Sometimes You Know You Have to Say Goodbye

Posted on November 24, 2023 by SusanG

I have known I was going to write this post for about two and a half months. I’ve been trying to write now for about ten days.

My friend, who I mentioned in the previous post was quite ill. He battled cancer all summer, with the intention of beating it, getting past it. But it was a struggle. We were colleagues at the day job as well as being friends and I watched as things got worse for him, not better. The weight loss was staggering, though he had tried to lose weight previously, this was not a weight loss program he recommended to be sure. I saw how things became more and more difficult for him to deal with. Not that he wasn’t “handling it”, more that he didn’t have the energy to be able to do what he needed to. The pain was significant, which by itself will sap your energy, even though they tried to manage as best they could. And unfortunately, the treatments weren’t doing what they were supposed to. The fatigue was supposed to be getting better, and it wasn’t. But he’d kept working as best he could. So, when he called to tell me that he was taking short term disability leave, I knew this was a battle he wasn’t going to win. I knew he wasn’t going to be coming back and I was going to be saying goodbye to my friend.

When he first told me of his diagnosis, I told him I was ‘here for the good, and the bad’ so we stayed in touch after he signed off from the day job. Since music was the big thing, we had in common, besides the day job, I began sending him my daily earworms. You know those songs that get stuck in your head for no apparent reason? Those are earworms. There are some that are quite insidious, I won’t mention them lest I inadvertently end up inflicting them on you. Anyway, I tend to wake up with at least one of these most days, so for entertainment purposes, and to give him something fun to look forward to, I sent him a YouTube link to a video or a Spotify link to my daily earworm. 

About a week after he signed off, he sent me a note that one of the treatments seemed to help so there was a glimmer of hope. It didn’t last long. About a week later he called me from the hospital to tell me they were sending him home on hospice. I hadn’t seen my friend in the flesh in three and a half years so when he finally gave me a chance to visit him, I got myself right over to see him. First at the hospital, and then when he got home. I knew I was going to have to say good-bye, before that I was going to see my friend and have a chat or two and hopefully a few laughs as well. 

I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend time with my friend before he departed. And I’m very grateful that the trip I had planned to take got canceled. Because my trip was canceled, I had two more opportunities to visit my friend. And yes, we did get a few good conversations in, and a really good laugh or two, and I even got to share some new music with him, that he quite enjoyed. 

We don’t always get the chance to say goodbye, to have that last conversation, a last laugh. Sometimes people die suddenly and if we hadn’t told them what we wanted them to know before then the opportunity was lost. Sometimes, we get the chance to say good-bye, the chance to say, or try to say what we want them to know or show them if we can’t say it. 

My father passed away rather unexpectedly one night ten years ago. I had talked to him a week or so before, but I didn’t know that was going to be the last conversation I had with him. My sister didn’t know that whatever she said to her husband when he got up to check something one night, was going to be the last conversation, she had with him. My mother had a friend who was dying, and they both knew it. It was a several months process, and my mother took every opportunity to talk to her friend that came up. She had a chance to say goodbye to her friend, as I did with mine. 

I wish I could say that being able to say goodbye, knowing that that person is leaving your world soon, makes it easier when the time comes. In some ways it does, and in some ways, it doesn’t. Hopefully, you take the time to make a few more memories and they are good ones. But when the time comes, you still miss your friend, your sibling, your spouse, your parent. There will be things come up that you wish you could talk to them about or share with them and that’s when you will feel their absence most. Just a few days after my friend passed an artist that I’d shared with him released a new cd that has some songs on it I wish I could have shared with him. He would have liked them. 

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We Don’t Always Know How We Impact Others

Posted on November 12, 2023 by SusanG

Or that we do.

I have a friend who is quite ill. He has a rare cancer that isn’t responding to treatment, and it is just eating him up. I have had the good fortune to have a couple of interesting conversations with him recently and one in particular stands out. 

