Mangoes Art Pit

22 || They/Them Gender-fluid || Asexual Demiromantic || Enjoyer of art, plants, fantasy, and shiny objects || Portfolio and commissions: https://ihavethemangoes.neocities.org/

[ihavethemangoes]

Long overdue for an introduction post!

Hi, I’m Mango, Nex, or Daina depending on how you know me (no preference for how I’m referred to and OP works fine 90% of the time). I am pretty consistent about posting just my own art here, but on occasion I’ll reblog others’ art or post about my houseplants or the local birds.

I currently live in the USA but I’ve applied for Lithuanian generational/birthright citizenship and the goal is to move to the EU as soon as I’m able to.

I am 21+ but this blog will always be SFW. I’m sure I’ve sworn here before but it’s minimal. I don’t really believe in DNI lists but I will happily block anyone being hateful. I don’t mind NSFW or gimmick blogs interacting, if anything I think it’s hilarious.

At the time of posting this I have not been on Tumblr for all that long so I’m going to make an effort to be much better about keeping things organized from now on.

Main tags:

#ihavethemangoes — for those of you who prefer the tags feed

#wip — works in progress

#finished — finished pieces

#resources — tutorials and other art resources

#art history — art research rambles

#reblogs — reblogs

#not art — miscellaneous

#fiber art — knitting, crochet, weaving etc.

#traditional art — drawing and painting

#digital art — digital illustration, graphic design, etc.

#artfight — I participate in the event every year

Art tags:

#weaving

#baltic pick up

#macrame

#knitting

#crochet

#lace

#embroidery

#cross stitch

#quilting

#watercolors

#gouache

#digital painting

#pixel art

#original character

#graphic design

#video editing

Other tags:

#birds

#houseplants

#carnivorous plants

#loom

#neocities

[ihavethemangoes]

All finished! I will absolutely be doing more with splicing colors together, it’s a really nice effect and will help out a lot. DMC has so many colors but somehow I still manage to feel limited by them on occasion.

@is-the-venus-flytrap-post-cute since you expressed interest <3

[ihavethemangoes]

TLDR: Tumblr is the only sane social media these days.

To be clear, I don’t base my self-worth on numbers. HOWEVER, I want to be an artist as a career and getting traction MATTERS.

So tell me why the SAME VIDEOS I made last year are doing absolutely awful this year even though I’m making them higher quality because I have a better mic and a better idea of what I’m doing.

Whole thing’s a scam. They change the algorithms, tell NO ONE, and expect their content creators to churn out content to figure out how it all works again. I went from getting routinely 2k views to NOTHING. It’s not just TikTok either, even SHORTS is doing me dirty.

I know the videos themselves aren’t bad, because the engagement has been good! I know what the pattern is supposed to be, these should be DOING WELL.

I don’t know why I bother. Maybe I should just stick to long-form content that I actually care about making. I enjoy posting on Tumblr because it doesn’t feel like this hellish game of chance. My therapist said I’m doing all I can online at this point and if I really want to be doing more then I should prioritize in-person networking.

Edit: Typo lol

[ihavethemangoes]

Spent pretty much the entire day yesterday taking nice photos of my paintings with the nice camera and then editing them. There’s definitely still some small edits I need to make, I don’t have good lighting equipment so the bottom left corner is a TINY bit darker. Will be opening up a print shop once I order some test prints to make sure the vendor is good, I’m very excited :)

Crappy phone photos below for a fun comparison (it’s pretty subtle the difference is mostly lighting).

[ihavethemangoes]

This project is definitely a marathon and not a sprint, but I’ve finally gotten far enough that I can get a better picture of the ‘right’ side. It’s definitely going faster now that I’ve figured out the rhythm of the design a little more but we’re still talking like. Two inches an hour.

Very cool technique! Looking forward to doing more (with wool instead of cotton) in the future. The material makes a pretty significant difference in design legibility.

My mother has claimed this one which is fine by me since it’s mostly been an experiment anyways.

[ofchaosgoddess]

Are you doing baltic pickup (bandweaving?) on a floor loom?

[ihavethemangoes]

I am! I’ve done bandweaving with this thread before so I already knew it likes to be at around 48 wpi (so for my 12 wpi reed I’m putting 4 strings in each slot).

Pros: way easier to wind on this much thread than on my teeny little tablet weaving loom.

Cons: wish it was faster. Totally thought it was going to be so much faster because pedals but no.

Probably will invest in an inkle loom so I can use my floor loom for cool floor loom things but otherwise it works pretty well.

[ihavethemangoes]

This project is definitely a marathon and not a sprint, but I’ve finally gotten far enough that I can get a better picture of the ‘right’ side. It’s definitely going faster now that I’ve figured out the rhythm of the design a little more but we’re still talking like. Two inches an hour.

