Breakfast with Rai-An and Wolfram

Above: Rai-An and Wolfram. I had breakfast with them yesterday morning just before Wolfram went shopping for a bass; he's the bass player for Ookla The Mok, among other bands.



I've been friends with the members of Ookla for years now since meeting them at Astronomicon in 1994 (I think it was '94).

Urban Tapestry performed on their Less Than Art album. You can hear an excerpt from the track by listening to the "Still Can't Buy Me Love" on the CD Baby page for the remixed/remastered Less Than Art; Jodi and Allison do backing vocals, and I play the flute.

Listening to the song brings back some great memories since it was the first song that our two groups ever collaborated on, and it was way fun to perform in the open filk circle as well as in concert. We don't tend to run into each other as often these days, but every so often we'll find ourselves in the same room circle.

Last time this happened, Wolfram asked if we could all do that song. I'm so glad he did. The lyrics are fun and silly, and the song is pure joy.



Ookla has had several drummers and bass players. Wolfram Neff has been playing bass with the band for a couple of years now. I've run into Wolfram and his wife Rai-An a couple times at conventions but never really had a chance to chat until yesterday.

It's always interesting to get the reactions of people who are relatively new to filk. Not everyone takes to it, mainly because of the wide range of personalities and levels of musical talent. One of the aspects I love most about filking is the support of new performers and encouragement of those who are insecure in their musical abilities.

Wolfram, who has been performing since he was a teenager, clearly gets this: that the heart of filk is in the community, not in the performing.

Anyway, I very much enjoyed hanging out Rai-An (who refers to Wolfram as "Wolfie") and Wolfram; hopefully our paths will cross again soon.



The following song helps summarize my feelings about filk. For those of you wanting to know more about the filk community, please do check out my Filk FAQ.

HOME TO FILKONTARIO

by Debbie Ridpath Ohi
(c) March 1999

I used to feel the lyrics slide inside my head
The music filled me up, and I felt I would explode in a
burst of coloured static, and the people all around, their eyes
on the ground.

CHORUS:
Bring me home to FilKONtario
Stay, sing with me we'll
be all right, sing all night
with my friends at Filkontario.

One fateful weekend, my friend took me to a filk, "What's a
filk", I said, and she laughed and took my hand, led me
to a room of people with guitars and easy smiles, and I
stayed a while.

CHORUS

So now I'm hooked, I go to filk cons every year, never
get much sleep, why sleep? I could be filking...
The circle changes but the smiles are still the same, and the
song remains.

BRIDGE (a capella):
But each time I find it harder to say
good-bye at the end of day,
may our paths cross again,
my friend.

Our voices may not be all perfectly on key, but we
lift each other up, and share the melody as we
fill the room with music, and I know I'll be all right as we
sing into the night.

CHORUS

Weddings, pottery and painting

Congrats to Hrach and Lori on their wedding! Luisa and I attended yesterday as each other's dates since both our husbands were at BGG.con in Texas (Jeff's coming home today, yay!). As part of our wedding gift to the happy couple, she and I collaborated on creating this bowl:



Luisa designed and shaped the bowl, then gave it to me. I painted a design on it: the flowering vine as well as the couple's name and wedding date on the outside, and a small heart inside at the bottom of the bowl. Then I gave it back to Luisa, who glazed and fired it.



This time I was careful to outline all my colours in three coats so that they would come out properly after being fired. It was painstaking work because I was SOOOO paranoid about screwing up; Luisa had done such a wonderful job on creating the bowl, and you can't really paint over a mistake the way you can in acrylics. In fact, one of the reasons I started painting acrylics was because I wanted to get some practice with real-life painting and build up my confidence for pottery painting. I use different paint for pottery, of course.



We were both pretty pleased with how the bowl turned out, and we're going to do some other pottery projects together. I may even put the occasional piece up for sale on Etsy. I sold three paintings yesterday, by the way; thanks so much for your support!

I also very much appreciated tips from my artist friend Beckett, and went out and bought better brushes as a result. I also read up on how to take care of my brushes, though I'm a bit confused by all the conflicting advice. Some sources advice washing with soap and water, letting the soap foam but not rinsing it out; the soap apparently acts as a sizing ingredient and helps keep the brush shape, is rinsed out when you first wet the brush before painting next time. But other sources say to always make sure to rinse out every trace of soap.



This source advices artists to put a new brush in their mouths (IN THE SHOP!!) to see if it holds together nicely when it's wet before deciding whether to buy it. Eugh.

But I digress.



The wedding was lovely, and I enjoyed learning about some Armenian wedding traditions. The "crowning," for instance, when headpieces are tied around both the bride's and the groom's heads. During this ritual, the best man stands between the two, holding a cross over them both.

