Tom Hart's Blog

 

Hi everyone! 

I don't normally do this, in fact, I don't think I've ever done it, but I am posting a little mutual aid post for a SAW student and a friend and collaborator of mine, Holly English. (*note see below.)

We collaborated on this song together to bring attention to her GOFUNDME page, here: gofund.me/708d1bd2
because Holly has a G-D BRAIN TUMOR. 🧠🤯🧠

Holly is a great artist, great spirit and one of my favorite people and recent best friends. We made this song (and a few others soon to be released! The next song is called SHARK ENCOUNTER so watchout. )

The song is here and then her situation in her words are posted below. 

 
Again, Holly's GOFUNDME to help her navigate her very serious and life-long medical disabilities are here.

And here's a little of what's going on, in her words:
 
I have a pituitary tumour which has been affecting my other glands & hormonal systems for a long time
 
I AM NOT DYING- it is likely benign re: cancer. But it is still causing me & has caused me big problems.
 
I have already started to lose my eyesight in my peripheral vision (had all the tests last week), which is from the tumour pressing on the optic nerves. I could possibly go blind if I don't take medication, but brain surgery is more likely if this continues to be the case.
 
At the beginning of 2024, my wonderful neurologist, Dr Raj put me on a new medication regime that has been a game-changer; from 19 episodes of occipital neuralgia (since Motor Vehicle Accident in 2004 (which is basically like a hard hammer of sharp nails in the back of my head on repeat) to 3-10 max episodes (they are still bad, but it is a huge difference for me).
 
 I was born with severe Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD) & osteoarthritis as well as femoral anteversion aka 'inwardly rotated hips' which caused me pain as a kid but more pain now I am old(er). I have to tape my toes to walk & I have nerve damage in my big toe from my odd walking gait which you can actually see if I show you.
 
 I use crutches a lot to help me stand if I need them & am limited in too many ways to mention here.
 
 I am an 'agent orange baby' (look it up) as are my siblings, who all had their 'thing' (I am not at liberty to disclose which is a bummer because this shit's real).
 
 I ALSO HAVE A GREAT TEAM, FRIENDS AND A LOT OF PEOPLE TO THANK. XX THANK YOU 
​

 
Holly and I came up with this song. I sent Holly English some piano bit and she sent me some vocals. I added some notes from my mellotron app. That's about it. Just raw music with a little embellishment. :)
 
 Stay tuned for our next song, SHARK ENCOUNTER! 

Here's an example of one of her comics, a great one detailing an intense relationship with her father. 

For those who just want more FREE CONTENT, I can provide! 

Here is a podcast about being MEN from ME and my good online friend Tim Miller, you can find it here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/tomhart/p/men-an-explanation-conversations

Thank you everyone. I appreciate you all.

How to write the world's worst song in just two weeks!

INTRODUCTION

Ok I signed up for this songwriting cohort with led by these youtubers I quite like (in case you think any of the below is on them, it's not!)

4 Prompts in 8 weeks, which as some of you may know is about 8 times slower than I usually work, 3 days being a comfortable pace, 1 week being WAY too long, and 1 day being an often generative goal.

So PROMPT 1 was come up with a WRITABLE IDEA, which according to the prompt is THUS: A concept + a title + a song map.

And I NEVER make songs this way. I told my friend Timothy today that my method was:
Improv + outline  + improv + get squashed by limitations + squirrel my way to a solution. 
I quite like that method!
I hate ideas! :)
But I like to play the good student, so I went with it...
PART I
My "writable idea" was: A song by an astronaut to their lover on Earth, called BONEY LANDMARKS and the songmap, was .. well, ambiguous...
I thought it would be good it if it went from micro to macro, from personal feelings to world-sized things (since that's the kind of perspective you might get up there in space.)
(Also I love the "astronaut song", Space Oddity being the main one, Major Tom being a nice follow-up, with that great countdown, Rocketman, of course... tell me others in the comments!)
So from there I was already desperate for some ideas that weren't mine, so I drew some cards (I love cards.)
I pulled these:

An outline emerged, kind of in keeping with my first idea: From HEART to CLOUDS to ORDER. 
I took order to mean DISORDER, and took the CLOUDS to mean BATTLE and so my song map became basically:
Lonely feelings up above -->  Battle on earth down below --->  Out of touch, stranded.
I was taking inspiration from the lovely, far less grand sequel to 2001, 2010 where the USA and Russian astronauts are in space while their nations are at war. And my own THE SANDS, the less said about that the better.
But wait, WHY BONEY LANDMARKS do you say?
I DON'T KNOW!
Except it's a phrase my pal Sidney say when talking about figure drawing and I thought it could relate to the body, to the figure, to bones, to landmarks, etc. I thought it would work.
Thus I had my TWO WEEK ASSIGNMENT....
PART II
If the assignment was "take this puppy and keep it under your bed and torture it daily" it would have been a more appropriate prompt. That's what it felt like forcing this thing out!
Here are some scribbles of me trying to get this thing squeezed out. 


TWO more things. It was strongly encouraged we do a smart songwriting thing, which is know what KEY we are writing in. And do play with the home and "away" chords. 
Of course I would normally bristle at this, being the naive brut I am, but being that "home" and "away" related decently to a song about being stranded in space. So I went with it. My key (and home chord) was F#.
For a few days working with the chords I knew I was ALLOWED TO USE, I was walking down the street and ran into my musician friend Willy --this is TRUE-- and I told Willy about my project, and my KEY and they said, "oh that's a nice bright key, good for a space song." 
I thought I had chosen a GLUM KEY, that's what I wanted (Glum because it uses all the black keys? I dunno, who knows!) But anyway, I stuck with it.
AND... for some reason, I then decided to strangle the hell out of any rhymes that came my way. 
For instance, this page has all the words that rhyme with CIRCUMLOCUTIONS!!!!!


So, I should say also that I chose something emotionally distant (astronaut song) on purpose, I knew spending two weeks working on the "craft" of something I cared deeply about wouldn't work. So this thing, this poor mutt under the bed, I could torture until there was nothing left of it.
So Boney became a song sung to "Tony" which rhymed with lonely, only, and in one stretched metaphor I like, "Sony."
Additionally, I LIKE circumlocutions! The countdown in that section was inspired by Major Tom, and "Resolutions" and "revolutions" both were meant to signify war, or UN resolutions etc. Oh you didn't ALSO KNOW THIS WAS A PROTEST SONG?! 
OK, anyway, here we go here is the GD song in all it's glory.
Oh, yeah I THINK it is still in F#.
And there's nothing left of any puppy whatsoever.



Here's the link, I'll try to embedhttps://soundcloud.com/hutchowen/bones-like-stars

 Some favorite B is Dying strips which may or may not go to help Lauren Groff's bookstore fundraiser!

And then there are these weird excerpts from a piece for Greenpeace for Lauren.

the following could be broken into single panels perhaps.

Hi everyone!

This is a long post about a creative project I was lucky enough to have gifted to me.

Disclaimer for my Deaf and other friends. This project is largely about music and sound, but I think the lessons are universal, and the details below are largely about decisions and trust. ❤️ Additionally, I would be happy to write in detail a description of any track if it helps understanding.

On March 17, 2023, I did something I've always wanted to do, but never ever ever have: sit down to record a song. 

If you've ever loved an art form, you know what a plunge it is to engage in it. 

I've loved songs my entire 50+ years, but have never ever tried to make them, not even a little. They just seemed magic and best left to the experts, kind of like football or mountain climbing. I'm just glad people are out there doing it; I knew I'll never be one of them, and it's ok.

(I did start trying to learn the piano, via app, basically from ZERO, around September of last year.)

