Art and Thoughts

Posted on August 16, 2023 by SusanG

I’ve got a couple of things for this week. Which I guess is good since I didn’t have anything for last week. I wanted to have something for last week and just didn’t. The only thing I really had to share was finishing the Gretsch painting. Which is one of the things I have for this week. So, I guess I’ll start there.

I finished the Gretsch painting last week.  It was a different experience for me in that any previous guitar related paintings have either been stippling with acrylic ink. Still in color, just stippled, and with basically liquid acrylic. And I’ve done one in oil. Yes. Oil paints. I like it. It’s an odd size/shape so it may be interesting framing it or mounting it. I think I’m supposed to varnish it at some point. I’m not sure.

Finished painting

But back to the Gretsch Headstock painting. This one is in watercolor. That was what made it different for me. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out or really, how I was going to approach it until I got started. I have to say, I am surprised and pleased with the result. The background turned out to be the hardest part because I couldn’t figure out what to do with it for the longest time. I finally settled on the blue. And I filled it out with some variances to make it interesting. Then I worried I’d got it too dark.

This is where, when I realized the wonder and benefit of working in watercolor. Because it is watercolor where I thought it was too dark, I was able to take a clean waterfilled brush and lift out some of the paint and lighten it. I didn’t have to mix colors and worry about how I would get it right or worry about changing the luminescence of the color. I just lifted out the excess pigment. And of course, I got a little heavy handed there too so I worried I got it too light. At which point I realized it wasn’t that it was too light or too dark it was that it needed to not be just blue. So, I added some green. Now I’m happy with it. And I have new respect for working in watercolors.

The next painting, if that’s what we call it, is a stippling of a Koala. I took the picture while I was visiting a conservation area in Australia a few years ago. Because of their fur and its coloring, they are sort of ideal for stippling. Though the long ear hair or fluffiness around the ears is a bit of a challenge. And an interesting one. It should be fun to see this one finish coming together. I worked on it quite a bit over the last few days and while I’d like to get it finished or close to finished this week I don’t see that happening.

I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences around working on the Koala. Both having to do with this being a stippling piece. The first was interesting because I was watching/listening to a concert while I was working on the Koala. I looked up at the screen and the singer on the screen and the lighting and the angle, it was the first time I really considered and thought I could actually do a human portrait in stippling. It’s something I’ve considered before though not with much conviction. Now, it’s something I may explore. Because, why not. Just probably not in the immediate future. I’ve got several other things lined up to work on. Besides the idea needs some time to simmer.

Bird of prey stirring up some trouble outside my window

While I was thinking about working on the Koala, I realized that stippling art projects are very much the epidemy of one of my philosophies(?), if you want to call it that. The phrase, and explanation I often share is ‘Baby steps. Baby steps all in the same direction will still get you there.’ With painting, and even drawing, you can lay down big swaths of color or lines and cover a lot of canvas, or paper, pretty quickly and start to get form and color also fairly quickly. With stippling your best and fastest indication of what a piece is going to look like, at least as I do it, is the sketch outline and rough in that I work on top of before erasing it in the end. It takes a lot of dots to start to see if the piece is going to come together as envisioned or hoped. A stippling project requires patience and persistence. And trust in the process. Normally, I work on art a couple of days during the week and then quite a bit more on the weekend. With the day job, I have to keep in mind that working late into the night is not a good idea during the week. So I do a lot more at the weekends. This weekend, however, I’m traveling so I won’t be working on any art. Well, not directly. Which means it will take a little longer to get the Koala finished and up on the store. I’m hoping that I can get some photos for future projects while I’m traveling. And maybe I’ll have something to share as a blog post or two. If not, it’s all good. My trip is primarily to hang out with a friend and see a few sites anything else is bonus. That’s all I’ve got for now. More soon. Cheers.

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Nothin’ to Say

Posted on August 4, 2023 by SusanG

Yes, the post is “late” this week. Not for lack of trying. I started it a couple of times. I was going to write about a lesson from years ago that I’ve recently had an opportunity to benefit from again. And then I realized, I didn’t really want to write about that. So, I did a step back to figure out what I wanted to write about and discovered, I don’t really have much to say this week.