I got a lot more practice with my camera and Sigma 30/1.4 lens. With the low light in the reception room, I had to crank the ISO up to 1600 to avoid using the flash. The pictures are a somewhat grainy as a result, but I continue to be amazed and pleased with that lens. I also came across some of the challenges of shooting photos at a wedding and quickly learned NOT to try setting the exposure or focus by aiming directly at the blinding white of the bride's dress or the unrelenting black of the groom's suit.



Thanks to Lori and Hrach for a fine evening, and to Luisa for being my date. :-) For those interested, I have more pics from the wedding online.






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Music survey and acrylics

"Moonwatch"

Acrylics mini-painting on 4" x 4" canvas board.

Yay, my Stars Fall Home Seanan McGuire CD arrived this week! I'll be posting about this album soon. This past week, I've been listening to Seanan's CD and the Hairspray soundtrack over and over again in the evenings, while I'm painting. I find I can't listen to words with music while I'm writing because I get too distracted.

When I'm drawing (on the computer or non-digitally), I tend to turn up the volume full-blast. Fortunately my office is two floors away from Jeff's home office.

A MUSIC SURVEY: What was the last CD you listened to, from start to finish?


"Ghosty Unicorn"

Acrylics mini-painting on 4" x 4" canvas board.

Wow, I'm SO ENJOYING acrylics painting. It reminds of what finger painting felt like when I was a little kid except the pictures end up somewhat nicer-looking and I don't try eating the paint.

I know I should probably take a course, but I lack the time and money (I'd rather spend the money and go to more writers' conferences right now). Instead, I ordered two books from Amazon:

The Acrylics Book: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist by Barclay Sheaks
The New Acrylics by Rheni Tauchid

I also decided to be brave and try painting on a 6" x 6" stretched canvas rather than my usual (well...usual since I started last week) 4" x 4" canvas board:


"Nightmare Bunny"

Acrylics mini-painting on 6" x 6" stretched canvas.

Acrylics are amazing! If you add enough water, they almost look like watercolour. You acrylics painters out there are rolling your eyes, I'm sure, but hey -- this is all new to me. :-) For the background of this painting, I also experimented with adding texture by scrunching up some paper towel and dabbing it on the paint while it was still wet.

I did the unicorn painting as part of my Don't Ask Me To Draw A Horse effort. Ok, so a unicorn isn't exactly a horse. But hey...I wouldn't even have ATTEMPTED it a year ago, so at least I don't quite suck as much as I did last year:



All the paintings above are for sale in my shop as of this morning, by the way. Just click on any of the images for pricing and more info.

I've started exploring Etsy more thoroughly. GREAT place. I've already done some Christmas shopping on it. AND I found a fellow that sells mini-easels! I ordered a bunch and got a bulk discount.




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Artsytalk

I forgot to mention earlier in the week that Will Write For Chocolate has been updated.

As I've mentioned before, my music group (Urban Tapestry) is the Music Guest Of Honor at Balticon next year. Connie Willis is the Author Guest Of Honor, and we've just found out that John Jude Palencar is the Artist Guest Of Honor.



You may not recognize his name, but I guarantee you've seen his artwork. He's done book covers and illustrations for works by Stephen King, Lovecraft, Connie Willis, Tolkien and many others, but is probably best known for his covers to the fantasy novels of Christopher Paolini.

For those that don't know, Balticon is a four day science fiction convention that with over 300 hours of multi-track programming featuring authors, publishers, editors, artists, scientists, musicians and other "creative sf luminaries." Date: May 23-26, 2008. Place: Marriott's Hunt Valley Inn in Baltimore, Maryland. You can download the Balticon 42 PDF flyer or see the Balticon Web site for more info.

My convention plans for next year are as follows:

GAfilk (Atlanta, GA - Jan. 11-13): Very much looking forward to this! Jeff & Maya Bohnhoff are the Guests of Honor, Brian Richardson is Toastmaster, and the Brobdingnagian Bards are the Interfilk Guests.

SCBWI Winter Conference (New York - Feb 8-10): The 9th Annual Winter Conference On Writing & Illustrating For Children.

FilKONtario (Toronto, Apr. 4-6): GoH-Michelle Dockrey and Tony Fabris, Filk Waif: Bill Roper, Interfilk Guest: Marilyn Miller, Special Guest: Heather Bruton. Urban Tapestry has a concert!

Balticon (Baltimore, May 23-26), of course. We'll be doing a concert and will also be involved in the children's programming.

SCBWI Summer Conference (Los Angeles, Aug. 3-6): Beckett Gladney and I are rooming together at this conference about children's book writing and illustrating.

