I currently play with a band full of absolutely crazy talented musicians. They have huge vision and goals. They do not however put the work needed into making these goals happen. After three years, and half way through finally recording our first full length album (a year late mind you), they decided “Hey! Lets change our sound completely!! Lets change from folk to experimental atmospheric type stuff!!”   /facepalm. Not that I have a problem with that style (other than the fact that violin doesn’t have much place in it), but people loved our sound and were anxious to get their hands on a full cd. Why in the world would you change the sound you are great at?!? Our lack of success hasn’t had anything to do with our sound, but our inability to focus, work hard and get stuff completed. I finally get that moving forward is not something this group does. We take one step forward and three back.   We set goals then wave awkwardly as  we watch the deadlines for those goals come and go.

Now don’t take all this complaining the wrong way. I love playing with my band. I just had to come to a few realizations. I think for far too long I looked at this band as a serious project instead of just having fun with it. I really did expect this group to succeed. This is where my frustration was coming from. While a couple of other members claim that their goal in life is to see this band be successful, it would take an insane amount of effort that no one is willing to put in. I grew up playing in the Claremont Youth Symphony Orchestra, then in the Claremont Symphony Orchestra as an adult. We practiced once a week and had a couple of concerts a year. While there were professional musicians in the Orchestra, it was not a group attempting to be a  professional Orchestra (although they sounded like it, they are full of amazing conductors and musicians). It was all for fun. This is exactly what Stereo Child has turned into. We practice once a week (well that is the goal anyway, that doesn’t always happen either), and we play maybe two shows a year.

The problem with this is that I need more music for my time lapse painting videos. I have an instrumental project I am going to be working on with someone this summer, but I need songs now. It finally dawned on me that there was no reason I couldn’t do this myself. I don’t need professional quality recordings for my videos, just pretty sounds playing in the background. I made my first attempt of all violin music this past week. It really is just me playing improv, then recording a second track over that, also  improv. I’m still working on figuring out how to use the audio software. I can’t figure out how to record then record over a few measures without starting from scratch when I miss a note, so improv is really the best I can do at the moment. The point is, I made noises for my videos all by myself! I’m so excited about this. Once I figure out how to work this stuff I can attempt a planned out song.  My eventual goal is to have a full CD of me on violin Right now I can only record on my electric as I don’t have the mics to record my acoustic, but its a start!

Anyway, after that really long explaination, here is the first of what I hope to be many recordings of myself on violin.
I have yet to figure out how to add audio by itself into the blog, so here is a recent painting with my recording in the background

Walk in Love video on Youtube

I have no real in between with things. I’m either completely obsessed with something, or completely uninterested. Its a bit ridiculous to be honest.  My latest obsession are my phalaenopsis orchids.  Back in CA I had a single phal I kept alive. It never bloomed for me, but grew new leaves and roots regularly over the 5 years or so that I had it. I left it with my mom when I moved and it has since bloomed. Once I settled in here in Tx, I tried finding a new orchid to live with me. They all had root rot quite quickly and died. I kept following the local growers instructions and they kept dying. I finally decided that the last two from the same local grower were going to die anyway, so I may as well repot them in bark (instead of the tightly packed moss they were currently in). While at Lowes I found two more orchids that insisted on coming home with me. Once home I repotted them all. The two from Lowes had decent roots, the two from the local grower were in horrid condition. All rotted out. I cut the roots and repotted. This sent me on an internet search for how to keep them alive. I found an awesome forum that had SOOOO much info. I cant believe I hadn’t read up on this stuff sooner! I was shocked at how little I really knew about orchid care after all this time. I also managed to jump start my heart infection all over again breathing in the fungus from those rotted roots. GENIUS! Several supply orders later and a week of doing little besides sleep (due to not feeling well) and reading the orchid forum obsessively I am working on saving all four of my orchids. I have the highest hopes for “Ink Blot Noodles” (Yes I name everything) given how many great roots he has.

Inkblot Noodles minus his flowers

Orchid flowers all cut and in a vase.

"phalaenoodles"

What I really need to do is find something more productive to obsess over. Like painting.

A few days into the lovely cold/flu thing I was up on the counter looking for cough drops. When I hopped off I landed wrong and sprained my ankle.  The lovely part about this is because my fibro was already flared up from everything else, this felt SO much worse than it actually was. I was certain it was broken, and it really isn’t even that bad of a sprain.  REALLY FEBRUARY?!?! REALLY!? God must be trying to tell me just to stay in bed for an entire month…because that’s what ended up happening. Well bed and playing way too much warcraft.  I now have a geared 85 lock to add to my collection instead of new paintings /sigh.

An entire month later my headaches are just starting to subside enough that I am ready to get back to the easel. I have three portraits, one surreal piece, an IG portrait and a still life oil painting waiting for me. I’m pretty excited to get back to work! I should have some new time lapse videos and paintings to share within a couple of weeks =D

Ok story over right? Yeah not so much. I sent the photo of the fixed bracelet to my mom and she loved it. She really wanted one for herself. No way in hell was I giving more money for another of these, so off to search for similar beads. Three arts and craft stores and several Ebay purchases later I had not only the supplies I needed, but a new addiction. I now walk around the house repeating “more beads?” over and over. I even bought a fancy little bead organizer and jewelry kit! See!…

From the time I was a kid, my mom would act ridiculously thrilled with anything I made or drew for her. What I doubt she planned on was that her fun response to my creations would result in me, as an adult, still having a blast making her stuff. The pinkish bracelet is all glass beads and the other is glass and wood beads.

