Compulsive Creation

Lob der Thränen

As I informed y’all last week, I began working on a new piece called Lob der Thränen (Translation: [In] Praise of Tears) by Franz Schubert. According to my teacher (and the internet), Schubert was a composer during the late Classical/early Romantic periods. This is my first piano piece by Schubert. Prior to this, my experience with Schubert has mostly been through his sacred music. For example, I grew up singing this version of the Ave Maria. Because I had only been exposed to his music within the context of a Catholic mass, it didn’t even occur to me that he wrote other things.

Anyway, I am planning on playing Lob der Thränen for my recital. It is short, pretty, and not that godforsaken Sonatina. As I am writing this, I have been playing this song for a little over a week. At this point, I am able to get through it and have it sound a little bit like music.

Here is my current progress.

By the time you actually read this, I will have had another week of practice and will be a bit farther along. I am specifically working on the following:

Balance between my left and right hands. Sometimes my left hand overpowers the right hand, which is no bueno since the right hand plays the melody.
Dynamic contrast i.e. changing the volume i.e. following the instructions in the score
Not playing the wrong notes/skipping notes (this was a bit of an issue at my last lesson) i.e. memorizing the piece

I have about three weeks to get this song completely together. Based on my progress so far, this seems totally doable. However, I will 100% keep y’all abreast of any other changes/freakouts/piano shenanigans between now and my recital.

Keep that Creative Fire Burning!

This week I attended a free event at one of my favorite shops in the whole wide world: Two Hands Paperie. This local Boulder store specializes in stationary and pens, but they offer a huge range of art-making classes and products to salivate over. The event I went to featured an artist named Cynthia Morris, who also coaches artists and writers and provides resources for anyone seeking a flourishing creative life.

I doodled on my new sketchbook cover with waterproof ink and highlighted with a gold sharpie

During the event, Cynthia guided the audience through some writing prompts and conversations to help rejuvenate and clarify what she calls the “creative pulse.” I’m not usually an attendee at workshops like this, but lately I’ve felt lackluster when it comes to my creative endeavors and it’s hard to say no to free inspiration!

Here are the sentences that I wrote during this mini workshop that feel the most essential to my current creative life:

“I am an animator! I can turn a blank page into a story!”

“I love to manifest an inner truth outside myself through art and meet it in the world.”

“I finish something, and I judge it. I expect, and it ruins the fun. Why does the shadow always have to grow with the light?!”

“I need to stop performing for an invisible audience; worrying about a gaze that I feel is someone else’s, but is really my own.”

Filling in my sketchbook's title pages with calligraphy and washi tape

I’ve begun working with a new sketchbook since attending the event (thus the images scattered throughout this post), with the intention that it’s a place to create ANYTHING with no expectations or judgements. A place for doodling and exploration. Just for fun!!! Over and over, I have to remember that creation needs to be a joyous discovery, not a finished product. So, I’m decorating the cover and adding some pizzazz to the title pages (including washi tape and super intense markers!!!), making it my own, filling the pages with stories (my new manifesto!).

Adding some super color behind my title page in my new sketchbook

Let me finish with saying, I LOVE MY NEW SKETCHBOOK, even if my cat doesn’t, but that’s ok because:

https://gph.is/2rXbQif

#quitting

I started learning a new piece, which I am going to tell y’all all about next week.

BUT FIRST, I needed to lay the Sonatina to rest. My prediction that I would be completely over that song by now proved very, very accurate. I am no longer playing it for my recital. In fact, I have stopped working on it completely. At first I was in my feelings about “quitting” but then I got over it because I learned A TON and conquered many of the hang-ups I had when I began the piece. So as a refresher, here is all my super helpful pre-Sonatina negative self-talk accompanied by my post-Sonatina epiphanies/realizations/lessons:

Pre-Sonatina: My fingers can’t move that fast and this piece is FULL of sixteenth notes.

Post-Sonatina: I can play sixteenth notes. My fingers sometimes don’t move as quickly as I want them to but I made A TON of progress.

Pre-Sonatina: It is a lot to memorize.