And I'm hoping very hard to be able to make it to the Ohio Valley Filk Fest next year, where the Guests of Honor are Annie & Tim Walker, Toastmasters are Becca and Graham Leathers, Listener Guest is Jan di Masi, and the Interfilk Guest is Sibylle Machat. This convention will depend on finances, though, since going to the LA conference will be pretty pricey.


"Bunnylove" - original fridge art on 3"x5" canvas board.
Available on Etsy.

In addition to my regular writing, I'm working on two book projects right now: the graphic novel I mentioned before, plus putting together a book proposal for a compilation of some of my writing-related cartoons.

And I'm still getting huge enjoyment out of my DSLR camera. Since buying my Rebel XTi last July, I've been taking a ton of photos. Many are very, very bad and I end up deleting them. But I'm gradually learning more along the way.


"Sunjoy" - original fridge art on 3"x5" canvas board.
Available on Etsy.

Above: "Sunjoy" is all about embracing life. The girl in the picture is facing the sun, arms outstretched in the wind. In my mind's eye, she's smiling, her eyes closed.

Anyway, I'm thinking of revamping my online work portfolio to include photography. I'm not actively pursuing professional photography right now (I want to focus on my writing and illustration) but I have enough publishing credits anyway that it's about time I list them somewhere.

And just recently, an educational publisher contacted me about using one of my photos in a new textbook. In the old days, I would have been just thrilled. This time, I cautiously asked about how they were planning to use the photo (how much of the page it would take up) and they responded with detailed info plus their standard rate...which was more than three times the amount I was planning to ask for (!). Wow.

I've also had a family-owned garden centre in California pay a licensing fee to use one of my garden photos. Kudos to John from Clifton's Flower & Garden Center; he could have just scooped my photo and used it on his Web site (it would have been a violation of my copyright but would I ever find out?), but instead he was honest and asked permission.

So how many of you have started Christmas shopping? I actually started early this year, when I was in Calgary. If you're buying for a writer, librarian or bibliophile, by the way, don't forget to check my list of holiday gifts for writers.



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Autumn, Strangolapreti and Nigel The Humming Cat

I love autumn. It's my favourite season. Spring's too wet, summer's too hot, winter's too cold. But the fall? Fall is exciting and blustery and bracing. Yes, white winter death is just around the corner but that just makes everything more vibrant. You appreciate the colours and smells and sounds that much more because you know it's all going to change drastically in a month or two.

Having burst forth in its fiery seasonal display, our Japanese maple is now shedding its leaves at an impressive rate. Jeff sweeps up the leaves almost daily but our front walk is crimson again by the next morning.

My herb garden is languishing. The basil is shrivelled from the cold. I'd take in the rosemary for the winter except that the neighbourhood squirrel killed it first, digging it up (maybe its pea-sized brain vaguely remembered burying a nut there in the spring) and heartlessly tossing it aside.

The sage seems hardier. I picked some for dinner the other night:



I felt like cooking something Italian, so chose an interesting-sounding recipe from my Basic Italian book. Strangolapreti literally means "Strangle The Priests" in Italian. The dish is actually ricotta dumplings with spinach, but it was the name that compelled me to try this recipe.

Jeff is very good about trying anything I cook; we're both fairly adventurous eaters. I've only had to throw dinner out once. Well, more than once if you count the number of times I burned dinner because I got too absorbed with work, but that was years ago. Now I use a kitchen timer with a loud and obnoxious ring to drag me out of my officecave.

Anyway, the dumplings were pretty messy and weird-looking before I cooked them:



In some parts of Italy, these are called malfatti, which means "badly made," and the cookbook warned that I shouldn't worry if they weren't shaped perfectly. I had never made dumplings before, so had to do several test dumplings (adding a bit more flour each time) before I found the right consistency; my dumplings kept falling apart as soon as I put them into the boiling water.



They were just as ugly when they came out of the pot, but they tasted great! I served them with a drizzle of sage butter (with the sage from our garden) and shaved pecorino (a hard Italian cheese made from sheep's milk). Jeff loved them.

Sold another painting yesterday. Here's one of the new mini-paintings that I've added to my Etsy store:



It's another tiny painting: acrylics on a 4" x 4" canvas board with a protective matte varnish. The cat's name is Nigel, by the way. You can re-name him if you'd like, but that's the name that jumped into my head as I was painting him. Wouldn't YOU love to have Nigel The Humming Cat on your fridge? Or washing machine? Or anything else where you can stick a fridge magnet?

In the past couple years I've realized that I like drawing cats. Ironic, really, because I'm allergic to them. But they still fascinate me with their complex personalities and neuroses...and especially their owners. :-)





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