My friend isn’t especially fond of people and in fact there are very few that he would call friends. In spite of that, he has still had an impact on people that he didn’t even have a clue about, until they started showing up to help out or to stop by and offer some moral support. He was completely caught off guard. He’s a little confused by the idea and fact that not only is his current wife taking care of him, but his ex-wife has been there to help out and take care of him and backup his current wife. He told me that in a way, he wished he’d ran a motorcycle into a wall instead of this somewhat drawn-out process. 

I pointed out to my friend that had he ran a motorcycle into a wall he would never have known how and how much he had impacted people’s lives and that getting to learn that was a gift. He gets to leave this life knowing that he did have an impact on people around him, though he may have not thought he did. 

Did he do anything spectacular or special with his life? Not really. I asked him what all he had done, in reference to his different jobs or careers because I knew of like five different and diverse careers that he’d had. And his response was something like, ‘I kept a roof over our heads and kept my kids fed.’

We never know how or how much we impact someone just by living our lives. Just by being who we are and going about our days, our weeks, our lives as we do. I understand how he feels finding out that he’s been impactful to people. It’s an odd thing to have someone come up to you and say, ‘you know, I really admire the way you do…’ I’ve had that happen. More than once. And it always surprises me. I know I live my life as I choose, for the most part, and it doesn’t completely conform to what seems to be the norm or the expectation. But I never expected it to be something someone actually noticed and got something from. Like my friend, I just live my life.

Where I am always most surprised to get mention of is when I play music out. I don’t think I’m an especially accomplished musician or singer. I enjoy doing it and I always give it my best. And I am always surprised to find out that someone really enjoyed my performance, and even more surprised to find out someone showed up to whatever event because I was going to be there or might be there. 

And that’s the thing, right? That even if we don’t think we are noteworthy regarding our life or what we do. Whether that’s playing music in some club once a month, or just the way we interact with colleagues, we have to accept that we will impact someone’s life. And we may be a bigger impact than we are prepared for. Hopefully, in whatever way we touch someone’s life it is for the better. But really, we have no control over it, and we have to accept that too. It’s quite surreal. 

That’s the deep philosophical part of this week’s post. There will be another one coming in the next few weeks. But I’m not ready to write that one. So, let’s move on to other things now.

It has been an interesting couple of weeks, and a few days in particular. Of course, I’ve been working on art. The Iguana was demanding. I’ve probably mentioned that. It might also be that it felt a little obsessive. Like it needed to be completed. It is the most complicated, detailed, and involved stippling painting I’ve done. And the fact that I think I have pulled it off amazes me. 

So. The update on the Iguana is… the Iguana is done. I’ve finished the detail on it. I did let it sit for a while before I signed it. I wasn’t sure that the painting itself was done, at first. I thought it might need just a little more. Kind of like the Koala needed the tree that it was looking at to be there. At first, I thought the Iguana kind of needed the rock it’s sitting on. I thought about doing it in stippling as well but as I worked on it, and got close to finishing it, I thought that to do the rock in stippling would be overwhelming and decrease the impact of the Iguana itself. So, I thought of doing the rock in watercolor. Ultimately, I didn’t. After a day or so I realized that it just didn’t need it. 

At that point I was able to get back to working on the Galah. I had an idea of how to tackle the wings for about two weeks, but that Iguana didn’t want me to work on it. It did take me a moment to get settled to work on it since it’s watercolor and I had been laying down dots for so long. But it was nice to get back to working on it. 

Both the Iguana and the Galah are too big for my scanner so I will have to take them to an art photographer to get the digital files I need for uploading them to my art store. I had hoped to have them both done and off to the photographer before my trip I was planning to take, but that didn’t happen. And even though the trip got canceled I still haven’t got over to the photographer. I’m a little nervous about using the photographer, but, if the results are good, then it really opens up things for me because it means I’ll be able to work bigger. 

I also got a chance to work on the experiment. I had got it to the point of needing to have a coat of spray fixative applied so I could continue working on it. It’s on watercolor paper, not pastel paper so it doesn’t start with a lot of tooth. But I did it that way because I knew I wanted to try the technique of dissolving the pastels, so the support had to be able to handle the water. That means that it very quickly ran out of the ability to take any more pastel chalk and hold onto it. Thus, the fixative. Of course, once that was done, and it was dry, I was ready to work on it. I’m pleased and surprised how it’s coming along. It might need another round of fixative.

