068 tuesday may 10
grayscale speedpaints / travel poem / picnic sandwiches / writing class update
we’re back after sort of a hiatus. a sort of yelling break. normally at least some portion of this newsletter is dedicated to complaining about something or other so i thought it might be fun to explore the boundaries of the form and dedicate an entire edition to it.
the reviews were mixed!
so this week it’s gonna be a pretty nuts n bolts edition. painting. food. poem. you know. the stuff you signed up for.
let’s get into it.
1. painting
the exercise this week was speed paints. after looking back at some old pieces a couple of weeks ago and casting a critical eye on them from a composition perspective, i thought it might be good to do some loose composition sketches from imagination.
one thing i have been thinking about lately is the fact that i don’t really have a goal with this art stuff. this has been true for a while. there are pros and cons to a relationship of this nature: doing art is not connected to my ability to pay my rent, which is good in that monetizing a hobby hasn’t led it to become another source of stress, but which is bad in that there’s much less pressure to improve. to practice, to focus on specific weaknesses i can build up, to iterate, to revise. when i was 14 or so and making art my semi-secret goal was to one day have a piece of art on a magic the gathering card. i think if that was still the case i maybe would be more focused on improving.
but it’s also fine to be slightly above average at your hobbies. it’s nice to be good at your hobbies but now i think it’s much more important to be good at having a healthy relationship with your hobbies.
all that to say, sometimes i get an itch to do some Real Art Exercises and this past week was one of those times.
for each of these i set a timer for 5 minutes, and limited myself to shades of gray. no other real restrictions, no reference images, just taking the first or second thought that popped into my head and running with it for a few minutes.
i did try to think about some of the things i often talk about in the painting section of this newsletter: contrast (still a weak area of mine), layering, depth. detail, a little bit, although not really in 5 minutes.
of course i ended up revisiting some classic themes.
another challenge when it comes to making digital art is the tool itself. drawing directly on a brightly illuminated screen can affect how you read things like color and contrast. of course, in the case of these images, you only ever see them on a brightly illuminated screen, so the difference is not so vast. but it’s definitely something to think about. drawing by hand in a sketchbook is still important, in my opinion, if only to keep your eyes used to paper.
one thing i like to do when i look back on these a few days later is to try and identify all the little hacks and cheats and shortcuts i’ve accumulated over the years, especially when it comes to things like mountains and trees. my drawing hand is much more used to making semi-plausible shadow and snow shapes on distant mountains, for example.
sometimes you feel like you're just kind of trudging in place, and then you look back and realize you’ve actually made noticeable progress in some areas. not always. but sometimes.
2. poem
“travel poem” - may 2022
once a year if you are able
you should spend some time in some place they describe as “windswept”
you should visit somewhere expansive
sun-drenched, rain-soaked. lush, if you can afford it.
teeming
they say the modern human diet has about 1500 fewer adjectives in it than our ancestors had
they say your grandmother wouldn’t even recognize
what you call scenery today
3. picnic sandwiches
it’s a fun one this week! everything was really easy and came out delicious. if you think this is the set up to some kind of joke or piece of irony, well, think again!
i went on a picnic date to a park a few weeks ago and thought it would be fun to bring some classic sandwiches on white bread. picnic style. vegan sandwiches can be a little trickier since your classic sandwich will usually feature meat or cheese or both but here are a couple ideas for you in case you find yourself in a similar situation some day - and i pray to God that you do.
here’s some of the stuff. i didn’t really organize these photos in a coherent way that shows both sandwiches, or all the ingredients for one sandwich and then the other, or anything like that. whoops.
first, a chickpea salad sandwich with broccoli sprouts.
chickpea salad is kind of a tuna salad replacement. it’s incredibly easy and very tasty. chickpeas green onions garlic powder salt vegan mayo and red onions. you could also add some dill relish to this, maybe some paprika, maybe some celery salt. chives would certainly be tasty. it’s all up to you, the world is your oyster.
