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Author: tworuru
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You Are Tearing Me Ap Art
This is Everybob Episode 2, Season 1.
To make the background to this painting I painted along with the second episode of The Joy of Painting. It looked like this:
For some reason I elected to paint Tommy Wiseau – writer, director, and star of The Room – over the top of this lovely picture.
I also made a video in an attempt to explain myself.
Please, compare and contrast! I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
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Bob, Steve, Squirrel
This is Everybob Season 1, Episode 1.
To make this picture I painted along with the first episode of the Joy of Painting. It looked like this:
Once the painting had dried, I added my own interpretation of the (once) famous Crasher Squirrel meme, changing the people in the photograph to Bob Ross and his son Steve.
Then I turned the process into a video essay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeg8yGRKIQ0
Now the painting looks like this:
Look, you can compare before and after!
About Everybob
Everybob is my pro-creativity, pro-art, anti-doom, anti-AI slop project. I plan to paint along with every episode of Season 1 of the Joy of Painting — followed by, if at all possible, every other episode of the Joy of Painting — and add my own take or …creative adjustment to it.
And I’m turning the process of making each painting into video essays. Sometimes the essay will have something to do with the painting. Sometimes it won’t.
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But what about *second* day of rest? (Challenge Day 10 of 30)
It may not surprise you to find out that after 24 hours of feverish gastro I am still not 100 percent; I did in fact spend a chunk of today asleep. The rest of the day was mostly doing miscellaneous chores, those I felt well enough to do. Looking after the kids, doing the dishes, cooking dinner. Things of the carrying water, chopping wood variety, if not those things exactly. Oh, and once night fell and the kids (mostly) fell asleep I played D&D with my wife and friends. Good times.
We’ve had one, yes. It seems to me that self-improvement stuff is often unnecessarily compartmentalised, into individualistic, dare I say capitalistic systems, which means — to bring in a little Marx — they are often alienating. If your image of self-improvement and those that practice it is a single male gymbro who takes cold showers and meditates, perhaps this is why. And perhaps that’s why those that pursue self-improvement as marketed often ultimately find it lonely or unfulfilling. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with being single, going to the gym, cold showers (I still do them!) or meditation; just that when these often solo pursuits become what is understood to be “self improvement” then the common things in life that it actually makes a lot more sense to be good at (cooking, cleaning, fixing things, and such) are denigrated. Or, as often seems to be the case these days, they are gendered; the lionised warrior-monkish self-improvement stuff is male-coded whereas cooking and cleaning and child-rearing gets flowy sundresses and Instagram filters and becomes tradwife-chic.
I say nuts to that. Sometimes the most improving thing you can do is be present with the kids, or make sure the dishes are done, and I’m going to assert that this is independent of gender; you can be sheila or bloke or anywhere in between and find the ordinary things that don’t require a membership the most self-improving activities around.
Thanks as always for reading. All going well, something like normal service will resume tomorrow.
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Challenge Day 10 (of 30): Unforced Error, Enforced Rest
Apparently it was Sir Francis Bacon who coined the phrase “if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.” The funny thing is, I’ve always thought the proverb ran the other way around; perhaps in my head it got mixed up with the Christian wisdom about faith being enough to move mountains. But I take the meaning to be roughly the same: if one thing won’t budge, something else will have to give.
The gastro I have is as bad as any I can remember; the fewer details the better, and it’s kept me in bed and mostly half-asleep with a temperature all day. (A friend made a joke about Jackson Pollock paintings and, well, yes.) But the gastro is clearly made worse by burnout; I have been going too hard and if I keep missing out on sleep to get stuff done I will get sick. Physics! It is what it is.
So this is as short as these emails get; I’m now going to turn in and try to coax some rest out of the resurgent nausea, and come the morning I will start prioritising bedtimes. It will be tricky to get all the Business Stuff done while also getting enough sleep, but burnout would be trickier still.
Thanks as always for reading.
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Challenge Day 9 (of 30) – Gastro no
I preface a lot of these emails with “this is a short one” but this really is a short one.
I’d say today was a rest day — the bits where I took the kids to the playground were fun if not strictly restful —but My Wife was sick with what is now quite clearly gastro, and it would seem the children have a dose too, and as I write this I’m really not feeling too hot. There’s a rumbling reminiscent of magma, or perhaps Rotorua or Yellowstone in the immediate pre-geyser phase. Fun fact: tummy rumbles are called “borborygmi!” Such a great name; I’m sure I’ll be able to reflect on it at length while I’m up tonight having all kinds of fun. The upshot is that the regular Cynic’s Guide subscribers can wait until tomorrow for their epistle, whilst you, lucky 30 Day Challenge subscribers, get to hear about my bowel movements. I’m sure you’re thrilled.