Though as I thought of that, as often happens, a line from a song popped into my head and I had to mentally sing along. The song, ‘Angel From Montgomery’ the line, ‘How can a person, go to work in the morning, come home in the evening, have nothin’ to say?’ Welcome to my brain.

So. Since I don’t have much to say this week, I’ll share what I’m working on.

My current painting is of the headstock of a Gretsch. A day job colleague has a few guitars and several years ago, he was gracious enough to spend a couple of hours one afternoon letting me take pictures of them. In a life previous to being in technology, he was a working musician. Many, if not all of his guitars are from that time and are decades old, so they have great history baked into them. The fretboard wear, the aged metal, the dings and scratches, and aged wood, all combine to tell a cool story. They have lived a life.

One of the things I’ve been wanting to do has been to share my guitar affection through my art. I’ve completed, or started a few different paintings of guitars, well, parts of guitars, over the years. A couple of those have been using acrylic ink to have color for the stippling. One, I painted in oils. The first real oil painting I’ve done. And it still needs to be signed and sealed, (varnished).  When I decided to paint a guitar after I finished the last piece, I thought about choosing one of those styles, methods, to do this piece because I wanted it to be in color. Then, since I’ve been working in watercolor and colored pencil, I decided I’d give that a go. I am pleasantly surprised to find it working out better than I expected. And it’s not the fight I thought it might be.

I am always fascinated to watch as a painting comes together. There is the initial sketch for reference and layout. It is often the first bit that surprises me. When I get it just right on the paper to the point that I could finish it out as a pencil drawing and it would be just as impactful, then I know it has real potential as a painting. Then there is starting to add the color. The biggest part of the color for me is getting the shade right. That’s when I can really start to see the possibilities.

This piece as been a treat to watch come together. At each step, each day I work on it, at the end of the session I step back hopeful it’s progressing in the right direction. And then I look at it a little stunned and amazed. Stunned and amazed because all the little bits, small touches, and tweaks, as well as the big strokes are coming together to build the image I hoped for when I started.

I am very detail oriented and working in watercolor versus pencil is really challenging to me because once I put color to the paper, I’m mostly committed to the layout, dimensions, placement, and shapes, fixing it if it’s off isn’t an easy option. I’ve had to learn to accept that this is art and may not be exacting with every detail being in the exact place, or even size. That has been a very interesting learning experience with this piece, as well as previous watercolor pieces. It’s a learning to let go and trust.

It can get a bit addictive and obsessive, building a piece of art. I find I easily lose time once I get started. I’ve lost so much sleep because I’ve thought, one more tiny bit and then I’ll stop, and the next thing I know it’s two or three hours later. I’ve had more than a couple of nights like that working on this piece. I’ll probably have one or two more as I work to finish it. And I can’t wait to see the final painting.

Now, for those of you who might be wondering, and might be newer readers. Yes, I do play guitar. As well as make art. I’ve had a guitar for most of my life and played off and on over the years. I try to play with friends on occasion. It has made me a better musician, playing with people. And playing with random, not set groups of people has been a lot of fun. Getting up on stage with a bunch of musicians, some that I’ve never played with before, and calling a key, and a tempo, and coming together to play a song is a lot like the experience I have with creating my art. There is a requirement to just take care of what you’re doing, pay attention to each other, and then trust. Trust that each person will do their part to make the song work and hopefully sound good, while having fun.

And here I thought I had ‘nothin’ to say’. Enjoy the pictures. I’ll have the final piece up on the store as soon as I finish it. Cheers!

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A Couple of Things and AI

Posted on July 17, 2023 by SusanG

First things first. No. You didn’t miss last week’s post. I did. I could offer several reasons or excuses except I don’t know that they would matter. Yes, I had been on holiday from the day job and last week was the return. Yes, I have a friend going through some health issues and I am hopefully being supportive. Yes, I’m working on art projects. Yes, I have music I’m working on, and I have Taekwondo, and it’s summer here in the northern hemisphere. That’s life. 

