Hello!

♡ Happy May! It's probably my favorite month because I have a birthday in May. :D

Here's what I've done on Youtube recently, in case you missed it:

First off, I found my vermillion bijou! Remember in that What pans fit in what watercolor palette video, I couldn't find it to show you what fits...Well I found it! So I filmed what fits, and made my first ever Youtube short. It didn't seem like it would be good to make a whole video on just that, so the short format worked in this case.

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I also was about to trim my fingernails, and realized it's an important thing for me and my wrist strength issues that I keep my fingernails short. Actually for not bending my fingers backwards using a touch screen to log medicines or type something, but also so my nails don't go through my stockings (compression stockings, for POTS). I have hypermobility as part of the POTS.

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And I knew where the nail files were to show them in the video cause last month I was editing the video on caring for desk plants when you have health challenges, and I discovered my missing nail files. Literally I filmed them in the basket next to my plants, and the footage got all the way to editing before I was like: Hey! There's my nail files! And looked up at the actual desk in front of me and sure enough there's the missing nail files.

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We traveled to visit family for 3 weeks in March, and when we got home I filmed what paint supplies I traveled with, and that video is doing really well! That's always fun. Someone asked for the link to the bag (cause I forgot to include it in my messy description), and I discovered it's a purse insert! Mom gave it to me a while ago. I'm still using it now that I'm home, maybe I've finally found a good travel bag set up I'll leave together for a while

(though I did stuff an extra bijou in there a few days ago).

There's this color palette I've really been enjoying in a mini skater palette (you can see in the What fits in what palette video I did). It's the random colors I happened to have cause I wanted to paint, and I've ended up using it that way for months. So a few days ago I decided my bijou wants full pans of those colors. And because that was 6 colors, and the bijou holds 8 full pans, I got to add 2 colors.

The original 6 colors were:

Primary yellow

French vermillion

Ultramarine turquoise

Raw sienna

May green

Burnt sienna

Then I added a Potter's Pink and Ultramarine to that to make 8.

I originally had Jackson's (similar to Sennelier) Raw Sienna in the tiny 6 color half pans, but didn't have it poured in full pans so I used a Rosa Raw Sienna. But now I'm thinking I'll maybe pour the Jackson's one into a full pan cause it's more yellow to go with this color palette.

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This Christmas I got the Quill version of my favorite travel brush! My favorite travel brush is the Davinci Casaneo Travel Flat; the handle is chunky and good sized for me to use with wrist strength issues because it's a travel brush so it's got to be big enough to fold up the brush head inside. It's just so exciting!

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And finally, Museum Aquarelle watercolor pencil dot card. I can do a bit of watercolor pencil, but I have to be careful not to hurt my wrist. And I can't really do the pressure and repetition necessary to swatch them all out, so Mom made me a kind of dot card! It was like dot card swatching too! So fun to see all the colors painted out, now I know what I have, and what colors each pencil will turn into when wet down.

The Museum Aquarelle are the only pencils I've found that I can use with wrist strength issues because they are soft and highly pigmented enough that I can get the color to lay down without a lot of pressure from my wrist.

I also figured out this month (something I think I learned previously and then forgot) that screenshots from the video don't make good thumbnails. I was trying to figure out why this one I was looking at was kinda blurry, and not clear, and yep. I think that's what's going on. I keep my phone screen (and all device screens) warm and dark so I don't trigger a migraine or make a headache worse, so I can't always tell that something is not the best quality, isn't clear, or whatever. I'll have to try to remember to actually take thumbnail photos.

The one I took for the 3 weeks of travel supplies video turned out really good! I'm really happy with it. It was portrait mode on my iphone (which is what I film on, it's an 11 pro).

I hope you have fun catching up on videos you may have missed, or putting together your own color palette of watercolors and painting something. Even if it's swatches, that's getting in your brush miles, and it's good practice. :)

Hope you have a great May,

Megan :)

​Youtube.com/@styleandbeautydirect​

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Thanks for being here, building up an email list gets me excited to continue to make more stuff and hopefully help more people, whether you have chronic health challenges or not.

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♡ Hello I'm Megan! I'm a photographer and watercolor artist with chronic health challenges, POTS and wrist strength issues. I want to encourage you, and for you to see what is possible. ♡Youtube.com/@styleandbeautydirect​

​StyleandBeautyDirect.com​

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