Meanwhile, my painting Moby Duck, which I’m sure you’re very sick of hearing about by now, hit the front page of Reddit, via a post I composed hastily while looking after a sleeping baby in the car (I didn’t want to move her and wake her up, so I hung out in the front seat for an hour or so) and didn’t check until hours later to find it had gone proper viral. At the time of writing it is just shy of a million views. No, wait, let me check. Yup, over a million now. Of course, this initial distractedness meant that I forgot to attach information about where Redditors might acquire prints, and had to add it later via an edit once most folk had probably already seen it. Oops.
This isn’t the disaster you might suppose. The knowledge that a million views means precisely dick when it comes to people actually buying your work — the comments can be full of people posting gifs of SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY and yet mysteriously no money materialises — is hard earned. It can be a little grating to know that your work is simultaneously good enough to get seen by a million or few people and not good enough to buy. But such is the way of the world! I am genuinely happy that people like the art, and that people posted about it cheering them up. That is after all what my anti-doom anti-slop art-posting is all about. But man, it’d be sweet if I could eat upvotes. Or convert them into precious dollarydoos.
Anyway, here is today’s video, which — now I’ve looked at it here — I realise I have screwed up the thumbnail for. OH WELL.
And now I’m off to bed.1 Thank you, as always — but perhaps especially after this yucky episode — for reading.
A skeptical dive into the weird, sketchy, occasionally life-changing world
of self-improvement.- Not bed.
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Challenge Day 8 (of 30)
Sawing the Z’s
Every day I teeter on the edge of not sending one of these out; every day (or night) I manage to do it anyway.
A lot of the pain I experience, mental or physical, has to do with overthinking. I overthink my art, my work, my videos, my newsletters, my health, my relationships; and while I’m sure this is a human universal — no special snowflake stuff here, we’re a species of overthinkers or we’d probably have stayed happy in the trees — I find I could often do with a bit less of it. That’s what this do-shit-everyday project has accomplished, for this newsletter and much else, and for that alone it has been worth it. Instead of agonising over a given decision the short time-frames involved mean I just get stuck in and do the thing. Finally. At last. Took me long enough.
The side effect is that I am very tired and spent this morning sleeping in. Don’t worry, it’s not all the newsletter. A lot of it’s my infant child’s emerging teeth causing her to yell in pain throughout the night as nature apparently intended. But I am pooped, almost as much as she is, and I need to turn in early tonight.
I’m still on the wagon. I went for a run today. I did pullups. And I noticed that after struggling to make 5 pullups at the start of this thirty day thing I am now quietly putting away a couple more per set. I spent a bit of quality time fiddling with my Dungeons & Dragons character sheet; that warlock/bard gunslinger multiclass in a alt-history Wild West setting isn’t going to roll itself, is it?
Oh and a bunch of folks on TikTok really liked that stamp video, and several people actually subscribed to my print club! Exciting stuff (here it is again, if you want to use it to write actual letters to your actual friends.)
I also made a much-requested shirt:
Also I just realised that it’s been more than a week since I did the proper Cynic’s Guide email to all subscribers. Irony! You guys have had more emails than I’ve sent in the rest of the year, and I still haven’t quite managed a weekly cadence for the rest of the email list. Tomorrow! It’ll give them something fun to do with their Sunday.
After this email goes out I’ll head to bed. I can’t wait to sleep blissfully for thirty minutes before the baby wakes up.
Thanks for sticking with me as I stick to whatever this is.
A skeptical dive into the weird, sketchy, occasionally life-changing world
of self-improvement.Social hellsites:
The Gram:
https://www.instagram.com/tworuru/The Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/tworuruThe Tok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@tworuruAnd of course, my website, where art can be bought and all these newsletters are archived (and can even be commented on!) is
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Challenge Day 7 (of 30) – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reanimate
Hey everyone! I have already sent out two big ol’ emails today — a lot of you are paying subscribers, and I sent you something special earlier today — and I also put out my first customer newsletter in a while. To save my sanity and some semblance of an early bedtime, you 30 Day Challengers are getting the email I sent out to my customers. I think it’s relevant, as there’s a fair bit of art and stuff you may not have seen yet.