What happened seemed to be a confluence of factors that aren't that important, but I'll list them quickly: 

I heard an album last year that continues to devastate me and I ordered it on vinyl and really heard it for the first time (it's a picture of me hearing it for the first time, on my "album cover".)My energy for my piano app lessons, about 28 weeks into them (roughly 15 minutes a day for 175 days or so, seemed to be fading. My wife went out of town for two weeks.I was fed up with not being someone who makes music.I attended an online event that was really moving and for the rest of the day I couldn't sit still

So with that, I decided, Maybe I should just try that song thing that I've always been dreaming about.

I thought: What if I just made on today, in one day, what would happen?

I should also reiterate, I have no innate talent, a really lousy singing voice, no training except the piano app for half a year, and bad or little equipment. 

But I'm very very curious and often playful and a little bit obsessive and went with it. 

Deadlines: met!

After around three or four hours, late in the evening because I was also solo parenting and doing SAW work, I was as done as I could be, I had a piece of music, that I called MONICA.

It featured the basic most amount of complexity I could manage to play, along with throwing in some other things. And because I was certain I had a terrible voice, I used an AI voice for the lyrics, which I wrote on the spot based on Margaret Atwood's Surfacing, which I was just finishing reading.

And I LIKED IT. And it came from NO INTENTION except "make a song."

And about mid-way through making it, it was so much fun, I thought, I'm going to make 10 of these, one a day, before my wife gets home(two weeks) ! 

And so I did.

Deadlines and constraints

Without getting into too many details the rules I had to adhere to every day were: 

Do it in a day, and try something new every day. 

All or most material should be generated or found that day. (ie, no planning beforehand.)

Don't criticize, just finish. Finishing and trying something new is far more important than how "GOOD" it is.

Also: ALL "MISTAKES" had to be leaned into and used. (Honor thy error as hidden intention - Brian Eno.)

Another guiding principle: You don't know anything and it's ok. Learn right now. 

And so this project was me learning the most basic tiny first steps about this art form.

So, again each day I gave myself a different new rule too, usually something new to try and learn.

On day two, for instance I tried my own voice, and it was ok. I wasn't there to hate it, I was there to use it. 

Day 3 I tried to sort of write something lyrically a little more elaborate, and also maybe try some sort of melody? It was kind of a mess, I wound up putting everything on top of itself to meet the deadline, it was weird and fun too. 

Other rules: Once I used a metronome! (Your average "do it right" kind of person would have told me to START there, but I wasn't there to do it "right.")

Another rule was impromptu: one morning my daughter was sleeping near all the musical instruments so at 6 am I went to the dining table and wrote and recorded a song a cappella. (Track 7.)

Another impromptu one: One day when I got sidelined by parenting and social duties (ie, hanging out with friends), and I couldn't make music so I spent the afternoon playing with melody and writing lyrics. That was the first and only time I started with completed lyrics. Fun!

Things get ugly

But after a while a couple familiar things started to happen. While working on track 10, I uttered the first sort of mini-expletive while trying to get something right.  That hadn't happened before. I WASN'T TRYING TO GET ANYTHING RIGHT BEFORE THAT.

And around track 13, I ran afoul of my own rules and intentions. The rule was, use the metronome one more time, and make it 39 beats per minute and record everything to the metronome. I started to get frustrated, doubting the value of the original rule. I made other choices I decided were "BAD" (percussion from cardboard and plates, for instance) and I got increasingly frustrated, for the first time, (but far more), since track 10. That's when I knew it was time to hang it up.

I finished track 13, and I still like it (I like them all!), but I decided there would be only one more track and the rule would be the opposite of the others. The rule would be: Wait for it. 

I pulled a from Kim Krans' Animal Spirit deck. I pulled THE SWAN.

What is it with her cards? They are always perfect.

Here's what it says:

The final track, then, would be called The Swan, and it would come to me, not me chasing and forcing it out.

I put a call out to two friends and asked if they would help, and meanwhile, I would just gently noodle around when I had a chance and just let whatever wanted to slowly emerge, emerge.

Friend one came over yesterday and did a fantastic contribution. I couldn't be happier. I'm hoping friend two, 1000 miles away, has the time to send me something that I hope I asked for (a horn track) with the amount of humility her grace and talent deserves.