I also backed off on several things because I didn’t think the post was long enough. They were only a page long but as I’m accustomed to writing longer posts, and the algorithms say posts need to be at least a certain length that meant that they were too short. I think I’m going to set a new standard. I’ll post. Sometimes they will be short, even if they aren’t an announcement. Sometimes they will be long. Somethings don’t require a long dissertation. I just feel they need to be mentioned or observed. So, with that let’s get to this week’s topic. 

patch of pink purple flowers

It was a toss-up this week. I thought about telling you about some new music I have and have listened to. And I thought about talking about the AI thing with Hollywood. I’ve decided to tell you about both, because, why not.

I have two things to share on the music. Both are women singer/songwriters, that I came across because they each did a duet with Olivia Newton-John 20 or so years ago. One was released then, the other was just released in May. Both are outstanding. 

The artist on the song released in May is Vanessa Amorosi. They song is a duet of ‘True to Yourself’ that was released on the Olivia Newton-John duets compilation ‘Just the Two of Us’. I recommend that CD as there are some great tracks, including a great rendition of ‘Jolene’ with Dolly Parton. But back to Vanessa Amorosi. When I listened to that track, ‘True to Yourself’, I was expecting something completely different from her vocal. It’s rich and textured and wow. So, I did a little YouTube and Google search and the first thing I came across was her incredible performance of ‘I Am Woman’ at the ARIA Hall of Fame induction of Helen Reddy. I was floored. What an incredible voice and performance. The second thing I found was her performing ‘Still Got the Blues’ with Orianthi. Yes. I had to forward links of both those videos to at least two music friends because, as I said, wow. She’s on most of the streaming platforms. Her cd ‘City of Angels’ is the latest and it’s great. She has also done some great work with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. 

The artist on the song that was released 20 some years ago is Tina Arena. That song ‘I’ll Come Running’ is a Diane Warren song and it’s also on the new duets complication cd. I could write a lot about Tina Arena. She also has a stunning voice. She’s written some great music as well. During the pandemic when we were all being encouraged to stay home and flatten the curve, she helped to entertain followers with her Instagram episodes of QuaranTina.  She has a new cd out called ‘Love Saves’. This one is brand new as in this week. It fits with a lot of her earlier work. There’s a lot of great tracks on it. I’m looking forward to building a new playlist and adding everything to it. 

Rickenbacher 12 string guitar

Before I get to the AI topic, I want to mention how you can already see the impact of the pandemic and the lock downs and restrictions in our art of the time. So, Tina Arena wasn’t the only one entertaining people from home during the lock downs. Sam Neil from Jurassic Park was posting regularly on Instagram and Twitter. Sometimes they were short musings sometimes little sketches. If you can find it, the one with Helena Bonham Carter as his needy iPhone is quite humorous. Patrick Stewart read us Shakespeare’s sonnets. Jimmy Barnes and his family, a very talented crowd, regaled us with daily performances of whatever song. Those were always a great thing to see first thing in the morning. All of that was great and a lovely treat during a very uncertain time. But there are other things that I’ve seen that reflect the time as well and they will be a bit less fleeting.

Those are the videos of performances and music videos that were made as things were tentatively opening up. Restrictions were lifting and people, performers in particular, were trying to get back to doing what they do. The music video for ‘Jolene’ with Dolly Parton and Olivia Newton-John is a good example. The part of the video of Dolly in the control room with the engineers shows them wearing their masks. Dolly’s of course matches her top. There is also the Orianthi concert dvd, and videos from it, for ‘Live From Hollywood’. One of the musicians playing with her wears his mask for most of the performance, and if you look at her right wrist, you can see her mask looped around it the same way many people would during that time. These are signs of the times we have just come through. And they are preserved now for the sake of history. And I find it really interesting.

