Tag: Art

  • Keep the Drama on the Page

    Having been introduced to Julia Cameron’s “Artist’s Way” creative workshops a few years ago, I continue appreciating the maxim advising students “keep the drama on the page”.  Or the stage, or canvas, or whatever your favorite artistic medium.

    Of course that is not always easy.  Personally, as I slid a meatloaf into the oven several minutes ago I could not help recalling the nuisances inflicting my household in 2014.  It started with the early January meatloaf I cooked.  The oven element caught fire during the last five minutes of cook time.  Fortunately dinner was delicious but the next day my vacuum sweeper failed, its slipped belt actually burning through the plastic outer cover.  Neither could be fixed, and even replacement proved trickier than reason dictates.

    Add to that the veterinarian telling me my sweet, overweight cat was on the fast track to diabetes and a Saturday night spent racing a human to the emergency room.  Thank heaven everyone is on a healthier road now.  However, these surmountable but sometimes expensive and definitely stressful inconveniences have been compounded by a friend’s emotionally draining phone calls.  Again, I must count my blessings because the friend is not what Ms. Cameron would call a “crazymaker”.  Also, i can happily report that she is in a better place as of this very afternoon.

    Opening Julia Cameron’s prescribed morning page “brain dump” with a list of five blessings the last few months, I make regular note of positives.  I could live in a war torn country with no electricity or flush toilets, after all.  And I have the luxury of art.  Every day, small creative endeavors boost my spirits.  Alongside Julia Cameron’s user friendly tools and gentle wisdom, I have dear friends encouraging me to play.  A book of mandalas in an adult coloring book, wild bird feeding, a craft package suitable for eight-year-olds, and even enjoying my Christmas tree beyond January first have elevated my spirit beyond everyday doldrums.

    What activities brighten your day? Can you maybe take a few minutes to pamper yourself with fun? I sincerely hope you can sprinkle a little innocent pleasure into a what I imagine is a very busy modern schedule.

    –

  • Twittering Our Time Away


    It’s about that time of year again.  And I’m not referring to Christmas.  My annual subscriptions need renewed for the British comic weekly “2000 AD” and the monthly “Judge Dredd Megazine”.
    Both have provided enjoyment for many years, though the exchange rate against the United States dollar did interrupt my reading a few years back.  I’m glad to have these futuristic, often dystopian tales back in my life, especially when we got the joy of seeing talented actor Karl Urban bring Ol’ Stoney Face to the big screen.  Dredd’s U.S. popularity is soaring, too.  Hurray!
    Besides the graphic stories, features I appreciate in the “Megazine” are artists’ interviews.  They provide interesting insight.  The last issue was no exception.  One particular thing the illustrator mentioned stood out to me, too, prompting this essay.
    During this so-called interrogation titled “The Anarch-Tist”, artist Warwick Cadwell lauds the internet for allowing him to connect with fans as well as other artists.  The man even credits others’ blogs with aiding his career.
    But he also warns us.  In his own words, “If you’re not careful, you can spend all your time on Twitter talking about what pen you should be using rather than getting on with any actual drawing!”
    These are words we should all take to heart.  Whatever our preferred medium, we cannot produce art if we spend all our time discussing it.  And we have all know the infinite number of internet distractions, whether they parade as research or networking or we’re just fattening up Sushi Cat (thanks, Armor Games, for swallowing so many afternoons).
    Having noted Mr. Cadwell’s wisdom, I’d best post this now and get back to my novel.  Cheers!

  • Writer Wednesday – A Change in the Air


    Minutes ago I viewed lovely images of spring as captured by talented photography Eaton Bennett.  The delicate blooms are beautiful reminders of nature’s power of regeneration, as she aptly titled the series, and make me look forward to planting my spring flowering bulbs.  For here, in my little corner of the world, autumn takes a turn.

