinking I was being reasonable, I would ration out the Sees candy over a week or so.

Those days are in the past. After my close calls with the Grim Reaper, I shaped up and started to take an interest in what was going into my body. The more research I did, the more I realized that a whole food, plant-based diet was the best way to go. No more Starbucks, no more Sees candy, no more Taco Bell, no more Chipotle. Just plants. And, it’s good for the animals of the earth.

Chore Day, August 28, 2021

Chore Day arrived again. As usual, I vacuumed the house and did the laundry. I thought of making some vegan cheese sauce, but that seemed like more than I could handle. I’ll do it tomorrow. At 3 pm I tried sketching but fell asleep. I also thought of spending 30 minutes studying Swedish, but didn’t have the will or energy of open the book.

On the other hand, I went for a one hour family walk this morning. We took our usual route and walked up to Ridge Road. There are sensational views of the mountains and canyons. With the smoke we experiencing, there are magnificent examples atmospheric perspective as the Siskiyou Moutains fade into the smoke.

Swedish is a fun language with many words shared with English. The spelling and pronunciation are tricky but learnable with lots of study. After 30 minutes of study, my brain feels like it’s been through a heavy weight session at the gym. Learning is hard work.

Chore Day, June 5, 2021 -- The Bumble Bee

No pollen on this bumble bee

Today was a day of many tasks: vacuuming, laundry, yard work, training the dogs, and sitting in the yard relaxing in the balmy breezes. I watched a large bumble bee harvest the pollen from the yellow flowers weighing down a no-name tree the yard. His rear legs were so thickly covered with pollen that he looked like he was wearing thigh-high yellow buccaneer boots.

Page 12 Brings A New Character...A Bottle Nose Dolphin Named Doreen

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My daily schedule goes like this. I get up at 6am and walk Willy. Then I make breakfast, which is usually a banana-kale-chocolate smoothie. After breakfast I study Japanese for 30 minutes, then I go to work on my real world job by 8:30am. At 10:30am I work out and mediate for 90 minutes, then have lunch at noon. After cooking and eating and doing the dishes I start the second part of my day by 1:30pm. I take an afternoon break at 4:00pm and walk Willy and hang out outside for a while, if the weather allows. After the break I go back to the studio and continue working. At 7pm I wrap up any loose ends and create a post for this blog. When the blog is submitted, it’s automatically sent to my Tumblr page, https://doukat.tumblr.com/. The images are not transferred automatically so I open Tumblr and add the image to the page. From 8pm to 9pm is family time. My day ends at 10pm when I go to bed. I always read at night before I go to sleep. Always.

That’s what my ideal day looks like, but it’s not always ideal, especially when I’m working at a job outside of the house. There are always emergencies and problems that interrupt my blissful groove. At those times, I have to steal time from my art projects, never from family time or reading time.

Chore day, Feb 6, and the Final Version of Page One of My Third Book in the Jimmy Jay Series

Marooned!

After doing my chores (laundry and vacuuming), I cooked up a batch of white sauce with artichokes and kale, and enjoyed a satisfying pasta lunch. Afterwards I got to work on another version of page one. This time I kept it simple. I used a large round opacity brush and blocked out the waves, the sand, the hills, volcano, and sky. I changed to a wet oil brush for the sand dunes, clouds, and the figure.

I decided to show Jimmy as marooned rather than as washed up on the beach. I was thinking of Howard Pyle’s pirate picture called Marooned!. It’s a beauty indeed, especially if you like pirates.

And now, on to page 2.

Chore Day, Jan 23, 2021 -- Chores and Cooking a WFPB Cheese-like Sauce

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Taco, on a bench at the Letterman Digital Arts Center, San Francisco, 2011. In this pose Taco is staring at our Staffie, whom he hates.

Today’s chores were the same as last week’s chores. Truly, there must be a loop in time that repeats on a weekly basis: laundry, vacuuming, cooking. It’s not a rut — it’s a groove.

I cooked up a batch of a highly-touted vegan cheese-like sauce. The creator guaranteed that even carnivores and omnivores would mistake the sauce for actual queso. My review: it’s okay, but, as a former cheese-eater, I wasn’t fooled. Listen up, vegan Youtubers: overselling a recipe raises my expectations so high that I may feel that an otherwise decent recipe doesn’t live up to the hype. Skip the sales pitch — you’re preaching to the choir, remember — and let the food speak for itself.

Chore Day, Oct 3, 2020: Laundry, WFPB Queso Salsa, and Krita

This picture need some highlights. I’m struggling with Krita — all of the keyboard shortcuts are neither like Photoshop nor Clip Studio Paint.

My chores today were laundry (check) and cooking (check). There’s not much to say about doing laundry, but I always enjoy doing it. I usually spend my time studying Japanese, surfing the web, watching videos, sketching, or reading. Today I started reading David Chang’s Eat a Peach: A Memoir.

After doing laundry I cooked up a big batch of wfpb (whole food, plant based) queso dip, the recipe for which came from The Jaroudi Family’s Youtube channel. Simple and delicious.