Every once in a while, I wake up and have to go right to the art studio and work on something. Something is compelling me, and it doesn’t care about breakfast or coffee it needs to be done or tried. I had that happen a week or two ago. I woke up and knew I had to try a version of the experiment in oils instead of pastels. Yep. Oil paints. I’ve completed one painting in oils and I’ve started another. It’s not like I have a lot of experience with oil paints. But that is what was called for. I got the base of the water in and that was enough to satisfy the need. That won’t be the last of the project. I’ll work on it further. I may even finish it. It will be interesting to see how it turns out, pastel versus oil paints. I expect it will be quite a different piece, much like my Aussie flower that I did in pastel on colored paper and then again in watercolor and colored pencil.

Yes, I had planned on taking a trip. I was going to New York. It would have been my first trip to New York as a destination. I’ve been through New York once but that was it. This time it is the final stop. Originally, I was planning on going to a concert, but the concert got canceled. And no, I couldn’t have seen the concert at home. This was one of my Aussie music artists that doesn’t really tour the U.S. But, since, to see her I was going to have to travel, I chose the place I’d never been. Unfortunately, she has had to postpone or cancel the rest of her tour because of health reasons so I wasn’t going to get to see her. I was however still going to go to New York. I was going with a neighbor, and we had gotten tickets to see a Broadway musical. And I was going to get to see New York. Unfortunately, my neighbor got sick. As this was strike two for this trip, we decided to call it off for now. When the universe starts creating obstacles it’s time to let the universe have its way. It turned out to be ok.

Because I wasn’t traveling, I got to visit my friend again. And I got to watch the black belt promotion test of several of the students that I train Taekwondo with. It was a large group. And it was great. I was thrilled to get to see all of them do such a great job. And they yelled! I can’t quite explain what it was like to sit there and feel all that. I’m glad I had that opportunity. 

I’ve started a new piece. I decided to take a chance that the photographer is going to work out and this one is much bigger. It’s 18in x 24in. And it’s a stippling. The great thing about bigger is more space to either use more of the subject or have a multi-subject piece such as the one I started. I’m working on a stippling project of two penguins. I’ve got a good portion of one of the penguins filled in. I got part way done and realized I needed to make it darker, so I backed up and did that as it impacts how the lighter areas get approached. The contrast is important.

I could probably keep writing but that should get you up to date for now. I’ll be working on the penguins and starting another piece or two. Oh. I did post a Christmas themed piece, it’s up on the store. I’ll drop a picture of it here too. Cheers!

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Turn It Upside Down

Posted on October 23, 2023 by SusanG

That’s actually a technique I used to use when I would draw portraits. I’d get to a point where something didn’t look right but I couldn’t figure out what was off. At some point someone suggested that I turn the drawing upside down to see if that would help. It did. I don’t use it as often these days. However, recently, I kind of had the same sort of insight that that would give me for my drawing regarding my music playing.

When I started playing regularly again, a few years ago, I fell into singing. I have always considered myself just a guitar player and I’ll often describe myself as just a strummer because I have never been much of a lead player. It was completely unexpected but the reaction I got was so much fun that I decided I’d try to learn more songs that I could do where I could sing and play.

Thanks to my friend James Coleman for capturing this at a recent open mic night.

The environment I was playing in or at is, was a blues jam. It’s an interesting format and apparently not for everyone. It’s also a lot of fun. The format is 12 barre blues songs and generally whoever is singing calls the tune. And if you don’t have a singer then one of the guitar players calls it. I have played so many songs for the first time on stage. It’s possible because, it’s a specific format and it’s not meant to be a cover of the song. And it’s fairly easy for a strummer to get to join in and play, even if they don’t know the song.