Band trio guitar player drummer bass player

Now to the AI thing. I could say a lot on this topic. I could give both sides equal weight and try to go really in depth. Truth is I can’t. I can admit that there are some good uses for it, and that it might even be helpful as a tool for brainstorming ideas, even for creatives, and it might be faster at sorting through some scientific results. That’s all the good press I’m going to give it right now. When they first started openly touting what they could do with it, like the artistic mash ups and some of the writing stuff, it came to light that what they did with the bots that fed it was they stole. They scraped the internet and stole the works of artists and writers and musicians. And now the movie studios are wanting to use it to basically steal again. Only they want the actors and writers to sign a contract telling them they can do it. Legal theft. Yes. I am being simplistic in my assessment and explanation. You can read about why the actors walked out. You can read about why the writers walked out. And I would encourage you to. Because after you do, you might think about that show you’re so upset about missing out on because the actors are striking, a little differently. The big names are striking for not just themselves, also for the little names. The bit part actors that make their living appearing in the background as the person at the bar, or in line at a check out, etc. The studios want them to agree to scans that are taken of them during that filming to be owned by the studio so they can use it whenever they want, without paying for another performance. 

There is a lot of that happening all over, but it doesn’t usually consist of you signing over the rights to your own likeness. Businesses are using bots to ‘streamline’ repetitive activities and to automate those things. And while one could argue about the jobs it eliminates for that as well, in general those are processes being appropriated, not likeness and creation or creativity. 

The writer’s complaint is equally compelling. They are fighting the studios using AI to write stories and scripts that then the writers have to clean up because the studios pay less for re-writes than for new ideas. 

Green guitar being looked at

I was discussing this with my mother the other night. She’s an anthropologist. And she is very curious to see the music that AI creates. Because she sees the AI that scrapes the internet and then compiles from that as a reflection, a mirror, of our times. That’s what music, art, film, stories, creativity in general ultimately are. They are a reflection of the time in which it was created, and the reality of the person creating it. It is our humanity. And what bothers me is that what we will find, when AI is creating music, and anything else, that what it reflects back to us is how much we have lost our humanity. How much we have sacrificed of what makes us human for what. For efficiency to save the studios some money so they can pay their CEO’s and shareholders even more money?

As an artist and a musician, the idea of AI art or music ‘taking over’ nauseates me. It disturbs me. I’m not against progress if it is truly progress. I’m against losing our humanity. I’m against being treated as automatons. I’m against being treated as our feelings, our fears, our joys, our accomplishments, our failures, our triumphs are an inefficient waste of time or energy. And by letting AI take over the creating that we do as part of expressing those things I think we lose just one more part of who we are as humans. So, I absolutely support the writers and the actors on strike right now. They are standing up for all of us regardless of which creative endeavor we are a part of.

And no, I won’t be giving up creating art or music because of AI. I will continue to do it because that is what I do. And I hope you will too. If you create, create with abandon. Share it with abandon. And if you want to change it up, do it. Share your humanity. Cheers.

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Random Stuff From My Week

Posted on July 4, 2023 by SusanG

As sometimes happens, well probably more often than I care for, I had a topic for this post. I started it. I rewrote it. I rewrote it again, and again. Each time it went a bit off the rails. So, I’ve abandoned it. After three tries, if that train doesn’t want to reach the station, it’s not going to. That means that instead, you get random things going on in my world.

I am on holiday from the day job. That does not mean I am on holiday somewhere interesting. Not this time. I’m doing the stay home thing, not that that is much different from being at the day job these days. It does mean that instead of having a schedule I need to keep and other work that takes up my time, I have the day, the schedule, and the time to do as I please. Because of that it can sometimes mean I find projects I didn’t know I had and get lost in those and find half a day gone.

Photo of cds on a stereo
Latest listening, much of which needs to be ripped.

One such project that could do that, and nearly did that at first has to do with my cd collection. My cd collection has begun to grow again in the last month or so adding to a problem I created the last time it grew. A few years ago, just before I started buying a lot of cd’s, I had managed to get everything I had ripped to digital on my computer. Then I bought a bunch of cd’s and didn’t rip them as I got them. Well, I did rip some because I put them on my phone at the time. But a lot I didn’t.

For those who might not know, ripping a cd is basically the process of using a program to copy the file and convert it to a format a media player can read, like .mp3, .mp4 or .wav.