    Morning mists hang over the fields as trees unburden their branches for a welcome winter rest.  Having suffered lean summer months until this bountiful nut harvest, squirrels leap and bound, making drivers beware.  Crisp air beckons me out of the house to savor dazzling skies.
    If I seem to glorify fall, it’s because I adore this time of year.  Each season displays different delights, but October holds a special place in my heart.  Halloween fills me with a sense of whimsy.  Colorful foliage, the smells of bonfires and burning leaves, and birds flocking to migrate all enchant me.  I even look forward to plants going dormant after sweating over garden chores.
    Every year I enjoy these changes.  This month, having finished a small group workshop of Julia Cameron’s “Finding Water”, my inner artist awoke.  I walk the local riverbank, camera ready, enjoying a renewed creative flow.  With no idea what to write and choosing to ignore the resulting butterflies in my stomach, I look forward to November’s National Novel Writing Month.
    One large hurdle to writing fifty thousand new words next month lies in curbing my inherent perfectionism.  I’m notperfect; I simply strive for the impossible.  Already, this short post has taken a ridiculous amount of time while I seek improved grammar and more laconic phrasing.  On that note, I shall upload this little message forthwith.
    Whatever season sculpts your landscape, I hope you can take a deep breath of fresh air and delve into whatever art calls you.  As I hear repeatedly from gentle mentors, take small steps.  Set reasonable goals.  Be easy on yourself.  Mother Nature acts harsh at times but she generally prepares her charges with steady, gradual progress.
    Let me know which is your favorite season, and why.  Does weather affect your creative soul?  After you comment, please enjoy Ms. Bennett’s vision of spring:
    ~

  • Writer Wednesday – Going with the Flow

    I had a post due yesterday for Writer Wednesday and didn’t have the heart due to the anniversary of the 9/11 travesty.  Today, though, I realized that life should move on in honor of those we lost.  And so, here is a little tidbit I’ve postdated.

    Films are a passion of mine.  To my delight, some of the most iconic bits from my favorite flicks were happy accidents due to circumstance or a great ad lib.  In a different example, the crew members in “Alien” reacted with natural horror during that famous dinner incident.  Filmmakers cued only John Hurt in to the details regarding his character’s final scene.  It gives me ever greater appreciation for the process that is movie magic.
    Writing can benefit from such happenstance, as well.  While there is plenty of greatness that comes from scripting and outlines, we artists should never automatically toss out an idea just because it goes against our grand scheme.
    Sometimes we need to go with the flow.  Stumped on where to take the story next?  Follow a plotline on an odd tangent and see how your characters react.  The departure might result in an exciting direction no plan could foresee.
    I hope you free your mind to create something new, wonderful, and unexpected.  Now I need to go follow my own advice.  Happy writing!
    Oh, and if you want to check out some of these great movie moments, here you go.  Enjoy.  You’ll want to expand the video to full screen for the all important captions.  Oh, and there is adult language.  Sorry about that.

  • In Living Color


    Years of movie watching give me a new appreciation of the filmmaking process.  Incisive music scores, thoughtful editing, and artful screen fades make me swoon alongside impressionable characterization and indelible plots.  Strong acting is just icing on the proverbial cake.

    Now I must share a confession.  In my youth, historic movies regaled me but those contemporary flicks in color added more depth to my youthful scope.  I even had a vague appreciation of colorization, however artificial the hues might be.  Later, we have little choice.  Colors of the natural world seem ideal.  When given the opportunity, though, I prefer black and white.
    Yeah, yeah; roll your eyes of if you want.  Call me old.
    My b/w appreciation extends to modern productions.  Great examples that stamped this upon my brain include re-aired episodes of “The Walking Dead” and the alternate b/w version of Frank Darabont’s directorial masterpiece “The Mist”.  Mr. Darabont had a hand in both aforementioned projects and Stephen King works never looked so good in color as in the “The Mist’ viewed in b/w.
    However naïve, I believe this involves the brain processes, pure and simple.  Processing color requires ridiculous amounts of calculation.  Black, white, and gray-tones, however, let us perceive data more succinctly.  The characters and plot strike our emotions at the core.
    I may be wrong.  Give it a chance if you can.  And for fun, here are two examples to compare (isn’t the second one creepier?):
    photo adf42666-c410-46aa-9dfe-ead6040202d1.jpg
    photo 66b75763-6cb3-4dd1-84af-ff2071e5fb20.jpg

  • Special Guest Shira Glassman, Author of The Second Mango coming from Prizm Books August 21st

    I have a special treat for today’s Writer Wednesday feature.  I had the opportunity to virtually meet Shira Glassman through the Torquere and Prizm author lists; Prizm is Torquere’s Young Adult imprint.  Shira recently signed with Prizm and her book The Second Mango comes out next week on August 21st.  I asked Shira what it’s like to work with artists and our conversation turned into a guest post.  Take it away, Shira!

    Working with artists to commission promotional artwork for The Second Mango, due out from Prizm Books on August 21
    by Shira Glassman

    I’m in love with the characters I created for my stories, and I’m always daydreaming about them. It’s exhausting having to burn those mental calories, though, so to relax my poor brain and let my eyes instead of my imagination do the work, I love working with artists.

