Alyssa Harad

@alyssaharad

Writer. Reader. I live in a box of paints. She/her. Banner: a detail from Remedios Varo’s Vampiros Vegetarianos. Three vampires in fantastical golden outfits sip fruit through extra long straws.)

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Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· 25d

The pigment stick adventures continue. Now that oil paper has been obtained we can be luscious, we can carve and scratch.

A small portrait mode oil sketch of a strange kneeling angel made with R&F pigment sticks in warm rose and phthalo blue with the tiniest touches of gold green. There is a base layer of very thinly spread warm rose, a thicker layer of the blue and then the figure is scratched in to the blue.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· 25d

I was feeling resigned about the aphids eating up the lupines and then starting in on the sweet peas but when I went to spray them off today—behold!! The cavalry had arrived!

A ladybug on an aphid infest lupin having a snack and hopefully laying eggs that will hatch into hungry hungry larvae that will eat up to 500 aphids a day each. The cycle of life!

A ladybug on an aphid infest sweet pea vine having a snack and hopefully laying eggs that will hatch into hungry hungry larvae that will eat up to 500 aphids a day each. The cycle of life!

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· 26d

This morning’s first light is all thunder and, as yet, no rain. I hope the wildfires got some.

A paling cloudy sky with a hint of orange and yellow along the horizon behind silhouettes of trees and rooflines.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· 26d

Today’s Zoom meeting sketch. Looking more and more like a person! Repetition works!

A quick line portrait in Derwent inktense violet with a few touches of pastel.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· 27d

I grew a flower so big it was impossible to stake (with current equipment—I’ll figure it out in the future) and now it is in the house! Look at its tall glory!

Two white delphinium in bottles in a window sill. One is so tall it reaches to the top of the window frame.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· 28d

There is a whole other very pale but there collection of lines in this that the camera refuses to see. Sekrit marks.

Layers of curly scribbled marks in oil and pastel. From the bottom up: mid tone blue, invisible pale blue, dark gray green, and a two smaller scribbled in bright red.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· 29d

Dream tree.

A fantasy nocturne in watercolors and pastels. A tree with multicolored leaves and a bright reddish brown trunk glows against a twilight blue background of texture and clouds. A simple crescent moon, like the kind a child would draw, hangs in top left corner. Under the tree a figure drawn in the same blues as the background lies on the ground, dreaming.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 12

🧐

USPS tracking showing a package left the Portland facility today at 1:16 and arrived at the same (?) facility 21 minutes later.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 12

Further adventures in R&F pigment sticks and blending medium (!!) plus some soft pastel./Memories of red rock.

An almost abstract vertical landscape with big blocky red cliffs in the foreground scratched out in sienna oil stick over green olive oil stick blended out to glow yellow underneath the sienna. There is a barely visible tiny seated figure on the rocks top right.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 11

Welcome to the season’s first jasmine bloom.

A single Arabian jasmine flower on the vine.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 11

This bee got drunk on sweet pea nectar and took a nap. I relate.

A half open white sweet pea on the vine with a bee asleep on it.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 11

Had to check and make sure I wasn’t reading a @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social novel in the middle of this piece.

About 100 million screwworms grow to maturity there each week. Pupae are shipped from Panama and then fed a science fiction diet of protein gel made of bovine blood and a milk substitute. They’re dyed fluorescent green (to make them easily identifiable) and incubated before being released by plane or truck along the Texas-Mexico border, as well as near the sites of confirmed screwworm cases. A $750 million addition to the dispersal facility, where screwworms would be bred, is expected to open late next year and would churn out up to 300 million sterile flies weekly.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 10

Ooh they do layer.

Messy swatches of oil sticks in bands of color—phthalo blue, sienna, warm pink, olive yellow—with a second layer of dots in the same colors on contrasting bands.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 10

Swatching R&F oil sticks for the first time. No idea what to do with them yet but omfg they go on like butter and glow like stained glass.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 10

Cut some mint.

A huge bundle of fresh mint filling and overflowing from the sink.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 9

Made a series of small things out of my kneadable eraser during my Zoom meeting. Here is the final one.

A gray form like a satellite dish or an inverted bottle nipple with three pointy blue tentacle forms coming out of its center.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 9

You guys. Remember how I said I followed gardening directions and cut back my delphinium after they bloomed so they would get bushy and root deep? And how they advice said they *might* bloom again in the cool of the fall. Well.

Several giant spires of delphinium climbing well above the window frame of the building they’re growing in front of. One is white and in full bloom, one is deep blue and half bloomed and half a dozen more are just buds.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 9

The sweet peas, ignoring my terrible neglect of them in the first weeks of their life, just keep on thriving.

Three gorgeous crimson flags sweet peas against a slate blue wall. A fourth white bloom is barely visible behind them.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 9

Narrator: It was, in fact, cope.

I would be very interested to see this overlaid with engagement data. I personally gloss over the second it becomes clear I’m reading gen AI text. My gut sense is that this is true for others. I am curious whether a cultural immunity develops but I’m not sure if this is cope

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 9

Sillhouette/the light the light

Shaded windows glowing with evening light and divided into smaller squares by the window frames. In front of them a silhouetted jug with marigolds, a small plant, and a small seated cat.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 8

I might be going through a bit of a phase.

A soft blue and white pin striped shirt on a soft blue and white striped duvet cover.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 8

Accidental still life happening in front of me.

Tabby cat with curled paws, a small potted tradescantia, a white painted jug with large orange marigolds and two small limes at its base, a bit of red and yellow patterned cloth napkin, and my ancient laptop covered in stickers.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 7

The neighbor’s hydrangeas.

A loose soft pastel sketch of four large, fluffy, vivid turquoise blue hydrangeas surrounded by their greenery and hints of neighboring flowers.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 7

Uhhhh

No vaccine is available.[7] Prevention depends on good maintenance of water systems.[7] Treatment of Legionnaires' disease is commonly conducted with antibiotics.[8] Recommended agents include the fluoroquinolones levofloxacin and moxifloxacin, and the macrolide azithromycin.[13] Hospitalization is often required.[12] The fatality rate is around 10% for previously healthy people, but up to 25% in those with underlying conditions.[8]

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 5

Please enjoy this canine version of a little free library courtesy of PDX’s penchant for weird little sidewalk performances. ❤️

Wooden sign reading, Dog Library: Take a Stick, Leave a Stick. On the ground are a pile of sticks. Photo by Mark E. McClure for Star News, a neighborhood newspaper in NE Portland.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 5

Swimmer

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 4

Proud of this one. I only rarely get sunflowers to stand up and show their faces in a vase.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 4

Pretty.

A dozen eggs—dark brown, light brown, pale green, pale blue and white.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 4

More charcoal learning—eraser pencils, smudge tools, drawing through removal, charcoal pencil marks, background toning. First time for everything. ☺️

A fairly strange and amateur charcoal sketch of a face with prominent eyes and mouth.

Alyssa Harad@alyssaharad· Jul 3

Anyway, this is Italian Arum. You do not want it and you must dig at least 6 inches down and sieve the surrounding soil for tiny pieces of it to get rid of it and you must not touch it with your bare hands or skin while doing so. It got its start as a landscaping plant! 🤷🏻‍♀️