Not having everything ripped hadn’t been much of an issue until recently. I got Air Pods to use with my iPad and iPhone and very quickly discovered that they resolve something that has been bugging me about the cd/record player I have. So first, yes, I have a cd/record player/radio. It is an all-in wonder. But as you might guess, it doesn’t have the best of sound output. It also has this really annoying “feature”. It has auto-attenuation when you plug in headphones. Basically, it won’t let you turn the volume up too loud, I guess for safety. I don’t like this feature. It can make it very difficult to zone in on a pitch, a phrase, or a part because to do that sometimes you have to turn up the volume enough to get to what you’re trying to hear. With my system, at a certain point, it feels like the more I turn it up, the softer it gets, or I turn it up and it turns it right back down. It’s really annoying. So far, my Air Pods have not done that.

Once I figured out that the Air Pods were going to make my listening better, I started using them when working in the art studio and I’m really loving it. It is a little weird if I sing along, and I do, but I don’t have anyone around to be disturbed by it, so I’m not worried about it. While listening this way, I have found that there is stuff I want to listen to that I can’t find on most of the streaming platforms that I pay for. Which is frustrating because I’d love to create a playlist with a bunch of that stuff. So, as you might have guessed, one of the projects I didn’t know I have is trying to catch up on the cd ripping. Which involves, identifying what didn’t get ripped, and ripping it to the computer. It’s going to take some time. I counted last night, and I have nearly 80 cd’s to rip, and some are two cd sets. I don’t expect to finish this while I’m on holiday. I have other things I want to do, and I don’t want to spend all that time sitting in front of a computer. I do that enough as it is. But I’ll chip away at it.

photo of stacks of music cds
Stacks of cd’s to rip

Most of the other projects I may work on this week I listed out last week. I don’t know about you but for me, when I realize I’m going to have time to do stuff, I will make a list of everything that I need to do, or could do since I’ll have a big chunk of time to do it all in. The list is usually longer than I will have time to finish. Though, this time I have managed to get a few of those items knocked out already. However, I haven’t tackled a couple of the ones that are bigger, or at least feel like they are. The nice thing is, there isn’t a room painting project on the list this time. Though…

Yes. It did occur to me to paint or repaint a room in my home. And it would have been a massive project because the room I had in mind is the office with two seven-foot bookshelves that are full. And now, several guitars, as well as an amplifier, not to mention the desk set up that would all have to be moved. Oh, the painting needs doing, And maybe this year, just not this week.

Instead, I’m going to make more art and play some guitar. That is my primary plan for the week. I’ve got a new stippling art piece I’m working on. I’d like to get it done, or mostly done by the end of the week. Amazingly, it’s possible. I used to think every stippling project would take forever, some do, and then I did one over a weekend. It was pretty much all I did that weekend, and I was fairly stiff and sore from sitting in one position for so long. By taking the week, I hope to not have that issue.

photo of a drawing of a cockatoo
The start of the next piece of art

Yes, you did read that play guitar is on the list of this week’s activities. I am back to being able to play more again. Yay. I’ve found a handful of songs I want to learn to play and sing so I’m working on those. None of them are new, though one is new to me. A couple of them are old songs that are great sing-along to songs. And I’ve been working on a more robust way of playing a song I already know. I’ve basically learned the intro and the main fill for it instead of just strumming. That’s a bit of a change for me.

It’s not that I never wanted to learn the intros, and the fills, and the lead guitar parts of a song. I just never took the time to figure it all out. I’d want to play a song right away so I’d find the most expeditious way to play it that would let me sound like I was playing the song. While right now, doing this means it takes longer to learn a song, I’m hopeful that as I do it more and learn more songs that I’ll get better at it, and I’ll be able to enhance songs I already know while new songs won’t take as much to learn. Not to mention, I might not need sheet music or video demos as often. That would be so cool. While I work on the new songs, I’m refreshing some songs I already know. Many of them I haven’t been playing for a year or two, even before I injured myself, and for some songs, I don’t have very good notes on how I was playing them.

Other stuff I have planned for the week include a little cooking, going to dinner with a friend, watching a couple of movies, deciding on the next piece of art after the one I’m working on now, and possibly some daytime Taekwondo. Not an especially exciting week off, and definitely not the excitement of the weeklong trip to Paris. Still, it’s time that is mine to do what I want and I am happy to have it. Now, I think I’ll get a workout in and see what I can get stuck into for today. Peace.

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