Because that’s the only place I play out and that was the format, I was always looking for songs that fit that format, that other people would know, or that I could teach the chord changes to quickly, oh, and that I could sing. I might choose something to try to learn because I thought it was a cool song and that I might be able to play or sing ok. But because I was playing and singing, if I worked on a song for a while and couldn’t get them both down, I passed on the song. Or I might get something down just enough and then I’d try it out at a jam and not be able to really get it to work and not play it again. So, my repertoire is smaller than I’d like.

Just a cool sunset I happened upon

During the years before the initial lock downs of the Covid pandemic I learned so much doing this. I learned how to lead a band. I learned a little about how to own a song vocally. I learned how to make mistakes and forget words and keep going. I even learned how to take a lead or a solo. I’m still learning how to do that. But I went from passing every time one was offered to me to actually taking the turn and handing back. For as much as I learned, some of my growth both on guitar and vocally was being stunted, by me. By me trying to make sure I was working on the stuff I could play and sing.

I didn’t realize this consciously until just recently. I felt it. I knew I needed and wanted to learn to play better, to get into more finessed playing and rhythm playing. I just didn’t recognize what it was that was holding me back from getting there. Getting to sitting down and really working on something to get the main rhythm hook down or even the main riff or whatever. And vocally, that’s a whole other thing. I would tell you I sing to accompany my guitar playing not the other way around. So, I didn’t consider myself a singer. I just happened to sing. As a result, I didn’t put near the effort into getting the vocals down a certain way. If I could sing it roughly like it was supposed to sound, I called it good. A few songs I worked on, but it wasn’t what my focus was.

The experiment

That started to change recently when I had the opportunity to be the singer for a bit. It wasn’t for any reason other than because there were just a few of us there to play but we didn’t have enough amps for all the guitars and since I felt every other guitar player there was better than me, I was ok not playing. I had a great time. And no this is not leading to me giving up guitar and only singing. Because as much fun as I had doing that, I still do like to play. But the seed was planted that I might be ok sometimes just singing. I did do that a couple of times back before the lock downs. But it was one off stuff for like a friend who wanted to play a particular song, but he didn’t know it to sing it, or it was a funky thing that was sort of on a whim, not anything that was like, oh, you should do more just singing.

Still with that seed planted, for when the next opportunity to play came up. After my session, I was talking to another guitar player, who pointed out that it isn’t easy to sing and play and he asked what other songs I might know in case when he got up there, they needed a singer. And that’s when it occurred to me that I might want to look for songs that I can sing, even if I can’t play them. Because. That same night, we had a lady come it quite late, who wanted to sing. She did some songs that I usually do, something that is fairly common and to be expected. And she had a great voice, and she owned what she was doing. One of the songs she did, I realized I have learned to play the guitar part of it, “properly”, I just can’t play it that way and sing. And I thought that I would really have liked to have handled the guitar part on that for her because it would have been fabulous.

Iguana progress

By the time I got home that night, I had taken my music playing and singing and turned it upside down and had a look at it from a different direction, different point of view. The next time I’m looking for a song or two to learn, I’ll be approaching it a bit different. Instead of making sure I can sing it and play it, I’ll work on whichever part is that draws me to the song. Then, if I happen to be able to do the other part too, great. If not, that’s cool too. I’ll have to develop a plan. Or at least get an idea of how I want to approach things. It may take a while for this to come to full fruition since the music isn’t my primary focus these days. I’ll be working on it in between art projects and the day job. Even at that, I think it will give me a new freedom and excitement towards playing and singing. I’m kind of excited about it, and honestly, my head is still reeling from the whole change in thought that I haven’t been able to start to look at what I might want to try now.

And while that sits brewing in my brain I’ll be getting back to the art. I’m still working on that lizard, that I have found out is an Iguana. A Galapagos Iguana if I remember correctly. I’ve even done a little work on my experiment. And I’ve got another little ditty I’m working on that I’ll share when I get it done. I still have the Galah to finish. I’d hoped to get to work on it over the weekend, but my Saturday plans changed, and it didn’t happen. That’s ok. The painting can wait. This couldn’t. I’ll have more updates soon. Cheers!

