What does one do when the chaos of chickens invades one's studio?  Well, to illustrate the Hens and Roosters movement of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, I had to take a moment to be with that chaos, to be still with constant movement.  I had to think beyond the cliche, the shortcut summation of them and look at what they were really about, for me and for others.  I thought of one of my good friends who adores chickens and raised them for a while.  I remembered my interactions with her hens and roosters which made me wish I had spent more time really studying them.  But I also remembered my friend's reactions to them, how she cooed to the hens and admired the roosters' fine display.  And I remembered my son's perfect imitation of their sound (which is not a cluck, really, but a soft, pitch-bending tickle) when face to face with chickens when he was only three years old.  They made a connection which I did not know the chickens were capable of.
   On another level, I have been around chickens enough to summon up a profile of their physical energy. Chickens' movement is unique, a kind of flow-stutter-stutter, flow-stutter.  Their eyes seem alien and when stared at, entrance the viewer.  When I recently had the opportunity to act as "inn-keeper" for some hens and their owners who were escaping local forest fires, I was surprised to see how adaptable they were and to find their clucking so soothing.
   And looking at the roosters was not difficult, as they are a staple in the local community here where I live.  They strut around the park and the businesses in old town area freely.  They seem to be inspecting humanity and its menial activity and donating their time to oversee us.  They sport bright colors and a dandy style about them.  They are festive and outspoken and "shy" does not apply.
In my psyche, it felt like the chickens were my subconscious: soft, gentle, discussing secret subjects in the background and hypnotizing if stared at.  The rooster was my conscious, active mind: running the show, crowing orders, wrangling rules and techniques, and pretty impressed with itself (that is, the conscious mind was impressed with itself, not with me, who it quickly discredited!)
   So, to pull off this illustration, I took a deep breath and dove in, without copying from a photo or even trying to give a realistic rendering of the feathered creatures.  I let the music oversee me, setting the scene.  My subconscious guided me in creating the characters and their personalities.  And my conscious mind was in charge of refining and defining the characters, so that the viewer could make out what they were looking at, in the end.  The hens/my subconscious and the roosters/my conscious mind played together and it all worked out.
   See the finished illustration below and be sure to check out my YouTube video of it for another perspective, plus a couple micro-reviews of some sketch books ("The Bird King", by Shaun Tan and "Drawing Is Magic", by John Hendrix) that encourage the interaction of the conscious and subconscious levels of creating.  You will see the link below the illustration.

  

Hens and Roosters video on Melani Grube's Creative Magic channel 

What about your creative process or your everyday life process?  Does the conscious or the subconscious rule the roost?  Or do they live in harmony?  Tell me in the comments below, please.

 

A Peek at a Mermaid from the Carnival of the Animals

Illustration Friday's website definitely keeps me occupied, but this time I had a finished illustration, or at least, a detail from a finished illustration, ready to go.  This week's prompt from this popular art-participation website is "Mermaid".  I also started a series this week, on this blog, of illustrations for The Carnival of the Animals, an orchestral piece by Camille Saint-Saens.  This mermaid detail image is from one of these illustrations, yet to be unveiled.  I am posting one per week on this blog and on my YouTube channel, Creative Magic.  Check out the video, I'll include the link below.
   I know the classical music aficionados out there are scratching their heads and wondering, "What's a mermaid doing in the Carnival of the Animals?"  Well, this is a detail crop from one of the illustrations for this delightful, musical romp through the animal kingdom and you'll just have to hang in there patiently, until I reveal the larger picture.  And even then, you may say, "This is a travesty!".  But that makes things fun, doesn't it?
  So, have a gander at a mermaid and her platypus friend.  (Hey, now, don't start complaining about the platypus not being in the Carnival.  Keep an open mind, please.  This is art, not science, after all.  And don't even get me started on quantum physics.)

           Oh, and now I've got a new "minisode" about this up on my YouTube channel.
                                                You can check it out HERE.


                                         Melani Grube's Creative Magic: Carnival of the Animals

Go ahead.  Complain in the comments.  I can take it.  (Hee hee.)

Carnival of the Animals Series is Here!

