u/trustmeijustgetweird

Everything is leggy, I can’t even see half the hardscape, and the fish are happy as a clam. Good god this is gonna be a pain.

I went looking for fallen walnuts from last fall to scope out the trees, and since there’s been interest in black walnuts, I thought I’d report back on the finding so far!

Specifically, I found one tree that produced these interesting mounded bases. I’ve been mentally calling them toad heads, since the bumps somewhat resemble the toad head variety. I don’t have a matched pair yet but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that’s neat. I’ll just have to hope that tree fruits this year.

I also was able to sort out a matched pair of big round ones that I’m mentally calling pumpkins. I already love the hand feel and am planning to take some progress photos with consistent lighting this time.

(Bonus pic: the squirrels shell graveyard)

I’ve learned recently about the American folk art of carving stuff out of peach pits (seemingly mostly baskets and monkeys). It was a relaxing way to spend an hour while watching a YouTube video.

I thought y’all might enjoy this. I wanted a well fitting pouch to store my walnuts in so I made this. Felt isn’t the longest lasting material, but it’s easy to work and hopefully the embroidery will add some abrasion resistance.

The last image is included for a vague sense of the construction because I can’t find the tutorial I used. Pro tip: flowers are a popular embroidery subject for a reason. They are the easiest design to do and the hardest to do wrong.

Edit: Found the pattern https://www.instagram.com/reel/DV43fKPEgG8/

TLDR: warm red with shading. If anyone has noodlers cayenne or Akkerman Vermeer, give it a shot. Also warning: in the images lies actual human blood.

My time has come! I actually started working on theorizing the ideal blood match a while ago. Here I’m aiming for the fresh but tacky stage, like it’s dried on the page for a few minutes, where it’s still red but not shiny and wet.

The ideal color here is a warm red, bordering on orange. It is WARM. You don’t want the magenta or purple undertones that you usually see in oxbloods. It’s a very bright orange red when wet, drying to a warm brick red.

Ideally, there would be shading. From that warm middle red to an almost yellowish color. The really deep blackish reds rely on layering or deep pools of blood.

As for texture, obviously no shimmer is ideal. It’s also good if it dried to a grainy matte texture. At the tacky phase there’s a bit of reflectiveness still, but it’s not glossy or shiny.

For absolute realism, at the cost of function, keep in mind blood tends to be more of a pigment than a dye or stain. If wetted, the red, deep stains wipe away easily, leaving a light brown/red (depending on age) behind.

From my searching, first on my list to try would be Noodlers Cayenne. I’ve seen swatches of Vermeer from Akkermans Dutch Masters collection and it might also fit the bill. If anyone has either of those and wants to test, tag me.

Credit: Blood paintings from Maxime Taccardi, blood drawing guides in the image, mini samples me, swatches from my photo library so no clue sorry.

It doesn’t quite work and I don’t know why. Ideas are very much welcome.

A rough progression of what I think are the same nuts. Tbh I’ve lost track once or twice. Also, I don’t have any experience with wenwan walnuts so that this all with a grain of salt.

I collected these from the ground under a tree. They won’t be in season where I am for another couple months, so these have spent the winter in the soil.

After washing them off and finding a good enough matching pair, I’ve been playing daily and brushing with a household scrub brush and a tooth brush. They start out rough, enough to hurt your hands when you squeeze too hard, but either they soften up or my hands toughened up as time passed.

I let them rub against each other a decent bit to sand down the sharp parts, leading to a pattern of red to yellow peaks and black valleys.

All the photos are under different lighting conditions (oops), but are in roughly chronological order