Very cool technique! Looking forward to doing more (with wool instead of cotton) in the future. The material makes a pretty significant difference in design legibility.

My mother has claimed this one which is fine by me since it’s mostly been an experiment anyways.

[ihavethemangoes]

Important PSA to my fellow digital artists to check your color profiles!

I do not enjoy being a Mac user but that’s what I have. It turns out Apple uses a P3 color profile by default and my Clip Studio Paint (drawing program) has been using the same thing. So for about four years every single digital artwork I’ve uploaded to any website has looked desaturated as hell. I’m not even sure if my social media has been spared.

Currently in the process of converting anything I actually care about to sRGB which is a reasonably safe default for web images. I know in the grand scheme of things it’s probably not that big of a deal, but I care a lot about the colors I use and I want people to see my art the same way I do.

[iamasalmon]

the thing about fiber art that nobody tells you about is that every single kind of fiber art is a gateway drug to other kinds of fiber art.

[amymon-arachne]

Okay, but super curious now. What kind of path have people’s fibre arts journies taken?

For me it’s cross stitch -> tatting (only mild success) -> weaving (rigid heddle -> inkle -> 4 shaft) -> spinning -> knitting.

I did technically also do sewing in middle/high school but I don’t count it because I didn’t enjoy it enough to stick with it.

Next one I learn will either be bobbin lace or crochet, but that last one will be probably be kicking and screaming because I have to join my blanket squares together, rather than actually wanting a new hobby. Or maybe dyeing fibre with food colouring, but that depends on when I get my kitchen back from Renovation Hell.

[batbetbitbotbut]

The very early days: cross stitch starting at age 4 (my first project was a rainbow and it took me two years), one attempt by my grandma to teach me to knit which is not in continuity with my adult knitting, friendship bracelets, school projects with bits of sewing or making pompoms or whatever.

Age 11-12: spinning, pin loom weaving. Made a bunch of yarn I didn't use, stopped after a few years.

Age 21+: knitting stuck this time. Got back into spinning now that I could knit with it. Added crochet to supplement the knitting. Shaft loom out of the blue age 27, now learning garment sewing with a goal to use my own fabric. And I've got deeply enough info everything that I now collect new beginner fibrecraft skills for their own sake.

[ihavethemangoes]

TDLR: Not sure there’s a coherent pipeline. People just threw random stuff at me because that’s the art kid clearly they’ll enjoy The Art. Didn’t really get invested until college.

6-12: Couldn’t tell you when I started because I was Small but I was gifted a frame loom kit and peg knitting loom. Made a single scarf and a third of a weaving, did not touch either again for like a decade.

Started a friendship-bracelet business with my friends. Actually got in trouble for selling things on school property and they were only going to let us keep doing it if we donated all our profits to charity. We were in it for the money (and the fame) and did not continue. Took an embroidery extracurricular and didn’t really do anything with it after the class ended.

Got really into making doll dresses and took a sewing class. Appliqué sent me into hysterics but the teacher was very nice and I got over it. Also did not stick for very long and I only made like. 2 dresses.

13: Technically learned knitting and crochet but I never did more than a sample of each.

14-18: NOTHIN. I was on that digital art grind. Zero fiber art occurred.

19: Picked up embroidery and friendship bracelets again cause as it turns out that was great for keeping me focused in class.

20: Took a tapestry class and got out the ol’ frame loom. LOVED IT. Took a floor loom class immediately after.

21-22: Picked up knitting and crochet again. Also learned cross stitch and quilting in an embroidery class. Acquired my very own floor loom.

Currently I’m waiting on my bestie to work their 3d modeling magic and make me some custom plushie patterns to sew. I could totally learn tatting but things are crazy right now so it’s being shelved. Definitely want to get into garment making eventually because a pretty princess dress I bought recently is RAYON and it’s been a huge pain. I want pretty princess dresses that are not rayon.

[ihavethemangoes]

Finally got this painting of Sue the tyrannosaur finished! This has got to be one of my favorites, the sketch and underpainting were really hard to do since it’s probably the most crowded room in the whole museum but it was nice being back home and able to take my time with the colors and highlights.

[ihavethemangoes]

Venus flytrap is officially dead. Which is really ironic considering I just made a post about how great the terrarium was doing. Crown rot set in so fast most of the leaves still looked perfectly healthy. Full extent of bad news + rot pic below.

Some good plant news: My maranta (prayer plant) was super root bound so she’s graduated to a 12 inch pot. I am VERY proud as they are notoriously difficult to care for. Also acquired a variegated prayer plant and a little baby monstera Thai constellation for an absolute STEAL of a price. Spent the day potting up a whole bunch of plants.

Shoutout to my mother’s lavender in the background that she grew from seed. I don’t usually do from seed but according to her lavender is very hard to start.