  If you've followed this blog, you've seen the illustration I made back in June for an Illustration Friday prompt of "vacation".  But as things often meander and converge in life, so did they in my subconscious.  As I worked, I heard the Aquarium portion of the orchestral suite, "The Carnival of the Animals" by Camille Saint-Saens.  It's magical sounding and is often used in movie soundtracks for similar sections of story.  That was the portion of the suite I knew the best and I couldn't even recall all the other animals.  I was intrigued, intrigued enough to consider illustrating the whole piece.
   When I dug up my recording of it, I found there were 13 creatures and a Finale.  Could I really pull this off?  Could my subconscious deliver on prompt, thirteen times?  With continuity?  And produce a Finale piece that referenced each of the creatures? 
   The music entranced me and I was hooked.
   I worked out some random color studies, letting my excess paint spatter onto clean paper.  I looked through the dried spatterworks, staring at and rotating them, searching for the first character: the lion.  "Introduction and March of the Royal Lion" was the exact name of the movement.
   Whoa, watch out!  Lion energy poured into my life.  People were in my face, leading me around, voicing their opinion on how things should go.  I learned the lion energy was fierce and showy and insists on being heard, roar!
   After I produced the lion, little subtle figures started popping out of the background: a frog, a rabbit and three birds.  They contrasted the lion energy with humor, smallness and a very different way of moving in the world.
   The lion energy roared glorious, confident and insistent: I will not be ignored.  He proved to be the perfect herald for the beginning of the tour of Saint-Saens' fantastical creatures.  And check out the video on it in the link below the image.

                                                  Carnival of the Animals: the Lion Video

It's here! The Premiere of Creative Magic

I've started my video blog, Melani Grube's Creative Magic. Catch the premiere, right here. If you love the arts, create or critique the arts or design, create or innovate in any way, you're going to want to tune in. Join in the fun, now.

Melani Grube's Creative Magic

Unfamiliar Aquarium

   This vacation shot comes from deep in the subconscious and has never happened exactly in this way.  But it  has happened many times, in many variations and forms and melded together in this pool of neurons that make up the mind.  I can hear the "Aquarium" movement from Saint-Saen's Carnival of the Animals playing as I look at it.  This image surfaced for Illustration Friday's prompt this week: "vacation".  Happy summer vacation and may yours be compelling and memorable.

Up in the Air

   I'm floating, I'm floating.  Look.  What's that?  Can I get it?  I think so.  Oh, there's something else that's going after it, something flying, dropping and fast.
   What will happen?  We'll see.

   Today's illustration and post are prompted by Illustration Friday's theme this week: Airborne.

Imagine a Selfie

You knew it had to happen, didn't you? A selfie, right here. But it's different. It's all part of the plan.
   Yes, I've been noticing that the more I illustrate, the more the physical world, the actual tactile environment around me changes. I start to see the usual stuff and places all around me with a different light coming from them, different colors, kind of like the color of potential.
   It makes sense, though, if you think about it. We have the physical world we can touch. We have the mental world we can think and plan and analyze and organize. We have the dream world we can imagine.
   When we draw, paint, illustrate from the core, from our unconscious, we take an idea from the dream world and bring it into the physical world. Now it exists in both worlds. We changed our physical world.
   Okay, I could keep going, but let's just sit with that for a while. And here's an illustrated likeness of me. Yeah. There are major changes going on here.

Rabbit of Ages

Rabbit reflecting

Happy New Year!  Something new hopping through my studio… or is it ancient?  I figure it’s got to be ancient, though it’s new to me: the Japanese reed pen.  It’s really just a bit of bamboo with shaped points at each end of it.  I was intrigued by a few of Uri Shulevitz’ reed pen illustrations in his book, “Writing With Pictures”, so I hunted down a source for the pens and ordered fine, medium and large sizes. 

Mr. Shulevitz suggests that working with these pens really frees up the style and after a couple goes at this, I would agree.  I’ve been exploring loading the pen up with ink from the dropper in the bottle stop, as well as with dipping the tip of the bamboo directly into the ink.  I’ve tapped the nib on the mouth of the bottle, as well as blotted it on paper towels to release the excess ink and control the flow.

The effect of the reed pen really took my pencil drawing of the rabbit (above) to the next level.  The lines formed have an effortless grace to them.  And the process is gentle and enjoyable, calling me back again to the drafting table after I have finished my piece.

What has been your experience working with pen and ink?  Have you worked with bamboo pens before?  What about other tools?

Harp Song

A little on the illustration side, today.  I've wanted to illustrate the harp for a while, and as it turns out, this image fits in nicely with Illustration Friday's theme this week: Spirit.