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Time for an Update

Posted on October 9, 2023 by SusanG

It’s time for another post. The frustrating thing this week is that I don’t have a lot to write about. Or I don’t think I do. I’ll know for sure by the time I finish this post if I have much to say about the week.

I did learn something that has made a difference in how I approach something. And it’s made it more palatable, tolerable, both, maybe. That’s helpful. So maybe a little personal background for a start. I have a stubborn streak. I have such a stubborn streak that when it gets triggered, I dig in and throw a mental temper tantrum about it. If I’m lucky it’s just a mental temper tantrum and not a full-on tantrum. I’ve gotten better about this over the years because I have learned that it really doesn’t serve me well. But it still comes up on occasion though not too severe. Usually, it rears its head more as ‘that feels really awkward or creepy’.

I will be the first admit that I don’t really like the whole putting myself out there and asking for people to look at my work or like my stuff and that sort of thing. I would tell you it’s always felt sort of desperate. But as I’ve started my art prints store, I need to learn to do this and get comfortable with it. The company I’m working through has a whole strategy for doing this and several artists who have become successful through it have come out and said it absolutely works.

One of the first things that is needed is to get eyes on my art and activity. They have a strategy for this. And when I first heard it, I was thinking how that sounded sort of pathetic the way they suggest going about reaching this social media goal. But this week I happened to catch just a little bit of a discussion about this goal, and it included the reason why. It wasn’t the reason I thought it was.

It had to do with the algorithm for the particular platform. Not to just get people to like your work. That’s just a side benefit. It’s to trigger the algorithm and get it to show your work to more people. Well, dang. I get that. And with that information the methodology for reaching the goal becomes a lot easier.

Now, I am not saying there aren’t still some internal discussions going on. It does require a shift in thought. I have to decide that I want this enough to see it happen and that I’m willing to accept that there are things I might not think make sense that I need to do to make it happen. And then I have to be willing to do the work to make that happen. Because as much as it seems like for some people things just fall in their lap, the truth is they probably did a whole lot of work to get to the point that things could land in their lap. They either did the work or had connections. I don’t have the connections, that I know of, but I can do the work. And having an understanding of why helps make the work more acceptable, if not more palatable.

I worked on art this week. I worked on the Galah over the last weekend and haven’t got back to it. It needed a rest. It’s just about ready to get some work again so I expect to have more on that soon. I mostly worked on the lizard. I think the last post it was just the sketch outline. Now it’s got dots and is coming together, though there is still a lot of work to do. It has been rather insistent this week that it needs attention. I find it much easier to not fight the art and insist on working on something that isn’t interested in being worked on and thus neglecting something that really wants attention. Doing that just never goes well.

Besides, the Galah was at the point all my pieces hit at some time and that is the point where I think, ‘ugh, maybe I should just start over’. I have learned to have a little patience and faith because often this is a fleeting moment in the creation. So, if I just keep going, or give it a rest, I can then see what needs to happen and where it needs to go next. The Galah had hit that point. I’ve had that with the Lizard already and I just keep working. I even had that with my experiment.

I don’t work on the experiment near as much as the other paintings. But it was asking for some attention, so I obliged. It was not a simple straightforward process. I added color to fill out more of the scene and then thought I needed to go back and adjust or add more to the areas I’d already worked on. The result was that it looked a lot darker than I wanted it and it lost some of its luminescence. I did what I could to fix it. Not entirely certain I had done the right thing, but I was at a point I couldn’t keep working on it without making a mess. So, I stopped. I walked away for the night. I came back to it the next day after it had dried and discovered that I’d done exactly the right thing. And learned something of what I might need to do for the next segment.

I don’t paint/work from a very trained and technical background. I’ve taken few formal classes and few online classes, so I haven’t had a lot of exposure to techniques for solving specific problems. Or even any problems. That means that for me a lot of things are trial and error and then fix it again. I’ve read a few things of theory about not using this or that when painting and the properties of this or that, but not much. So, to make something of a guess at what might solve the problem I had and to see it be exactly what I needed, was a huge win for me.