What does one do with this new beading habit? Make more and offer them for sale of course. I am in the process of making several bracelets that will be available for sale on my site in the next couple of months.

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide whether it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they’re deciding, make even more art.” – Andy Warhol

Here are my pretty homescreens I made for it

And here is my phone in its fancy new two tone pink outfit. I normally put gelskins on my phones, but this one is so large I was hoping the case would help me grip it better. Matt (my husband) got me some pretty little pink Sony earbuds to match my case, which also matches the wallet/bag thing I got for it from on Etsy. The seller made it an extra inch taller so that it would fit this giant phone.

Test #1: The ability to adapt to change

Test #2: gullibility

This one really got me. I didn’t realize how gullible so many people are. “OMG you have to copy and paste this into your status or Facebook is going to charge you!!!”  This can come in handy for your own survival when the zombies come.

You can now safely escape while the zombies are nomming on Charlie.

Test #3: over sharing

Some people no matter how hard they try cant keep their mouths shut. They try to be discrete but post silly things like “OMG I just screwed up so bad, she’s going to hate me! I cant believe I just did that!” Uh…leaving out names does not mean people don’t know what you’re talking about. It just publicly announces that not only did you screw up, but you don’t have the sense to keep this information to yourself.  Do not group with these people when the zombies come!

…yeah those strangers are totally going to follow big mouthed Phil back to your hide out and take all of your food.

I see this over and over on artist forums. This will be a debate that never ends.  To use or not to use a projector or lightbox, and is it cheating.  There are a few things you need to realize about these tools.  My outlook applies to realism, so keep that in mind.

• If you cant draw at all, the projector and lightbox aren’t going to make a big difference in your finished painting.
• If you want to learn to draw or strengthen your current abilities, tracing with a lightbox  is a GREAT way to do this.  I will talk more about this in a minute.
• These are just tools. No more no less. They aren’t going to blend your paint, choose your colors, decide your composition,  or choose what brush to use. Just like using a ruler, masking tape, or an easel aren’t going to do the work for you. Really, what is the difference then in using a grid besides saving a lot of time?

I have been teaching for 13 years now. One of the  things that I have learned is that if someone cant draw, these tools alone aren’t going to make much difference in their work. First you have to know how to use these tools properly, which can be an art in itself. Second when you start blending and shading you are going to lose most of the lines you had drawn out. If you cant draw, you cant tell where to put them back in.  You are not generally going to have every line drawn in with these tools either. When you need soft shadows, if you had a line where the light and dark blended together you will always see that pencil line.

On the other hand if you take someone who cant draw well, these tools are a big help in the learning process. It is the same way that we teach children to draw their letters. We have them trace them over and over again. I can take someone and have them draw out a rose for example 12 times. By the 13th time, hopefully they will have improved on their initial drawings. Now, I can give them a lightbox and have them trace that rose 12 times. If I then have them draw it out on their own the 13th time, they will most certainly have improved leaps and bounds over the first scenario. Tracing forces you to see details and shapes that you may not notice on your own. It also forces you to see things as they really are, not how you think they look.  So often we get stuck in our head that trees look a certain way, or eyes have a certain shape that isn’t necessarily true. Tracing helps break that mold so that we can draw things on our own without the aid of a lightbox or projector, and draw them correctly.

Things that look simple tend to be more difficult to make look good. Paintings with a lot of detail and busyness are easier just in that you can cover mistakes with some of that busy detail. You also don’t notice minor mistakes in something that has a lot of busyness to look at. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try the simple things too, but don’t avoid the stuff that looks more difficult just because it has that extra detail.

Example:

In this first painting, there is much less detail. Much of the background is just a gradient of greys and whites.

"fuse" acrylic painting

This second painting has a LOT of detail. More time consuming yes, however it was fairly forgiving when a mistake happened. I could thrown an extra ripple in the water to cover a problem with a fish, or  a tree branch where the sky had an issue in blending. With the painting above, any mistakes in that background stand out like a sore thumb (which seems like a silly saying given I have yet to see a sore thumb really stand out at any point in my life).

"extempore" oil over acrylic painting

When I first started painting I would copy the dolphins and whales painted by a well known marine artist. I knew his paintings weren’t very realistic but I felt I wasn’t good enough to try anything more advanced. Finally I started modeling my work after an artist who knew the anatomy of sea life and had such detail and amazing lighting I was hesitant to try. While my work was clearly not as good as the second artist, I had shot up several levels over the work I was seeing from the first. Don’t limit yourself to something that you feel is a beginners level just because your work isn’t as good yet. Try something more difficult and see how much better you can do!

Something I should add to this however is don’t skip the basics. Study lighting, contrast, perspective, anatomy and such while you are trying to paint the stuff you thought was too hard.  Those things are still building blocks to a great artist.