smoosh it all up in a big bowl. i think i also added a little bit of mustard. i also used one of those pastry cutter things to mash the chickpeas a little easier. you’re not going for hummus texture necessarily, in my opinion it’s nice to have some chunks and crunch left in there (very different from tuna in that regard.)
assemble it all up! mustard, relish, broccoli sprouts, then the chickpea salad. i thought it would be fun to cut the crusts off the bread but it was kind of more trouble than it was worth. so do whatever you want there.
next up is tofu katsu sandwiches. pressed tofu cut into strips, flour and Just Egg for dredging, and panko bread crumbs for breading.
if you have a big heavy pot, like a cast iron or dutch oven, frying things is actually incredibly easy. i used to think it was complicated and dangerous but the really dangerous thing is how easy it is. as long time readers might remember i kind of went nuts on frying stuff for a while there and have been intentionally dialing that back. but it’s actually a very easy option if the moment ever truly calls for it. which it did in this case.
some very simple cabbage slaw for the katsu sandwiches. cabbage onions rice wine vinegar and some lemon zest. pepper too i think. probably a dash of oil.
wow look at that.
4. writing class update
“hey what happened to using section 2 for more short fiction” “hey i thought you were taking a writing class” “hey we’re sick of the crappy poems man” listen i hear you. i hear you loud and clear.
i think writing class has been going for about a month now. i haven’t really settled into a good weekly rhythm where i set aside time to actually work on the homework assignments, which are usually continuations / further development of writing exercises we do during class time. this is bad news in the sense that the class doesn’t really go for that much longer and it might be too late to develop a habit at this point if it hasn’t happened already.
but, on the other hand, we are also reading and discussing short stories together as a class and doing in-class exercises that are good for thinking about things and getting ideas moving in new ways. so i’m chalking it up as a cautious win, overall. even if i haven’t been cranking out beautiful, moving, poignant, perfectly-paced award winning short fiction yet.
also it’s a continuing education class in the evening. so the stakes are incredibly low. frankly everyone should be congratulating me for even showing up still.
there was a funny moment last week during the class discussion of the story “How Far She Went” by Mary Hood. i thought it was pretty good as far as stories go. i wasn’t really sure that the ending felt “earned” to use the teacher’s word but i was in the minority on that, i think, and i’m happy to be wrong about that. we all had some observant things to say about the structure, characterization, and especially pace of the story.
then at the end as the discussion was petering out i asked what people thought about having the title of the story also be a direct quote from the story, like the title appears word for word in the story. i said it struck me as “sort of goofy” and i was sort of joking but not really, it does strike me as sort of goofy, but nobody else in the class and especially not the instructor seemed to really see the humor in the question so i instantly panicked and started trying to backpedal, like “well i don’t know when this was written, maybe in this day and age it’s less common, it’s less of a thing, you know, how things are kind of more “meta” now, more self referential, it just kind of took me out of it, like it was a little jarring but maybe, i don’t know, that’s probably fine i mean i’m sure it’s, it’s whatever.”
“interesting” the instructor said way too somberly with kind of a slight frown “okay, well. i don’t know if it’s goofy. i don’t know if i would use that word. what do other people think, in the class, does everyone else think it’s goofy? did people feel like it took them out of it?” and of course someone said something like “actually i think the repetition made it more powerful” which actually i do disagree with, with the force of some actual conviction, i do think that is a silly thing to say. and the instructor nodded still no trace of a smile.
“one thing about being writers, we can put all the effort into the world into our work, and we can carefully choose a title. titles can be very important to a story, especially a short story. so we can do all that, but we can’t control how people are going to react to it. we can’t control how people are going to contextualize that” which i agree with all that “and we aren’t able to control who reads our work, whether they have good taste or less elevated taste” which okay i thought that was a little pointed, a little direct. possibly uncalled for.
i stand by it, by the way. i think it’s goofy. it’s like hearing the title of a movie in the dialogue of the movie. it’s jarring.
but what do i know.
ok well that’s about it for this week. see ya next week everyone, maybe. i will be on a road trip in the desert so maybe not. stay tuned. bye.