My next steps with that piece involve getting the base of color down for the whole thing so I can apply a layer of fixative and get a bit more texture to move on to more detail.

I had another big moment for me. One of the things that we are often asked to do, whether in business or art or anything else we do, is to sum up or present a one or two sentence synopsis of what we do. What type of music we play or compose, what type of work we do at our place of employment, what type of art we create. In the case of art, and music composing I think, it seems we are also expected to convey not just what we create, but also our philosophy regarding it in those one or two sentences. I have always had a hard time doing this. There are reasons for that. The biggest and most prominent reasons are my unwillingness to really assess what I do, and my distaste of being confined to a definition or category.

Both of those reasons have gotten in the way of me being able to introduce and explain my art to others, particularly since I use multiple mediums. I have finally been able to come up with that definition, explanation. I’ve only just been able to identify this definition and I am still adjusting the wording so I’m not ready to share it.

As you can see, it’s been an eventful week artistically. It has been a quiet week musically. I have work I need to do there though. Some of which I really need to make time for. A friend has asked more than once if I knew a particular song as he can play it but isn’t comfortable singing yet, so I want to learn it. And I have a whole holiday playlist from my sister that I need to get to work on. I did work on a couple of songs but there are like 15 or so on her list. I know I just strum for these, but I do still have to get some familiarity with the strum pattern and the chord changes. And transpose a few of the songs so there’s quite a bit of work to do there. And you know what, with thought I will sign off for this week and catch you up again next time. Cheers.

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It’s About Connecting

Posted on October 1, 2023 by SusanG

Last time I said I had two topics playing in my head to write about. I wrote about the one last time. About doing that “hard thing” and I said that this time I would write on the other topic. The other topic is about connecting. I know it might sound a bit ‘cheesy’ but hear me out. And then I’ll fill you in on some of my art adventures from the last couple of weeks.

I saw something recently that was attributed to Carlos Santana, he supposedly said something about ‘music should touch the heart of move the feet’. I’ve also seen a video of Dave Stewart from Eurythmics talking about his purpose in life is to connect with people and he does that through music. He said, roughly, that ‘a hit record just means you connected with that many people’. Absolutely. Music and Art both are about connecting.

My neighbor’s way of connecting with the rest of the stairwell

I could go on for a very long time about music and its ability to connect people and I probably have in another post at some point, if not, it’s probably a good thing because that is a soap box I have to be dragged off of. So, let’s look at Art. Oh and before I get too far, I will argue that writing of all forms is the same, it’s about connecting through story.

We create art of whatever form to connect with others. We express our feelings, our emotions, our vision, our inner story through art. I’ve seen memes saying music is the language of the soul. It expresses feelings that we can’t put into words. Art, the visual arts, help us visually express those emotions, the sense of wonder or beauty. It lets us share the beauty we see in our mind’s eye or feel with our heart with others. And its purpose is connecting. We don’t connect with everyone. That’s not realistic. But we do strive to connect whether we recognize that or not.

Interestingly, when we choose to create a piece of art, be it from our minds eye or from a reference, it is because we connected with the image. The image we are striving to share, to produce, to bring to life, connected with us. It spoke to us, it said it needed to be shared with others and we responded to that and agreed to find a way to share it. So, we create it and hope that we were able to share what spoke to us in a way that it speaks to others. But we have no control over how others see it.

The first experiment. Using it to test pastel over watercolor.

I may want to create a piece of art from an ocean scene because the colors of the water sing to me, but someone else may see the shape of the waves, or the shoreline, or the clouds in the sky and something about that may be what speaks to them. Just as in a conversation, you may say one thing and the person listening may hear the words and take a different meaning from them. When we create art or music or a piece of literature, we create it out of a need to share that story, that piece of music, that piece of art. And we hope that it will connect with others. Because as humans we need that connection. We are not isolated islands in a great ocean. Part of being human is that need for connection. Some need more connections than others. But I’ve found that even those who “don’t like people” still have and need some connections to other people. So, yeah, art, music, writing, all of it, it’s about connecting.