    I’ve been lucky enough to work with about half a dozen extremely talented ones with the Mangoverse project, and they’re all different! Perhaps the most involved has been my good friend Jane Dominguez, who is a professionally trained graphic artist for a local design firm. It helped that she read the books in their first draft and really enjoyed them. Seeing some of her initial drafts, however, made me realize that I wasn’t describing my characters in nearly enough detail. That was an unexpected benefit I got out of the experience–seeing how well I’d put on paper what was in my head. (Luckily, that was over a year before I ever signed any publishing contracts, and the version I submitted to Prizm had much better fleshed-out descriptions.)

    Jane has drawn pictures of her own, but she also inks and colors the pictures of some of my other artists. I’ve learned that there are different styles for coloring; she used a digital “colored pencil” effect for the artwork depicting my protagonist’s childhood holiday memories, and a watercolor effect for a landscape image.

    Mina does the line work for most of the artwork that I have in manga styles. Her ‘chibis’, or childlike cutesy representations of the characters, usually blow me away with how she manages to capture the full range of human emotion with just a few lines. She also has a more serious manga style that takes longer to draw. When we work together, I have to make sure she takes breaks so she doesn’t get tired out, or else she’ll sit there doodling for hours without stopping! Working with her has also been interesting because she hasn’t read the books yet (she’s waiting for the release), so I had to be very careful not to slip up and reveal spoilers and surprises. I’m sure she’s guessed some of them anyway.

    Erika lives far away, so we communicate long-distance. She, like all my other artists, is exceptionally patient about my polite but very specific demands about tweaking this or that seemingly unimportant detail. Erika is a published author herself so I’m thrilled that she’s willing to take time to frolic in my world as well as her own. Her style is graphite realism, and I feel lucky to have benefited from her astounding growth over the past few years.

    Rachel doesn’t draw as much as she’d like to, possibly because she’s too busy playing professional tuba or giving belly-dancing lessons — have you ever heard of a more fascinating combination of pursuits? But she’s got real talent in both conventional Western cartoon art and in the “chibi” manga style. I’ve also had other friends get involved in the characters, and send me their drawings. Everyone has been a pleasure to work with.

    Working with an artist can be very rewarding, because it can give your imagination a rest, and give you a better idea for how to describe your world and your characters. A good artist to work with will be someone who enjoys your creation and will also be patient with your requests for revision. I hope I pay them fairly, for what they do for me is priceless.

    Art credits: Erika Hammerschmidt, Jane Dominguez, Mina V., and Rachel Matz.

    All art displayed features characters from The Second Mango. Kissing picture by Jane Dominguez. “Food is love” and Dragon drawn by Mina V. and inked by Jane Dominguez. Napping with Dragon by Erika Hammerschmidt. Rivka with her sword drawn by Rachel Matz and inked by Jane Dominguez.

  • Writer Wednesday – Using the Tools


    Tips and tricks abound to aid the creative process.  I’ve become familiar with some very clever ones, often through the warm and wise counsel of accomplished author Catherine A. Noon.  She introduced me to the multi-talented Julia Cameron, for example, who has an entire side career dedicated to inspiring fellow artists.  Another gifted friend reminded me just this morning of some grand ways to hush the inner critic (Thanks, E!).

    Unfortunately, I’ve discovered a recurring failure to utilize these tools.  However much sense a plan makes, my good intentions somehow evaporate.  Why?  I think I’ve pinpointed a reason.  Buried in my psyche, a notion seems to persist that good writing materializes like a rabbit out of hat.  It’s supposed to be magic.
    I do believe that art has magical properties.  Without it, existence lacks a sense of hope or wonder.
    An important thing to remember about magic, though, is that David Copperfield didn’t really walk through the Great Wall of China.  Criss Angel can’t actually levitate.  They’re illusionists who put countless hours into manipulating the willing minds of an audience.
    Performers on any stage workto entertain us.  Why should writing be any different?  The answer: it’s not.
    Julia Cameron summed up my quandary in a line from “Finding Water”.  To paraphrase, my ego wants creativity shrouded in mystery.  This snooty persona thinks that artistic pursuit is somehow above punching a time clock.
    Today I defied this snob by setting a timer.  And you know what?  Thirty minutes dedicated to storytelling didn’t feel constrictive at all.  The added paragraphs gave me a sense of accomplishment even if the critic still sneered at the low word count.  So what?  I can set the timer for another thirty minutes when this post is up.

    What gets you on the page, stage, or wherever you wish your art to flourish?  I hope you’ll find the time to get out there today and do it.