Anyway, someday on my blog I'll post more about all those decisions and rules, but the point is: giving myself the rule of FINISH, and the structure of TWO WEEKS, at the end, I had this marvelous, BIZARRE reflection of who I am: my interests, thoughts and feelings (and yes, technical abilities, but I already knew those...😊)

My goals, if I ever make a second album, and god knows I hope to, are to
re-find these qualities of TRUST I had...

in finishing in a day,in being ok with my limitations,in believing making something small is better than making nothing at allin knowing the creating mind and the judging mind are different and the creative mind has far more fun. Let it have fun.

SUMMARY

Two and a half weeks ago I wasn't a person who made music and now I am a person who has made an album. YOU CAN DO THIS!

Give yourself deadlines, and let yourself emerge from them. 

Don't use other people's standards.

Don't use other people's language (unless you want!) You have a personal language that is yours to discover.

Surprise yourself! 

Don't do it right. Do it you.

Beginner mind is real. And it's hard to maintain. If you've got it, you are blessed! Enjoy it!

I want to put a plug in for #sawgust here. Susan Marks and Adrean Clark organized an amazing month of community to challenge yourselves in this exact way, and it's our intention to make it happen in 2023. Thank you Susan and Adrean for the inspiration!

And thanks to everyone here at SAW for being on your creative journey here.

I'd love to know what YOUR experiences with any of the above are!

Here's my album for what it's worth. Track 14 is yet to be finished.

My judging brain's favorites today: Tracks 1, 4, 9, 10 (yes, 10 after all), and 12.

(It's worth noting that 12 is probably my favorite-favorite. That's the one I would send to the Ignatz Awards 😜! But I never gotten there if I hadn't done tracks 1-11 first. ) 

Thanks for being here!

Tom 

 

I recently was reflecting on these reflections  (I've become KRAPP!) and was charmed by it, so here they are...

from She's Not Into Poetry

Everything I Thought When I Was 20 Was RIGHT , and BEST ART THEN BEST ART NOW

B. is Dying - A bit of an artists statement

As we are constantly reassessing our public myths- our founding myths, what we tell ourselves as a society

Our personal myths are bound to be twisted, demented, confusing, contradictory.

Personally I live on the bridge of a couple strong polar opposites. A pre-tech and tech time period. A colonial and post-colonial time period.

And I’ve believed myself a man with little power in a time when men are seen as having too much power. Ditto whiteness.

I’m a man of one daughter and two.

I’m a man suffering in a pandemic, and not suffering at all.

I’ve always felt in the margins but other data tells me otherwise.

Who am I? Where am I? Why do I feel what I feel?

I don’t have easy answers, that’s why I draw.

What do the myths tell of us of a time and a people? That they didn’t know who to follow.That they didn’t where they were, that they didn’t know what was on the other side of that wall.

And if others are to to understand this time, the most important action seems to be to tell the truth. So: in here, somewhere, B.is me, B.is a some of us. B is a protagonist in a confused, narcissistic myth. B. is probably not alone.

This confusion, lack of clarity should be- I hope- a welcome aperture into the time, as the larger myths and narratives are re- shuffled, examined, and rewritten.

This story is among the debris stirred and scattered as other narratives are shuffled around.

 

B. is Dying - A bit of an artists statement

As we are constantly reassessing our public myths- our founding myths, what we tell ourselves as a society

Our personal myths are bound to be twisted, demented, confusing, contradictory.

Personally I live on the bridge of a couple strong polar opposites. A pre-tech and tech time period. A colonial and post-colonial time period.

And I’ve believed myself a man with little power in a time when men are seen as having too much power. Ditto whiteness.

I’m a man of one daughter and two.

I’m a man suffering in a pandemic, and not suffering at all.

I’ve always felt in the margins but other data tells me otherwise.

Who am I? Where am I? Why do I feel what I feel?

I don’t have easy answers, that’s why I draw.

What do the myths tell of us of a time and a people? That they didn’t know who to follow.That they didn’t where they were, that they didn’t know what was on the other side of that wall.