And of course, here's the super-sized edition, so that my link shows up better (I hope) on Illustration Friday's site.

Thank you for stopping by.

Come Cruise With Me: Writing Warm-up Exercises

So, I’m sitting here in front of the monitor, you know the feeling, trying to write and I’m thinking, “huh?”  You’d think it’d be easier if you already have some writing started to just get on with it, right?  To just get the thing written and polished and finished, already.  But my mind shies away from it, like a skittish horse from a rattlesnake.  So, what’s going on with that?

So, I asked myself, “Self, huh?”  (Self understands short sentences best.) 

Self says, “Music.”  (And it utters single words best.)

Oh. 

Now, I think about when I sit down to play my instrument of choice.  Sometimes, I want to get right into a piece that I’ve been working on, that I’m excited about.  But I know better.  Yep, all you serious musicians and music teachers are shaking your index fingers at me right now, ‘cause you know that you are supposed to warm up, first, right?

Yeah, like scales and arpeggios.  Yeah, that’s one way to start, with set notes that lie at the foundation of most music.  Or maybe, first, a little improvisation, to get the mental juices flowing.  And then, the scales and arpeggios.  With sports and exercise, same thing: warm up, first; work out; then, cool down to finish.

So, why not with writing?  I’m not talking about writing prompts that say to write about your first day at school or the objects on your desk.  Those are good, too, but they’re still asking for full on writing.  I’m thinking more of something that will get me from zero to cruise speed, more of an in-between step.

So, I got basic.  A little improvisation for writing.  We’ll need to get to those scales and arpeggios, too, but this is what I’ve got so far.

Letter Go Wild

You’ve got two minutes.  Write (or key in) words that start with or include the letter of the day.  You choose the letter: the more random, the better. 

Here is an example of what I came up with the first time.  You’ll notice that I did not begin with the logical choice of the letter “a”.  Try to keep away from that logic stuff for this exercise.

Letter Go Wild: W

Whoopee

Whip

Wow

Wonder

West

When

Whip

Willow

Wedding

Waistcoat

Wessing?

Wesley

Wellesly

Wubber?

Wumbelism?

Wonky

Wicked

Wilhelm

Wecipe*

Wohemia*

Whitakers

Wokawemia

Webmickedy

Wonnebennow

After the first time through, I stopped putting question marks and asterisks after slip-ups and mistakes and just left them as they were and typed it correctly on the next line.  We spend all day correcting ourselves and conforming to rules.  So, why do we expect our minds to just free-flow on demand when we want to write?  A little “everything goes, everything flows” play should loosen it up.  Here’s the second trial run:

Letter Go Wild: P

Potato

Press

Posse

Passive

Passic

Possible

Patriotic

Cowslip

Posy

Pakistan

Pugnacious

Pandemic

Pad

Pasta

Pasty

Putrid

Puck

Pucknacious

Puke

Packy

Pucky

Pluck

Possible

Paranoid

Pontificate

Powr

P[ow

Power

Plan

Plant

Planit

Planty

Parliament

Parlor

Parle

Pest

Pesto

Pen

Pep

Peer

Purr

Puck

Pluck

Pun

Punny

Pun-tificate

Pontificate

Prarie

[prairie

Primal

Primacy

Peer

Peer

Pan

Pen

Pan-tificate

Pep

Pepper

As I went along, my brain came up with hybrids of 2 or more words, with words that weren’t words and with completely random collections of sounds and letters.  I went with it and wrote them down.  The effect seems to be a little destructive to my sense of structure, but I’m thinking I’m in the middle of an evolution.  I guess I’ll see how it plays out.

I do know that this exercise is easy to sit down to do, so I don’t avoid it, and after it, I am launching right into writing without a second thought.  That’s an improvement and that’s what I was looking for: get me to cruising.

Moving in Shadow

Another illustration for Illustration Friday.  This week's theme is "Shadow".

Dancer in Shadow

And a cropped version, so it reads better on Illustration Friday's website... I hope.

When an Ending Is an Opening

A little something for Illustration Friday's website, where illustrators can post their work for the theme of the week, announced each Friday (http://illustrationfriday.com/).

This week's theme is "Tail".
The best endings open up more.