And apparently rest days are important when you’re doing an absurd endeavour like this newsletter+video posting marathon. That’s probably true, I wouldn’t know, but today is the seventh day so maybe some kind of kip is called for. I believe it’s traditional.
Oh also I finished the painting part of my secret project today. Y A Y
Gidday, Two Ruru art enthusiast,
It’s been a while, but I wanted to show some of what I’ve been working on. This is just some, by the way; I’ve never done more art (or writing in my life.) There’s a good reason for that:
I’m now a full-time artist/writer/marketing contractor/consultant/dilettante
So there really has never been a better time (for me) to purchase my work. And I’ve just made the best possible way (for you) to do just that:
Introducing the Two Ruru Print Club: where you can subscribe to my work (digitally or in-real-lifey, your call!) for a very attractive price ($2 less than the cost of one PDF download from my shop)
AND the prints come with a postcard printed on the back, so you can send a message to your friends in the snail mail like in the olden days!
AND there’s an option to get a stamp with your print and the stamp has art on it that I made myself, as seen in the following educational film:
I like all this very much, and I hope you do too. I especially like the idea of getting folks sending actual letters (well, postcards) to each other — it’s something I miss from the pre-internet days and I think it’d be good to get going again.
Oh and subscribing to any of the tiers will also get you a letter from me each month. If that’s something you’d like.
Check out the Two Ruru Print Club
And I’m still making prints, shirts and other things. The aim is to get a print, a sticker, and a shirt made for each piece of art I make each month, so if you want to buy something as a one-off, you definitely have that option too.
That duck picture you’ve seen a lot of is part of the new project I hinted at last time: I am attempting to paint along with every single episode of Bob Ross’ show The Joy of Painting and make… creative adjustments to the art that comes out. I’ve done a few of these now and will be putting out prints and stickers for each, as well as making them available for digital downloads.
And on a completely unrelated note, people seemed to like this:
There’s now a shirt that says “Yeah, Nah” to complement The Shirt That Says “No.”
And custom commissions are extremely open:
If you’re more in the scrolling mood, I’m making an antidote to doom at all of the usual social media hellsites. I challenged myself to post something new every day and I very nearly have — I’m now up to day 22. Feel free to check it via the digital addiction platform of your choice:
Social Medias
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tworuru/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/tworuru
The Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tworuru
New bird coming sooooon
“Kakabro” (a kakapo wearing a trucker cap) was the standout winner in the poll I sent asking you what bird I should paint next, and work is now underway! The reveal should be my October Surprise (a good one, I hope.) I’m looking forward to showing you.
Thank You
Now, more than ever, I appreciate you supporting my work. Go have a hoon on https://www.tworuru.com/shop/ and I’ll have more for you soon.
Feel free to reply to this email with any suggestions or requests, and I’ll make sure to reply right back – I read every email you send, and I appreciate ‘em, too.
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Challenge Day 6 (of 30) – It does give a lovely light
It’s been one of those days where I was busy to the point of being frantic throughout, and I can’t really recount what I actually did. Wait, no, that’s only if I use my stupid human brain. I have a bullet journal and I can look at it to tell what I did.
The closest I have ever come to conventional definitions of “productive” has been when the bullet journal is in regular use. Being ADHD me, it goes in and out of fashion; sometimes I forget it exists, sometimes it rules my day. But when it works, it really works.
Mine is laid out with the date, the day, and the page divided in half. There’s a day planner on the left, which I almost – but not always -forget to use, and a todo list on the right. (This is… not fascinating, I know, I am nodding off just typing it, but because these emails go out late at night perhaps you can use this bit as a sleep aid.)
Today mine tells me that I set too many tasks for myself and consequently didn’t get them all done. And that I avoided work on a couple of quite important things to get lost in busy-work. So that’s why it seems I didn’t get anything done. The reason I know this is because I also practice the “reverse todo list” which is when you write down the stuff that you actually did in addition to the things you merely intended to do, so I can see where I went off track.
Tomorrow I’m going to self-improve by only writing down the one or two most important todos and then, revelation only doing them until such time as they are done and I can get to the other stuff.
I did manage to get a video done today – I’d dropped off the previous two days because of, well, these emails, which were eating my usual both-end candle-burning hours. I also finished the main body of work on the Secret Painting Project, which I hope to be able to talk about quite soon, ideally next week. And I am getting things ready to email all the Cynic’s Guide and Two Ruru subscribers with all the art products I have made lately, and I am absolutely shitting myself that no-one will buy anything, because… well. Remember I mentioned rejection sensitivity? And being worried about not making a go of this business malarkey and consequently not being able to make ends meet?