And if others are to to understand this time, the most important action seems to be to tell the truth. So: in here, somewhere, B.is me, B.is a some of us. B is a protagonist in a confused, narcissistic myth. B. is probably not alone.

This confusion, lack of clarity should be- I hope- a welcome aperture into the time, as the larger myths and narratives are re- shuffled, examined, and rewritten.

This story is among the debris stirred and scattered as other narratives are shuffled around.

 

The 1-Hour Coloring Book

Like all of us, I need to get through the resistance some times. I over-think everything. I don't know my own voice. I'm adhering to someone else's standards. And I'm afraid of what everyone will think if I fail, and I know I will fail.

One way out of this is to produce work, lots of work, and to damn the torpedoes as far as the critical voice goes. (We can use our critical voice later, when we need a dialogue about who we are, what our style is, what we want to say...)

How to do this? 

One way is deadlines. Work fast. One way is to work extremely fast. 

Also, we have to remove the worry that what we do matters. Can we work with effort, and be care free and confident? I think so.

One game I create as an exercise, was to color a whole coloring book in 1 hour. Coloring books don't matter! You can't fail at coloring! (I know, you're all saying "I can!" but really, just roll with this one, ok?)

So, I did this exercise on New Years Eve, the last hour of 2020 (good riddance!)

1 hour in 28 seconds.

That damned critical mind.

Give the critical mind something to chew on. Give it a fucking PROJECT! Give it 42 pages of art to look at, and to try to piece some patterns out of. 

Part of the exercise was to reflect LATER, on what it was I did. 

Try to figure out what is going on. True, the critical mind will hate some of it, fine. You don't have to go along with it, or you can, but let's be a little more objective and see what was going on. What did YOU do? What did you feel? What did you RESORT to? What came out? How can you refine it?

Another part of the exercise was to TRY. Try to make something nice. Be fast, but don't settle. There were times I took an extra few seconds to add sparkles or one last color, stuff like that. 

Here's my 42 pages of coloring, and what I remember, what I felt, what I was going for, and what I wanted to do, had to do, or did!

I started at about 11:01 or 11:02 pm. My goal was to finish exactly at midnight (and I did!)

This was my first page. I think it took 3-4 minutes. There are 5 or 6 colors, marker, crayon AND watercolor. I was having fun, but I was clearly already behind.

Page 2. Still working slow (2-4 minutes), but faster. Added the watercolor stripes at the end I think.Letting the lettering be loose. I liked the accidental highlight I made in her hair last page and tried to keep it going this page.

3. A little faster, less content, of course. The dark green and light green was not a conscious "difference", I was still just in the more is more attitude.  Added the sparkles because I couldn't make the faces different. 

4.  I'd established the cat was green (I hate that cat!) and wasn't going to change now. Only 4 colors here, and the blue was scribbled as fast as I could.

5.  What I remember about this was adding those watercolor building smears at the end. Again, I had to TRY. 
6. Simple. Again, I had to try, so multi-colored letters. Also, the characters with blue augments was nice. One thing I learned at this point, that I already knew, but was really hammered home. I always let my materials go bad. These markers were really lousy I was not getting good coverage at all. (And they're my daughters! I need to replace them for her.)

7. Thrown for a loop here, because it was an activity book and not a coloring book. So how to make this interesting? I drew vertical lines threw some letters, tried to vary to make a nice pattern. I filled in the sides of the clouds first with yellow, then green marks, the fast orange and blue marks. Arrow at top tells the story. Onward!
8.  Like the green cat, I chose green for his skin, but lighter. And I already found a way of coloring his hair by accident that I liked. The back 3 or 4 segments, and frontmost segment 1 color. The remaining a second. Got to make the floating faces different colors. Added streaming stars and moved on.
9. Ooh a connect-the dots. I didn't have my glasses but I think I got the numbers right! Quick outline then color the hair something lighter to show it off. I think I accidentally left a part of her dress and so picked a dark blue, again maybe by accident, but it worked well. Whatever that creature is is all orange. Splash and spirals in the back to say I have not forgotten ...