Night Night

 It was late, late at night, and on this rare occasion, I was alone in the house …or so I thought.  I was playing a favorite video game of mine, Plants vs. Zombies, a delicious blend of creepiness and humor, because of course, there are no such things as zombies… or so I thought.  Immersed in my game, I was furiously beating back the zombies with awesome strategy and the quickness and finesse of my lightning reflexes, when I heard a-rustling in another room of the house.  I stopped and listened …but now, there was nothing more than the imagined tick, tick, tick of the silent digital clock on the desk beside me.  I resumed my game, driven to lay waste to the world of the zombies and prove myself forever the victor with a capital ZV (Zombie Vanquisher).

Yet again, I was disturbed by the sounds of papers and small objects being moved around, in some room, close by.  Was there some mad, midnight organizer, distraught over clutter in my home, come to vanquish me and my lackadaisical attitude towards dishevelment?  

I called out, this time.

  “Hello?  Is there a body about?”  

My own life’s breath was my only reply.  So, back to my zombies I went, but this time, with one ear cocked, like a dog with a bone somewhat distracted by the beetle in the shadows.  

Then, there was a brief scrabbling sound on the hardwood in the hallway, but I could not be torn from my quest for zombie extinction.  Soon, I heard sounds of movement in the very room where I sat.  I looked up from my game with dread.  

But there was nothing. 

No specter with feather duster in hand, no cranky housemaid from the grave.  But now, a rustling amongst some file folders on the floor, and then, I heard it: a scratch, scratch, scratching from behind the haunted piano (our antique--- okay, antique-like--- dark wood, upright piano that sometimes resonates strings on its own, seemingly to distinguish and emphasize particular thoughts from the stream of consciousness passing through my mind).

A rat!  That must be it.  A grimy, hairy, yucky rat that I alone was going to have to deal with.  A grimy, hairy, yucky rat that was disgusted that there was not a place for every thing and every thing in its place!  But before I had time to ponder this further, IT sounded.  The phantom brushed the piano strings, vibrating them into a ghostly soundtrack to a ghastly scene.

I decided I would bang on the piano keys to drive the neatnick out with the cacophony.  I pulled out the piano bench to access the keyboard, when I spied there, on the carpet, an eerie sight, a crawdad, claws raised in attack mode, ambling towards me in a threatening, off-balance, slow, but surprisingly efficient, zombie-like motion.

Wha-at?!

A crawdad?!

A crawdad, like some dream-veiled Salvador Dali vision.  A crawdad, as if drawn up out of the water in the Moon card from the tarot.  

My son has two crawdads for pets that he keeps in a ten-gallon aquarium in his room.  But could this be one of them?  How would it have gotten out?  No time to ponder that, now, though, as the crawdad made his slow, lurching progress toward me.  I ran to the aquarium and retrieved the net and ran back to scoop up the crustacean, though he struggled against it.  I deposited him in the tank in my son’s room and successfully determined that indeed, he was one of my son’s crawdads, specifically, the one named Speedy.

Crayfish Interrupted

I watched him as he sulked in his cast-resin cave.  No doubt he was devising plans to steal my identity, next time, and make a splash in ‘Vegas.  At last, I had proof that though we may clean ‘til the zombies come home, the THINGS in our lives really will just crawl out of their places all on their own and spread themselves about in disarray.  Naughty, little crawdad.

Oh yeah, I guess I didn't mention I'd write about crawdads, too.

     Grey clouds are blowing in from the Western sea, this morning, in spite of the approaching summer solstice.  I feel the electricity of the storm bearing down, gathering its might before its trek across the Sierra mountains.  Today is a good day to launch a blog. 
    
     And you found me!  Congratulations.  Welcome to Mel's Ink, my digital dwelling.  May you find my posts intriguing, dear reader, and may we embark on this sometimes fantastical, but always engaging journey together.  What a fine instrument of literacy this is, one in which you, the reader, may collaborate in the creation of this ambient space along with the author. 
    
     And you may be asking yourself, "What is this blog about, anyway?"
     Is it a daily life blog?  In passing.
     Is it a writing blog?  Virtually. 
     Will it include gardening?  I might be persuaded to dig into it. 
     How about knitting and needlework?  A stitch here, a stitch there.
     And music?  When my "harp" is in it.
     Let me guess, parenting?  Maternally yours.


     The sea of Communicatiania is wide open and a cyber-electric gale is a-blowing.  Join me on this digital journey and we will find out together just what might interest us.

     Oh, and one more thing, the frequency of the posts?  Best to check in weekly, for now.