Post-Sonatina: I memorized it within a couple weeks. I never have trouble memorizing my songs so tbh I am not really sure why I was even trippin’ about this.

Pre-Sonatina: I won’t be able to perform it without messing it up.

Post-Sonatina: I chilled out on the whole perfectionist thing. I have performed it. I made mistakes. I kept playing. It was fine.

Pre-Sonatina: I won’t have the appropriate dynamic contrast or a steady tempo.

Post-Sonatina: Dynamics were lit. My tempo was a bit touch and go BUT me and the metronome got real cozy. So, I definitely made a ton of improvement in this area.

Pre-Sonatina: I won’t learn it in time.

Post-Sonatina: I learned it! It’s not performance ready (mostly cuz I stopped working on it BUT I could play it passably well in a pinch so I’m counting it as a win).

Pre-Sonatina: I will get so nervous that I will choke.

Post-Sonatina: I’ve performed this a few times. I didn’t choke. I have gotten good at playing through the nerves/mistakes. Pro-tip: Breathing helps.

Pre-Sonatina: This piece is completely beyond my ability.

Post-Sonatina: It wasn’t.

Pre-Sonatina: I am too whack to learn this.

Post-Sonatina: I mean, I’m obviously the bomb soooooooooo . . .

Working on this song helped me to tone down my perfectionism while simultaneously causing me to become more serious about various aspects of my playing (e.g. scales, finger exercises, and consistent tempo). I may revisit this piece again in a few months/years. As for right now, I’m good to lay it aside.

This One Goes Out to the Mothers!

My yearlong homemade card series continues with a card made for my marvelous, magical Mama Maloy! I felt drawn to springtime colors and inspired by the apple blossoms covering the world when making this card. Mother’s always make me think of trees and roots, the nourishing of new life from one’s own body, the continuance of family. It’s through a mother’s flourishing that a youngster too can grown strong. I hoped to convey this sense of celebration and sacredness in my watercolor painting below.

Watercolor card for Mother's Day

I also tried my hand at a Mother’s Day poem, attempting to capture in words my intense feelings of gratitude and love for the lineage of women I owe my existence to. Quickly as I trace my maternal line back I no longer have stories, or faces, or even names for these ancestral women, but I am here because they were here, and I carry them with me always.

A quick poem I wrote for my Mother's day card

I decided for the envelope (with addresses covered over here for obvious reasons) to splatter the same watercolor pigments I used on the card and loved how this effect turned out.

Mother's Day envelope

Mother's Day envelope back side

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Progress Report II: Sonatine

I am still working on this Sonatina by Kuhlau. At this point, I can play the whole thing from memory. YAY! I can also recover after making mistakes. YAY again! HOWEVER, my tempo is still hella inconsistent, sometimes my sixteenth notes sound like soup, sometimes my sixteenth notes don’t sound like soup but I miss notes, sometimes it all just sounds stiff and ugly. HOWEVER, my nerves are WAY better than they were! I have participated in two performance classes since my last progress report so I am able to play this song in front of people WITHOUT freaking TF out. YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!

At my last lesson, my teacher and I pinpointed particular spots for me to work on going forward. I am continuing to practice my G major scale. Also, my metronome app and I are going to get very cozy again. FUNDAMENTALS!

All that to say, I am proud of the progress I have made! HOWEVER, I still have so much work to do to get this fully performance ready.

Watercolor Within the Lines

Here’s some pictures I painted this week! You’ll remember these perhaps from my geometrical drawings post, and I figured these were the perfect canvases to work on some very basic watercolor skills: painting within the lines and practicing some of my new-found color knowledge from last week

Painted Seven Circle Flower Design My chosen color palette didn’t come out quite the way I’d hoped on this seven circle flower design. The first wash I did for the background came out to faint so I did a second heavier wash over it and it sort of darkened or muddied the background. Also, my edges often bled into one another which causes issues. But it’s great practice painting over these designs!

Again, here I was trying to improve my ability to paint within lines and not have it bleed over. I also wondered what would happen if I tried to layer colors on the page (so a red layer, let that dry, then paint over it with a yellow) as opposed to pre-mixing colors. It definitely isn’t a good idea if you want vibrant and smooth colors on the page.