10. Word scramble or whatever! Now I was getting scrambled. I guess I picked yellow by suggestions. The orange shmear showing through from the other side, and not happy with the coloring anyway, I added the yellow to augment it on the left. 

11. Ok working fast. Scribbled hair, slower skin, scribbled clouds and diamonds. Letters not very f. pretty. 

12. One of the best ones, I think. The hair looks great. The small assortment of pink bubbles. When did I have time for two colors on one rainbow stripe? Whew!


13. Design a wish. No time to think! Pizza? Ok whatever! I wish I could have done a few more of these, actually. Maybe I'll design a book to be raced through with 3 or 4 of these. That's a THREE-COLOR pizza. Like I said, you have to try.
14. Utterly hideous. Only good moment here was adding metallic marker at the end, but it was too late.

15. Disappointed by the last page, I thought this was my chance to prove myself to be a genius. The cross of orange  under the girl seemed utterly inspired, and the wiping across her eyes on the bottom, subversive and evocative. Diagonal tic-tac-toes and everyone gets emanata. In the end, not the genius page I thought it was. 
16. Not really working. But watercolor, and I did number the clouds. Brilliant I tell ya!

17. Started with the yellow and made "yellow" blue to be ratty. Still in genius mode. The two "E's" were the last thing I did, thought those would be the great final strokes of a masterpiece. In reality, I think I've been in a slump since the pizza.


18. Changed it up. Crayons. Big big marks. The dark v on his skin reminded me of Rosalie's head and took me aback for a moment. I think that's why the final surrounding scribbles are remarkably inelegant. I clearly have to use those marks of hers again. 
19. Now I was thinking the marks had to be more about energy. Not bad here. I like the lettering. Amazing how exercises like this can bring me back to junior high and high school art class. If I did that mark in junior high (and I did) I would have really thought I was brilliant.


20. Break for a word search but still have to make it good. Some lines, a shmear over True, some yellow grounding, fft.


21. No idea what to do, I made a giant 'A' with a bad marker. It reminded me of a friend's A-Frame house, so I drew people, a really bad ground line, sea line and awful trees. An utter failure, but made me realize I would like to do something about an A frame someday. Not a total loss.

22. Is this one any good? I can't tell.


23. These three colors looked good together, and the all one direction was a quick, efficient decision. I like this one a lot. Not enough power in the background yet. 

24. I liked those three colors, so stayed with them. Not great, but good moments. 



25. Staying with those colors. Working fast. Not bad. Those emanations at the end are ok.


26. Haha those were supposed to be teeth because I was so frenzied and aggravated. Anyway. same three colors. At least I got to see them in three boxes, side by side.

27. By now, I know I'm sticking with those three crayons. True looks good here, in three vertical swipes. The background isn't bad. Could have done more with those goofballs in the back.
28. Haven't I colored this like 3 times already? Anyway, ok three colors, go, add pink and brown at the end just to not feel the despairing sameness...


29. I'm so in the weeds. Big vertical swaths. I try an alternating pattern of three but mess it up. It's ok!


30. This again? What did I do last time? Some sort of connecting. I try again, thinking about how to make those joining swirls nice. 

31. Ooh lots of little things. I got three rad crayons, I can do this. Well, turns out, I can't. Only one or two turn out ok. (Bottom left, upper left, maybe upper right.) I add the movement lines to add some energy it's lacking. 
32. A line through the words. Fast colors on True. A swivel for the mountain and some yellow mass for the tree. Not too bad. I think I added a metallic jumping swirl because I was feeling fancy. 

33. This again? The pattern, what was the pattern?! Alternating three colors, did I get it? Fill in between with the missing color and GO!

34. HA! How'd I do? Seriously? I love this. That swirl around "Drawing" is lovely. And she looks like Joan of Arc, on fire.


35.  Her again, this book is going to kill me. I am not going to treat the foreground like it's special, because clearly it's not. I go in for the background. I can't remember what the green is about. 