    –

  • Up in the Air

    I wanted to share with you some recent photographs I took while flying across the country to visit Rachel.  Many of the pictures don’t seem like pictures of land, more like textures or maybe even baked cookies on a sheet.  What do you see?

    I am thinking of sending this one in to Southwest, actually.  I love the way it came out.  You can see the horizon-line starting the sunrise.  The sun is over the plane on the right, as though it’s over my shoulder.

    I love this.  It looks like waves or something.

    Somewhere between Colorado/Utah.  Looks like the moon.

    Fuzzy horizon (actually think this goes with the first shot, just without the airplane wing).

    I’ve always wondered, do the squares down there form by roads, or just natural contours of the land?

    Clouds or landforms?

    Clouds?  Snow?  Water?  All of the above?

    This looks unlike land, to me; maybe a map?  Frosted cookies?

    More sugar-frosted brownies.  You can see those lines I mentioned above much more clearly in this image.  Map lines?  Aliens?  Roads?  Elephants?

    I have always loved planes.  This is the back-end of the jets on the wing.

    More mountains.  Haze in the air as the sun cuts across it.

    Much less snow here.  Utah, methinks.  The plane wing is more shadowed, I think we changed direction and are headed a little more northwest.

    Forest with the line of snow.

    There’s just almost a rainbow in the right side of the picture.  Weird how the camera interacts with the double-pane glass of the airplane window.

    Almost looks like clouds, but I think that’s actually snow.  Interesting, since the snow indicates elevation but the whole ground looks like it’s mountains of the same height.

    This looks like meringue, no?

    My knitting project with my notes.  (You know I had to get knitting in here SOMEwhere, right?)

    This is me playing around with the “effects” on my phone.  This one is the vignette setting.

    Looks like cloud froth, but is actually snow.

    This looks like ocean waves, but is actually mountains, valleys, and some cloud formation.

    This is the “negative” effect on my phone.  (Who knew negativity could look so cool, eh?)

    More meringue.  Anyone getting hungry for pie?

    What do you see?

    —
    “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
    – E.E. Cummings

    My links: Blog | Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | LinkedIn | Pandora
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    Publishers: Samhain Publishing | Torquere Press

    Check out BURNING BRIGHT, available from Samhain Publishing.
    Check out EMERALD FIRE, available from Torquere Books.
    Check out “Taking a Chance“, part of the Charity Sips 2012 to benefit NOH8, available from Torquere Books.
    Watch for COOK LIKE A WRITER, coming February 2013 from the Guerrilla Chicks.
    Watch for TIGER TIGER, coming July, 2013, from Samhain Publishing.

  • Ways of Seeing

    In college, one of our assigned books was Ways of Seeing by John Berger, based on a series of 30-minute films in the early 1970’s.  While I recommend the book, this isn’t a review of it.  Rather, the title is evokative of a state of mind.  It’s on my shelf in my line-of-site from where I do a lot of my writing, so it’s something that’s in the background of my consciousness and the words have become a phrase in the substrata of my mind.

    The way we see is unique.  Each of us could look at the same scene and come away with different impressions and imagery of what we saw.  This is valuable and necessary.  We don’t have to believe it for it to be true; we just have to see.

    Do you have a camera, even just the simple one in your phone?  (Granted, some of the smart phones out there have cameras that are anything but simple.)  Have you experimented with just shooting a picture series of what you look at every day?  Try this:

    Tomorrow, as you go about your daily round, take pictures.  If you drive, pause and snap what you see out your windshield before you start driving.  If you walk or take transit, snap pictures of stuff you see every time you go on your route.  The more mundane, the better.  Like a detective, we are after data and facts, not art.

    Do you dislike pictures of yourself?  Experiment by taking one picture of yourself every day this week.  Do not judge; just take the picture and record the date.  “This is what I looked like on Tuesday.”  Play with different expressions and poses.  If you find yourself with one particular expression a lot, make that expression (for example, the one you have on your face when the phone rings) and take a picture of yourself.  What do you look like with that expression?

    If you don’t have a camera, there are several good, inexpensive models you can find here, here, and here.  See if you have a friend who would loan you theirs.  If you have an affiliation with a school, they sometimes have them available for loan.

    The point here is to become acquainted with how we see the world.  A fun twist on this exercise is to do it at the same time as your kids and then compare notes.  See what you might learn about each other.  Be prepared – leave your expectations at the door.  When you open your eyes and look, you’ll never know what you might see.

    Have fun!