This monochrome moon came out just as I had hoped! I’m obsessed with this color blue from Wildthorne and used just this one paint for the whole picture. The moon is a bit more washed out in this picture than the real piece, so it looks less moon-like here. But this is one of my favorite things I’ve created with watercolor so far!

Egg Tempera Magic

This past weekend my mom was in town. While she was here we had an egg tempera paint session with my Little Sister (shout out to Big Brothers, Big Sisters!).

To have your own egg tempera paint session, you need:

Cups/some other container (the number of cups you need depends on the number of colors you want to make)
Pastels (NOT oil pastels)
Eggs
Paper that doesn’t suck (we just used some paper from my charcoal sketchbook)
Paintbrushes
Water
Paper towel/Rag
Knife/scissors/other sharp or sharp-adjacent blade
Spoon

Directions:

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Put ½ of each yolk in each cup. You use the yolks to make the color. You can put all the egg whites in one cup. You will not be adding any color to the egg whites.
Choose your first pastel color. Then, using your knife (or whatever), gently scrape the side of the pastel so that a fine powder falls onto the egg yolk.
If the color isn’t as vivid as you would like, then add more pastel to the egg yolk. The yellow of the yolk will affect how the color comes out. For example, blue pastel in yellow yolk creates a blue-green.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for your other colors.
When it dries the paint has a pretty sheen to it.

Here is my Little’s picture (she is obsessed with K-Pop right now).

Here is my mom’s picture.

Here is my picture. I was going to paint a dress but when I started drawing, this warrior lady started to materialize.

Back to the Basics: Color Theory

I have a confession to make: Even though I’ve been painting for over a year now, last week if I’d been asked to name the primary colors I’d have needed to puzzle it out. See, when I started watercolors I did the very thing most experts recommend beginners NOT do: I bought a large set of 48 colors. I followed my greedy goblin nature that wanted ALL THE COLORS, and while this has allowed me to create some great projects, it also allowed me to avoid learning the basics of color theory, especially since I didn’t have to mix my own colors.

A few weeks ago I shared some geometric drawings, and for one of these I’d intended to paint over it and share the results. But I got immediately stuck on coming up with a color palette. Really basic questions arose: what colors work well together? How do you know quickly if colors are likely to clash or compliment? I realized I’d stumbled upon a gaping hole in my artistic knowledge.

For information to stick I have to apply it, which is why I wasn’t able to recall the primary colors last week: I’d never spent time exercising this information, just heard it and tucked it away in a mind-drawer somewhere. So this time, I read some pages covering color theory from Gordan MacKenzie’s The Complete Watercolorist’s Essential Notebook and then quickly applied this information using my own set of watercolors.

To begin, I completed a task I’d long intended to do, but never made the time for: A color chart! I painted a sample of all 48 of my Sennelier watercolor pans:

I made a sample chart of all 48 of my Sennelier watercolors

I noted whether each color was listed as transparent, semi-opaque, or opaque before realizing I don’t fully understand what these terms mean, I just know artists say they’re really important and they affect layering of colors (a blog for another day). I also wanted to note whether each color is warm or cool, but quickly discovered I had no idea how to tell. So, I went back to the book for help.

In MacKenzie’s book, he quickly breaks color down:

Color Hues: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.
Primaries into Secondaries: The primary colors (yellow, red, blue) mix to make the secondary colors (orange, violet, green)
Purity: the more you add a complementary color to a color (for example green to red) the less vivid the color will be.
Temperature: the way we perceive colors as either “warm” or “cool,” which is really relative to what other color we’re comparing it to.