36. Do not stop the genius from killing it. This page will be obliterated!


37. Not a bad idea with the yellow and green ears, but that's about all. The magenta should have done something else, something rounder. 

38. Three colors, this kid, and some letters. I got this, swish swish. This one could be a whole lot worse. What genius added those magenta lines on the balls? Not bad.


39. OMG more Tic Tac Toe. Simple pattern, just lay it down and move on. It has some liveliness to it.


40. Three colors, lots of room to play. Make the balls of the tree resonate with the shapes in the characters. This is one of the top 3, I think. Glad I took the extra moments for the sections of bark of the tree.


41. This one could have been great but I made a misstep with that dark circle on the inside of his face. I think it was early and a hectic part of the eon of the 6 seconds it took me to color this one. Aside from that dark circle, this one is a winner.


42. Whoa, it was 11:59 and I had a few moments to add color from that destroyed pink marker. A swath would have been nice there, but that marker was all I had. 

43. MIDNIGHT! Hello 2021!

REFLECTIONOk, let's be GENTLE to ourselves, let's look at some of them, let's answer a few questions:
What did we do?What could we have done more of? (And what should we do next time?)What ones worked?What ones would be good candidates for revision?What else?
1. What did we do?
I went from a medium level of complexity to minimum color choice and coverage. I think 2, 4, 6 and 9 are better from the early ones, and of the later ones, 27, 32, 35 and a couple others are high points there. I was eventually genuinely satisfied with those three colors, and could see doing a project in just those colors. I liked it even more when it was gently augmented by metallics or brown.

2. What could we have done more, or what should we do next time?
Have an array of colors ready, maybe three plus 2 others in other materials. Have my materials READY and clean (bad brushes and paint hampered this project.) Start with big swaths. Use the background as main color more often. Augment everything gently.
3. What ones worked?
The ones mentioned above. I would say if I had to pick three (more parameters and deadlines!) are my favorites. Oh heck I picked 6.

In these top three, it was the sharp, boldness of the marks. The confidence.

This one is a sort of fun maximalist one.
I admit part of this is because the underlying drawing is fun, but this is the first the confident scribbles came out and I was still working with a few more colors and here they cohered.
I would do more like this if I could. The connect the dots let me create a bold outline and then different interior. The swath in the background, and augmentations, are good, I like them. 


4. What ones would be good candidates for revision?
Using what I learned from the above successes or semi-successes, I would revise some of these similarly. I admit, some are included or excluded because of the drawings themselves.





5. What else?
I would do this again. I would choose different parameters. I would give myself an hour to do 6 or something. I would bring better materials to the literal table. 
For my own work, this translates to something like:I should give myself the deadline of making 10-20 4-panel comics in an hour. Reflect in this same way.Choose 2-4 to refine. Give myself 2 days to complete them. Repeat.Change system when needed, probably soon. 
Of course this is what "fine artists" have done throughout time. The ones with the privilege to follow their instincts. The ones with the privilege to have a "blue period" or a "cut paper" period.
We can give ourselves these gifts. We can recognize who we are in our process, and let us be more of it. We can give ourselves the gift of clear sight about ourselves. The gift of good tools! The gift of time and patience and gentleness. 
And we can give the critical mind the gift of something to chew over. 
I spent twice as long on this blog post as I did on the coloring book! If we go back into another project, the critical mind KNOWS it will be needed soon, it won't be as furious, tireless, you will have taught it just a little patience. 
So in 2021, let's give ourselves gifts. The gifts of knowing that art making makes ourselves, and opens ourselves. We deserve that this year. We've been closed off for too long.



I choose you!

 I love my card decks ! I've got three decks like this that I mix together. Each has about 140 cards. 

I am always looking for new ways to use them. Recently, after moving house, I started a new ritual,  keeping three cards on a rack in my drawing space, each morning pulling a new #3, while retiring #1 and putting #2 in the #1 spot. 

Here's one of the first, a grim beginning, with one of the grimmest cards in the decks in the center.

