Young writers, pottery and harps

Above: one of the cartoons I did for the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program. If you're a young writer, I encourage you to check the site out! Even if you're not participating in NaNoWriMo, there's useful info and advice.

I enjoyed reading the comments some of you posted about the British tea tradition. Not only did I learn a ton but I got really, really hungry. :-)



My friend Luisa and I are starting to experiment with doing pottery together; she makes the pottery and I paint them. The tray above was a "scrap piece" that Luisa made for me to test out Amaco paint colours. The inside of the berry bowl is actually a deep blue. Luisa claims she isn't that good at pottery but I think she's amazing. As I'm painting, I'm SO paranoid that I'm going to screw up and wreck the piece.

Anyway, I wrote down the code numbers/names of all the colours I used around the edge of the tray (the pieces above were my first painting attempts) so I could compare how they looked before and after the pottery was fired. Here are the unfired versions:





I was happy with the experiment and learned a great deal in the process. Like the fact that I need to use three coats of paint for some of the colours to show up clearly, especially if I'm painting on another layer of colour.

This past week, I also finally replaced a missing string on my poor harp:







I'm in the midst of re-tuning. It takes me a while to tune my harp, especially one with some new strings.



Here's how my harp was made, in case you're curious. It was custom-made for me by a Winnipeg harpmaker named Larry Fisher; I got to choose the type of wood (maple and spruce) as well as painted design, and it was a comfort to me while I was living in Philadelphia, away from friends and family. I took some lessons from Kimberly Rowe, the editor of HarpColumn magazine (and ended up selling some articles to the publication as well).


Mich Sampson playing my harp! *swoon*

Like the guitar, the harp is somewhat a challenge for me to play for extended periods of time, so I've been leery about using it with Urban Tapestry; I tend to zone out a bit when I'm into music-making mode; time falls away. Result: I don't take breaks when I should, to avoid of tendinitis flare-ups.

However, I've found that keeping a kitchen timer nearby works pretty well, as long as I don't ignore it. If I get a piece practiced up well enough that I feel brave enough to put online for you to hear, I'll let you know.

Hope you all have a great weekend! I was invited to several parties today (all of which sound like fun) but am going to be good and work instead, to make up time I took off while in Alberta.



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