I spent the most time this week trying to wrap my head around color temperature. It’s easy when you think of it in the most simple terms: red, orange, and yellow are warm colors, while green, blue, and purple are cool. But a green can be a warm green and a yellow can be a cool yellow. This was tricky for me! The Sennelier set I have doesn’t come with any information on whether the colors are regarded as warm or cool, so I had to take some guesses and some I’m still not able to tell. I took my best guess as to which colors I had in my set were the best example of warm and cool primary colors and made the below color wheels:

I made my own warm vs. cool color charts to try to better understand color temperature

When I blended a warm yellow with a warm red I got a very intense orange. A cool yellow and a cool red gave a muddier orange. However, when I mixed a warm blue and a warm yellow I got a muddier green, while a cool blue and a cool yellow gave me a much brighter green. So, I learned that if you’re trying to mix a cool color and you want it to be very bright you should use both cool primary colors to achieve the best results. For orange you’d want to use warm primary colors if you hope to attain brilliance. I could also make a basic red warmer by adding a bit of yellow or cooler just by adding a bit of blue.

These exercises were key, and I feel more confident now in tackling a color scheme. I still haven’t decided on one for my geometric drawing, but will share the results when I finally do! I also got some new paints from a small shop called Wildthorne recently, and made these quick little color swatches to try to get a feel for the colors:

Some new paints I got from Wildthorne

There is still so much more to learn about color in the watercolor medium, but I feel like I’m standing on firmer ground. And at least I know my primary colors now!

I Painted a Shark

Last week it was my neighbor’s kid’s birthday. I used acrylic paints. I also used gel medium to thicken the paint and add a little sheen to it. Pro Tip: Gel medium makes a little paint go a long way. Anyway, this spontaneous, no-pressure art project really helped me to chill out during a week that was pretty bananas.

Here is my palette. I used black, white, phthalocyanine blue, and ultramarine blue.

Here is the shark.

Here is the finished picture. (The picture doesn’t really do the blue justice. It came out really pretty.)

Dip Pen Calligraphy

I had a tsunami of work projects swamp me this week, so my time for creativity was way limited. I did however manage to stumble further into the world of calligraphy. In my previous post on this topic I shared the Beth Style Worksheet I’d purchased from The Postman’s Knock. While this is a great purchase and I’m still working through the style-sheet, it’s not a full beginner’s introduction to calligraphy and it’s hard to learn from just a pdf. So, when I saw that the creator of the site had released a new online video course specifically tailored towards beginners, I was sold!

I’m a few lessons into this Beginner’s Modern Calligraphy Online Course and this week I graduated from only working with faux calligraphy (lettering made with any normal pen) and dipped my first pen into the dip pen calligraphy world. The results were not pretty, but oh glory, I feel destined for calligraphy (like in Harry Potter when he holds his first wand and it like glows in his hand and angelic voices are all like “yea, that feels sooo right”)! This is a completely new way to write, a flowy way that requires not finger movement, but whole arm movement. Also, you have to write at an unusual slant and hold the pen differently. It’s a bit unnatural, but also ridiculously fancy-feeling and brimming with old-timey nostalgia!

My first step was to gather together the supplies recommended in the course, which you see above and includes: Sumi ink, TPK worksheet, two cotton napkins, one oblique pen (the next step after learning the dip pen), one dip pen, extra nibs in fancy tin, and a might-end-up-being-too-small water cup. A further preparation step required me to do some potato voodoo, seen below. Basically, most nibs for dip pens come separated from the pen (nibs are interchangeable so you can use the same dip pen with endless nibs) and at first they’re covered in a manufacturer’s oil that can inhibit the flow of ink. So, Postman’s Knock recommends sticking them in a potato for 15 minutes, and voila! I accidentally left this on the counter to run some quick errands and my partner was understandably creeped out when he returned home to an empty house and said potato…

Here below are the first words I’ve written with a dip pen. I need to figure out the correct angle to hold the pen when I don’t have lines to guide me, and it reminded me of being in kindergarten and trying to form your first letters, but still SO FUN to write with! Also, the level of precision you can achieve with these pens is beyond any other pen I’ve ever tried. The signature look of the dip pen is the variation between fine lines and thick lines, and this is naturally achieved due to the dip pen’s tip that splits wide when pressed down, which causes the ink to fill in the full space of the gap.

I’ll share more of my progress through this new and wonderful dip pen world! Before long, I shall be the fanciest!