All black and white. The mechanistic westerner on the left. The Congolese man looking at his relative's (I think a son's or daughter's) chopped-off (by the Belgian colonizers) hands on his porch. The hands freed to make new life on the wall. I don't know what that sequence means- some sort of rejuvenation, or second life? I don't want to make light of trauma at all, so I'm not inclined to believe that interpretation.
The next day I don't seem to have a picture of, but it would have been Congolese man, shadow hands, and early bone teeth necklace, below. Again, the theme of separated body parts. Decoration, life, I don't know.
Then this one... (Close up of an Al Williamson hand.) Still disembodied parts. What are we looking at? To me, it's getting confusing...


I lost a couple days, dispirited. Then picked it up 2 days later. A couple, a precarious fall (the only digitally altered card in the decks), and "tragedy". Yeesh, and after just moving with my family...


Here- the new final image, a boy in Kowloon, infamous tower/neighborhood of Hong Kong, making do, homework at a desk on a shelf, or something. Ok, another rejuvenation, rebirth, rededication?


Now, we add pageant, ritual, theater. Not sure what this is yet...

Innocence, a child's coloring page. The story still opaque.

A would-be school shooter, hugged by the person who the teacher who disarmed him. Why this from theater and pageant? I let the images keep coming.

Guess I didn't take a pic the day before but you can infer it from the below. Now we have a new sequence, all horizontal, if that matters. Wrestling, hugging, dancing as a vegetable, war in the skies. No idea how to interpret...

Still all horizontal, this is making more sense to me. Theater, new rituals, war, culture revolution (the last image from The Clash's London Calling.)

Lest we get too comfortable, we see our war and combat (rock) is deadening us. This is making sense.

And then I lose the thread. Are we the herd of gazelles running away. What are we losing? Who is escaping?


This card of semaphore confuses it more, but at least signals that some interpretation might be coming...

A car wash? No idea... Go the obvious route- a baptism? Rebirth?


One of my favorite panels from Jeffrey Jones (among hundreds) emerges. The skeleton being adorned with jewels on its antlers.

These two boys have huge electric crowns of hair above their heads here. I know from when I found the photo they are about to be struck by lightning. (I think they survived.)

And today, Sept 5, this image from Julie Doucet stops me in my tracks. All three images, like a triptych: enormous, crowns above each of their heads. The skeleton antlers, the electric hair. the scissors like a gentle sword of Damacles. Doucet's violence was so joyous and simple, and these scissors and that alcohol, utterly celebratory. Thus, these boys, about to be crowned, electrified, super charged.  

And below it, on my drawing board, more of this guy. 

What can I learn from that triptych?

From the Comics Flow Group at
https://learn.sawcomics.org/courses/comics-flow-group

I've been thinking a lot about dreams this week.Some interesting work on dreams came out this week. There is a psychotherapist collecting dreams about Covid-19 https://twitter.com/newworlddreams .

She was already collecting dreams about Trump for 3 years (pretty in-depth: https://45dreamsproject.com/2019/08/23/chapter-9-dreams-of-psychopathy-and-violated-norms/ ) and I think she might be behind the climate change one too: https://twitter.com/climatedreamsWhich got me thinking of drawing dreams in comics. The first main example in comics history is Winsor McCay's Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Rarebit_FiendHere is a great, scary example. Be sure to click for the large version. 

After that, there have been loads and loads of cartoonists who have mined their dreams for comics. Two main ones I can think of are Jim Woodring and Julie Doucet.Jim Woodring: https://boingboing.net/2014/08/19/jim-a-collection-of-jim-w.htmlJulie Doucet: https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/my-most-secret-desireFrom her lovely book My Most Secret Desire
I included lots in my memoir, and even in some of my first ever comics. This is from my memoir:And this is  by me from 25 years ago, a dream about "Killing Hitler."


Every week we explore comics in this way, but with sharing and dialogue and exercises.
Come join us! https://learn.sawcomics.org/courses/comics-flow-group