Those two things combined are a hell of a drug. The kind that makes you paranoid, not the good ones like heroin that just make you pleasantly sleepy.
But those emails are going out tomorrow. And so is a surprise for all the paid Cynic’s Guide subscribers; I feel a bit bad because – in my efforts to keep this newsletter free – I’ve never done anything especially special for the paid subs. And it’s time I changed that.
Time to sleeeeep
Wait, no, first:
What the hell is wrong with PDFs and the tech industry in general
I had the misfortune of having to fill in a form via PDF today and may I just say, to the originator and perpetuators of this cursed format: what the fuck? How is it, tech industry, that you’re force-feeding AI into every product, and yet it’s still well-nigh impossible to fill in a PDF form in a way that does not instantly induce a migraine? How is it, Adobe, that you offer me the opportunity to pay for an in-PDF AI assistant who can be unhelpful in new and presumably exciting ways, when the software itself is bloated scum garbage and barely fulfils its function?
See also: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Teams
Today’s Video
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Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me, and another person kindly pointed out last week that I have not been including my Cursed Platform links in these newsletters. Let’s fix that now.Social Medias
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/tworuru/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/tworuru
The Tok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@tworuruAnd of course, my website, where art can be bought and all these newsletters are archived (and can even be commented on!) is
If you’ve missed one of these 30 Day Challenge emails, you can view the archive at:
And lastly I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you all the cool ways you can now get a print of what I’m calling Moby Duck:
Thanks, as always, for reading.
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Moby Duck: How to Buy
This painting of Moby Duck – name suggested by a few excellent TikTok commenters – is the first artwork I’ve made that has done Numbers on social media since I was posting videogame artwork on Reddit. People have been asking for prints, so I’ve prepared the following options, to gather everything in one place.
Physical prints
People love prints, and who am I to deny them? These can be printed and shipped worldwide (yes, even the United States!) Buy using the link below.
Digital prints
I like to keep my artwork as accessible as possible, so I make digital PDF prints available for every artwork I do. Buy this, and print it however you like.
Print Club
I’ve been wanting to set up a print club for ages, and here we are! You can subscribe digitally (for less than the cost of one digital download) and get access to all the art I’ve ever made. And you can also subscribe to monthly prints, in postcard form! Check it below for all the details.
T-shirts
People always ask for t-shirts. Who am I to deny the will of the people? This ships worldwide.
Stickers
I do as I am told. These will make your laptop look both stylish and confusing (in a good way.)
Flippin’ magnets
How do they work? Don’t talk to a scientist, just grab one and stick it to your fridge and call it a miracle.
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Challenge Day 5 (of 30)
I have, true to my word, been absolutely smashing the website. As always when I make Website Stuff I feel like Homer when he’s been up all night eating cheese, or like Billy Joel Armstrong in Brain Stew.
There, some comforting references for Elder Millenials. The rest of you will have to be confused. Let me assuage that by showing you the things I made today. Behold, my stuff!
Some of the stuff I made today
First up is a print of old mate Moby Duck, as requested by what seems like a billion but is more likely about ten TikTok commenters:
And next is a digital download, because DRM is silly and digital products are cheap and convenient for customers and all margin for me, baby! It’s a win-win!
And lastly, the thing that took me most of the day and that I am — justly, I think — absurdly proud of. Welcome… to the Two Ruru Print Club!
You folks who’ve signed up for this 30 day challenge malarkey are the first ever to see this. And if we’re all extremely lucky, all the subscription links and options on that page should actually work. Feel free to test it out! 1
A bit more about the print club in the last few minutes before midnight. Essentially, it’s a way to subscribe to my art. I’d been wanting to set up a subscription print club for ages, but I thought the concept was a bit… done. Then I thought: why not postcards? So you can choose to keep them or send them to your mates?
So that’s what I did.
And then I thought: but why not stamps too? Because it turns out New Zealand Post offers a custom stamp option, and so now you can bathe in this glory:
Minutes left until deadline! Oh, I almost forgot. Paid subscribers to the Cynic’s Guide are going to get opted into the Two Ruru Digital Archive automatically. I’ll send an email about it tomorrow. It’s the least I can do for you guys. With that in mind, here is the big red button.
Thanks all! And feel free to reply to this email and let me know what you reckon.
(Don’t worry, I’ll sort you if anything goes wrong.)