Recent Art Adventures

Posted on December 11, 2023 by SusanG

As I promised in the last post this will be an art update. Do you have your beverage? Got it? Ok. Here we go.

To be honest it seems like a bit of a whirlwind though I know it wasn’t. I finished up the Iguana and the Galah and got them off to the photographer who turned them around pretty quick which was awesome. And I posted them on my art prints store, so they are available now.

I may have mentioned in a previous post that the Iguana was the most detailed and complex piece I’d done in stippling. When I choose a piece for stippling, I have tended towards interesting but not overly detailed, like with scales or something like that. Partly because of the size of paper I was working on. I suspect among other reasons was a lack of confidence. Could I actually do something detailed and complex in stippling and make it look good? I can say that after finishing the Iguana I don’t worry about complexity as much.

The Galah was a piece that just needed to be done. It was so striking and compelling. But I did have some trouble with it that I partly attribute to the paper I was using which was not the paper I had been using and it behaved much different. I’m still pleased with the outcome.

The piece I started after the Iguana and Galah was the Penguin pair. I’d had a friend suggest I do a piece that had more than one subject in it because he wanted to see more depth which you get better with multiple subjects instead of just the one in more of a portrait framing.

Fortunately, I’d taken a picture of a couple of Humboldt Penguins together. So, I decided that would be the next piece. Since I was doing two subjects and I wanted to do a stippling piece I thought I needed more room to get the right amount of detail and fit them both on the page properly, so I got out the biggest watercolor paper I have. The 18 inches by 24 inches Penguins piece is the largest stippling piece I have done so far. For those that are wondering how long it took, I’m not sure. I didn’t keep track. Though I will keep track for the next stippling piece that I start fresh. A reasonable guess would be that it took at least 40 hours. That’s based on a giraffe piece that I did previously that I know took about 15 hours.

I often will let a painting sit a few days before I sign it and declare it finished, since I wanted to get started on my next piece, I sat it aside on and easel that faces the door of the art studio so any time I walk past I see it. It’s a good way to catch things that need adjusting. It sat and didn’t need adjusting.

One day, while working on the penguins I made a trip to the art supply store for that easel and a few other things. When settling up at the register I got to talking to one of the clerks and as part of  the conversation I was sharing some photos on my phone of my art and scrolled past a piece that I started several years ago and put aside. It’s a stippling painting of an Ovation Celebrity guitar. It was one of my guitars at the time and I had the idea then of doing paintings of guitars, or parts of guitars, the defining or interesting features and headstocks. I did the headstock of my Les Paul as a first try and then decided to try the Ovation. And decided to go bigger. Oh. It’s in color and on canvas board. Both of them, the Les Paul and the Ovation. I finished the Les Paul and got a long way through the Ovation and stopped. I stopped for various reasons, some were silly, and some were probably related to the process.

Anyway, as I was talking guitars and art with the clerk it occurred to me that I should probably see about fishing up the Ovation. We also discussed the idea of doing more guitar artwork, much along the lines of what I had been thinking a few years ago, when I started the Ovation piece. So, when I got home and setup the easel, I pulled out the unfinished Ovation stippling painting and put it up there so I could think about how to tackle it.

How to start was the big hurdle to overcome with the Ovation. A lot of that had to do with the areas that I’d already worked on but knew needed to either be finished or needed another layer of dots and I was going to need to color match, or color, close, match. So, I decided the easiest way to get back into it was to start on the areas I hadn’t touched at all. The first thing I tackled was the background. Originally, I had planned on a grey or dark grey background but was concerned that might kill the piece, it might not let the guitar stand out very well. Instead, I decided some Payne’s Gray mixed haphazardly with some white could give a really nice, mottled effect. I did try mixing some black for grey in as well, but it didn’t work really well so the Payne’s Gray all the way. Which, as a note, the background is not stippling, it’s just brush work so that it doesn’t take away from the stippling part. Once I finished the background it really made the rest of the painting, though it wasn’t finished, it popped, and I got excited about working on it.