I will not be buying another flytrap. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve killed at this point. I get the feeling they both really need good air circulation and good humidity. I live in Colorado, can’t put them outside because the humidity is (on average) 20%. Can’t keep them in the terrarium apparently because in order to keep the humidity high enough I have to keep it closed (made the mistake of leaving it open for five hours while I was in class and my sundew was NOT happy). The carnivorous plants in my normally really good plant nursery always look half dead too.

My only warning sign was that the new growth started turning yellow. Thought I could cut off the rot without uprooting the plant. Was clearly unsuccessful. Weirdest of all is that the sundew and pitcher plant in the same terrarium are perfectly happy at the moment (knock on wood).

Not looking for advice, at this point I swear I’ve been on every random forum post and YouTube channel for carnivorous plants at this point.

[ihavethemangoes]

Decided to start a new alpha bracelet since I needed something to do on Plane Ride and I’ve been meaning to make one since I haven’t touched the technique since like last year. Was originally going to do monstera leaves but it just wasn’t turning out the way I wanted. And then I remembered I can literally do whatever plant I want so I’m doing the ever-glorious venus flytrap. My actual flytrap is doing AWESOME and I am a very proud plant parent.

[ihavethemangoes]

Working on a new bracelet! This one’s just for fun and the pattern is relatively simple compared to what I usually do so it’s been very chill. Colors are a little brighter irl.

[ihavethemangoes]

Currently WILDLY obsessed with making html profiles for my characters on ArtFight. While I do hope they whitelist calc() and linear-gradient so that I can make stuff format nicely on mobile and have gradients, I am very pleased with the update. I’d like to make one for all of my characters but there’s 20 on the site right now so we’ll see.

More below the cut, my ArtFight is IHaveTheMangoes if you’d like to read the full profiles.

[ihavethemangoes]

LET ME PUT Y’ALL ONTO THIS BOOK

So the book is Reflections From a Flaxen Past by Kati Reeder Meek. It’s specifically an exploration of Lithuanian fiber art from the perspective of an outsider, she’s super clear about not being Lithuanian herself so the vast majority of the book just features other Lithuanian artists.

Very cool to see the many, many pictures of women weaving and spinning. Also a great inspiration book because again, there’s just SO MANY pictures of weavings.

I’ve seen a couple posts about weaving songs AND THIS BOOK HAS SOME both in the original Lithuanian and an English translation.

But my FAVORITE part of the book is ALL THE PATTERN DRAFTS. They’re all very pretty and there’s quite a few I haven’t seen before.

There’s a section towards the end that has a really extensive list of museums and other resources which is a little outdated since the book was published in 2000 but still mostly relevant. I have no idea how my grandmother found this book for me but I’m very excited to give it a full read.

[ihavethemangoes]

I have a question about your magpie shawl! I've been slowly (super slowly) picking away at my own copy of the pattern in opposite panel order. I just finished my panel 2, and before I start panel 1, I wondered if you had kept any record of your stitch counts for the wingtip color changes you did? It has been easier to figure out different-colored solid feathers, but I'm struggling to wrap my brain around the wingtips. If not, no worries, I can try and hash out some attempts of my own and see if something sticks. Your shawl turned out beautiful!

Thank you! You’re in luck because I did actually take notes for this one!

To be perfectly clear, this was mostly improvised and I adjusted as needed. The notes were so that I would be able to mirror it on the other side.

After I did the feather tips I realized it would actually be easier to do math for the color transitions so I’m more pleased with the color changes in the blue than the black. There’s not as much shaping at the top edge so it’s a little more predictable to count from there.

For the black, I started counting from the bottom of the first row for each feather and then moved the colorwork one stitch per row.

For the blue, I wanted it to start halfway on feather 6 and reach the bottom by feather 12. The first row on feather 6 is 90 stitches, so I would start at stitch 45 from the top. The last row of feather 12 is 54 stitches, which I subtracted 3 from for a decrease on the end.

I went for a straight line between the two so the math worked out that I only had to move the colorwork one stitch per feather. If you wanted a curved line you could totally do some exponential math.

I hope this helped and good luck with your project!

[ihavethemangoes]

Three years of improvement between these two drawings!

I’m genuinely like so hyperfixated on doing character art rn I cannot get anything else done. Is ArtFight not for another two months? Yes but apparently I will just keep drawing non-stop until then. I have struck a bargain with toddler brain that I have to get SOMETHING non-art related done every other day because I am an adult with adult responsibilities.

Also super excited about the HTML update because I both know HTML and hate BBCode. Like it’s literally so broken I can’t use sans-serif at the moment.

I understand 90% of my followers are just here for my fiber art. You will not be spared.

[ihavethemangoes]

Some bird for Tumblr. From top left to bottom right: anhinga, anhinga feet, cardinal (my favorite little bastards), yellow-breasted chat feet, kea, and I thiiiiink red-tailed hawk feet? Got a couple more watercolor illustrations I need to finish.