Another time we’ll talk about how some pieces just have to be created.

For now, on to the art adventures. And I’ll try to be succinct. And hope it makes sense.

You might remember my wanting to paint water scenes, particularly ocean scenes and finding it a little bit of a challenge in watercolors and thinking that pastels might work better. I was working on the detail bits of my latest painting, the Daylily, using colored pencil and I got to thinking about how that might work for the wave soup that I was having particular trouble with. So, I pulled out my experimental piece and gave it a go. It is a solution. But as I was working it over, I was thinking that there had to be a better way. Since, I had thought about the pastels previously I decided to try them. Sure enough, they not only will cover the color beneath, but I can also get the effect I want so it’s a win.

Testing pastels with water. See how well they dissolve.

It gets better though. So, I ordered more paints, in liquid form instead of solid form thinking I was going to need or want to mix a greater quantity of a color for working in a larger format and it would be easier to do with tubes than with the pans (the solid form of watercolors). And then I remembered something I watched a few years ago.

When I was first looking to get more pastels I did a little research on a couple of the different brands, and in doing that I learned that some of the pastels, particularly the soft pastels can be used with water. Sort of like watercolor pencils. No, I’m not joking. But I had to try it. I was and am ecstatic to find it works. It works really well. It’s like the pastel is solid pigment just waiting to have water added to it. This explains why the colors seem to melt a bit when I spray my pastel paintings with fixative at the end. I wasn’t even paying attention. Wow.

Anyway, as a result of this revelation about the pastels I ordered more so I would have the water and terrain colors I need to try to render one of the ocean scenes I took a picture of while I was in Australia. I have a few and I just love the color of the water. And right now, I have a bigger piece of paper taped to a board sitting on my easel. I’ve started the piece, using pastels on watercolor paper so that I can apply the water to the pastel without the paper totally buckling and becoming unworkable.

The new experiment. Pastels dissolved with water.

I have already learned something about the paper I’m using. Which leads to a slightly different conversation about paper in general. I had found some paper that I really like working on but at first, I only found this small-ish sketchbook. The paper is about 8 inches by 8 inches. I’ve since been able to acquire some of the same paper in a larger size. It’s great for watercolor. I love it for watercolor. It’s not what I’m using for the pastel. I’m getting to that.

Because the paper I love for the watercolor is the size it is and I wanted a larger size for some stuff, I found something sort of the next size up and the same weight or thickness. And it’s been working well. But since I’m ready to work just a little larger I decided to purchase a different brand of watercolor paper. I’ve never bothered with it, to my knowledge, I think because I might have thought it was either too expensive and high a quality and I really didn’t need anything that great, or I thought it wasn’t really that great. I think it was the first to be honest. And that gets to a whole different discussion that if I haven’t written about it, I probably will.

Anyway, the new paper. I’m using it for the newest watercolor painting I’m doing as well as the stippling. Oh. I should explain that. They paper comes in both a cold press surface and a hot press surface. The hot press surface is very smooth, and the cold press has more tooth to it. The large paper for my experimental ocean scene is standard watercolor paper with the standard texture. It’s absorbent, sort of and has a texture but not a lot of tooth, so it doesn’t grip a lot of pastel.

New painting on new paper.

I really like the new cold press paper and will likely switch to it and order or go purchase more. I have only done the sketch for the piece that is using the hot press paper, I haven’t started with the ink, so I don’t have an opinion on that yet, though it’s promising.

And for those who care or want to know. The paper I really love for watercolor is Shinzen, I think it’s from India and it is recycled cotton. The paper I have been using is the Fabriano 1264. The pastels and watercolors are from Sennelier though I also have Rembrandt pastels that I may supplement with if I don’t have the color I need in the Sennelier. I also have some Derwent pastel pencils that I will likely use because they also take water. And the new paper is Arches. I think that’s the fun details.

And now that I’ve got you all updated, I’m going to get back to painting. Oh. And working on learning songs for my sister’s holiday playlist. Cheers!

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