That’s what you want, right. To be excited to work on a piece of art.

With the background done I moved on to the trim or the binding and purfling since it was right next to the background. The binding on the neck is a slightly different color from the body of the guitar so I did that and the fret inlays first. It was a good way to get back into the stippling part of the piece.

That was one of the biggest parts of working on this piece, the colors. Most of the colors had to be mixed and since it takes so long to do parts of it, I had to mix enough color to last through to that section being finished as well as a little to be lost to evaporation. Even with covers, lids, and plastic wrap, the ink does still dry out sooner or later and it is often much sooner than I prefer.

The other big part was the size. At the time I started it, it was the largest stippling project I’d attempted. The Penguins are larger. It is the largest color stippling project I’ve done. Also, there was a lot of coverage needed, as well as the detail involved. Which probably as something to do with why I stopped working on it. At the time I think I got burnt out on it and a little overwhelmed because I thought there was still so much more to do to it and yet I had worked on it for so long.

As I’ve worked on it there are a few things that I’ve noticed or remembered that probably also contributed to my walking away for so long that would have been related to frustration.

The first of the frustrations is that it’s on canvas board. It was pre-prepared and then I added a grey colored layer to it because I thought it would enhance it. That didn’t eliminate the texture though and the texture is a frustration when doing stippling. Add to that, the fact that I’m doing stippling with a dip pen. It gets a bit annoying to try to get dots in places, but the ink keeps ending up in the valleys of the canvas texture. I apparently didn’t find this annoying after completing the Les Paul painting or I would probably have done something different. I know it bothered me enough after working on this for a while that I experimented with adding a thick layer of gesso and then sanding it smooth. I still have my test board. I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Another of the frustrations was discovering, or realizing, that most of the inks are at least semi-transparent. That means that getting good coverage and brightness out of them was time consuming because it took many more layers of color than it might have on a lighter colored base instead of my medium grey. Coupling that with the size of the project and how much of the canvas needed to be covered lead to a bit of discouragement. Probably a good thing I did the background first and got excited about it this time. It means it’s been easier to accept those things.

Another thing I was reminded of while working on it this time is that working with the acrylic inks has its own challenges. There’s the potential for being messy, yes, but all paints and pastels have that problem. They clog the dip pens. Anything with white added is especially bad. But they dry on the nib as I’m working and so I have to stop periodically and wipe the nib down completely before I can continue. And there is the mixing issue that I’ve already mentioned.

Even with all of that, I have managed to get the Ovation painting to a point of possibly complete. I have set it on the easel for its waiting period and will make that decision soon. I could easily go in and add more layers of dots to the body of the guitar or even the fretboard, but at a certain point you get so much saturation that it is difficult to see the dots and identify the piece as a stippling project. So that’s the dilemma right. How much do I do to make it the most impactful and yet not so much that you can’t tell how it was done. I think it might be at its sweet spot.

Which leaves me at a new starting point with some choices. The first choice is what to create next. Normally I have something decided already and I just keep going. This time I haven’t decided so I’m torn between types of projects, watercolor, black and white stippling, a guitar piece which has so many more things to consider. I’ll let you know next time how that turns out. Cheers.

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A Little Reminder

Posted on December 4, 2023 by SusanG

It’s funny how reminders come from odd places.

“So, I guess I shouldn’t practice singing?” “I thought you were a guitar player?” “I am…”. That was the conversation with my dentist when talking about some lingering pain from the recent dental work. It turns out it was a reminder I needed.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I have been feeling a little hampered in the development of my guitar skills because I had taken on singing and have focused on trying to learn songs that I can sing and play. Which, with the other stuff I do, leaves little time to really work on developing as a guitar player. Something that is a little frustrating for me.

Ready for the holiday

I like to sing, don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving it up. And of course, if I need to, I’m happy to take the mic and fill in. However, I very much enjoy playing and am even happier to back up a good singer, or even an ok singer who just wants to have fun. I even enjoy learning a song on the fly and trying to keep up. That’s some of the most fun I’ve had. Still, I would like to be better. I would like to feel like I’m at least a good musician.

That said, though I’m not technically proficient; I can’t play songs to the note of the recording, or close, I am adventurous and willing to try to learn or play just about anything. Which might make me a bit better a musician than I think I am. And that’s a really strange thought for me. It’s also one of the things I have gotten out of playing at the Charlotte Blues Jam over the last six years.

I say six years, even though I played with them for a few months about twelve years ago when I first moved here, because it was six years ago that I returned and really engaged and tried to learn from it and everyone I played with. There hasn’t been a night that I didn’t learn something, whether it be a new song, how to keep playing when I forget the words, how to lead a band, how to sit in the pocket and help keep the groove going, and even how to take a lead/solo. I’ve learned so much from the format and the environment and the musicians.

Part of what has made the blues jam so valuable for me has been the format of throwing random bands together. Even if you came with a group you wanted to play with you only got to do that once, the next time you were up, you were with whoever was around to play. I have actually told people that that experience would make them better musicians, and I truly believe it.

I had a recent experience where the group after me, I was hoping to get a bit of a random jam going, wasn’t comfortable with learning a to play a song on the fly. They felt the song had too many chords to learn and get down in a few seconds. Maybe. I think it was four or five chords. And it was a really well-known song, not some obscure thing that I like to play that has a dozen or so chords that seem to change randomly. The group is technically proficient and really good at playing together the specific songs they know. Does that mean I’m better than them or they are better than me? It depends on what you are looking for. Could I be a better guitar player? Oh, definitely, I won’t argue that for a minute. I know I could be better. Could they become better? I’m going to go with yes. I think them teaming up with and having to play with others for whatever songs were chosen would make them better, just like it made me better.

Some of the recent additions to my library

So, the interesting bit on that encounter is this, they didn’t know the song we wanted to do, I don’t know how to play the song they were going to do. While I’m not sure what their response to the experience is going to be, I can tell you my response is that I need to learn that song, and that’s even though it’s not one I particularly like. But it’s on my list of songs to look into learning at least a basic version of.

Which brings me back to my reminder. I’m a guitar player. Though I like to sing, I do it because of a need. I started singing because of a need. I started singing, really singing, at a jam, on stage, while playing because I had learned the song ‘Merry Christmas Baby’ as something to do because the jam was in December, and I thought it would be fun to do for my first time back to playing in so many years. It turned out the singer for the group I was in didn’t know the song but offered to have me sing it. I often compare the blues jam experience to surfing. Not that I’m a very good surfer. But it does give a good analogy of the experience. And I can say that first time singing was what it must feel like to catch a big wave and ‘shoot the tube’. It was an extremely satisfying experience that I will never forget and often share with my Taekwondo classmates as an example of the importance of the ki-yap in our practice (that’s the yelling part). That’s a whole other story. But my experience in Taekwondo made that evening possible. And what I got from that jam has made so much more possible. And because that experience was so satisfying, I made efforts to add more songs I could sing and play to my repertoire and got caught up in trying to expand that. Not that I didn’t continue to work on my guitar skills. They were focused more on supporting a vocal of a song as opposed to making the guitar better.

So yes, I needed the reminder that I’m a guitar player. I happen to sing. Still, I’m a guitar player first and I want to do so much more with that. And since the effects of the dental work means I need to keep my mouth shut for a bit, and the December jam is not happening this year, I guess I’ll spend some time working on my guitar skills and not worry about singing. What a treat.

My ‘to be read’ stack right now

And since that revelation, reminder, I sat down to work on a piece I’m supposed to do with my sister, over facetime, and I’ve got a nice accompaniment identified for it figure out and I’ve got a couple of other songs that I’m just focusing on the guitar part. One is an instrumental I love to play but I’ve struggled with the bridge for ages, and the other is a song someone at the jam keeps asking if I know how to play, to which I keep saying, ‘sort of and not very well’. I’m going to fix that. It’s kind of exciting.

That’s it for now. I’m going to go practice. I’ll have an art update for you next time. That too has been an interesting journey. Cheers!

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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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