Notes on Creativity * 2023 - Lucky Year for Rabbits!
Manga Art by Missy Yu - UPDATE: 4-22-22 New Character Added to Gallery.
UPDATE: Body Art finished 3-27-22 - GORGEOUS color work.
Missy Yu sent an OK to Post! Check out some amazing artwork a few more paragraphs away.
Also posted, some of her body art by Illinios artist, Paul J Johnsen. Quik note to Paul....I'd be there in a heartbeat for your ink if not for the Forever Pandemic. Two-year waiting list out here and I'm still in line. THX for the good words, Missy! Don't forget to draw! Update: I'm now #175 on Kel's list. If you ever find a good tattoo artist, treat him or her WELL.
New Artist on the scene but hiding behind "..it's not finished yet."
Haven't you learned that they're NEVER finished? I have yet to meet an artist that wouldn't change "just one more thing." ---- and just a reminder, I'M EL-1....send me some great dragons or I'll take back my Wacom pad. I've seen your work and it should DEFINITELY be posted above mine! Open invite. I challenge you to a dragon draw. And thank you. For Chris Larsens "Greenpath"- from Hollow Night - piano cover- Materia Collective...haunting, ethereal, beautiful. It's you. UPDATE: check out El's new dragon!
Amazing cartoon art by Anne Marquardt
Nobody does whimsy like Anne. ***FINALLY - got permission to post! Not just because she's my sister and I threatened to dump all her grade school stuff on site if she didn't get back to me.
Seriously? Anne is not only spontaneous, prolific, creative and fun, but shares her talent through her free art classes for interested folks in her community. This is only a tiny sample of her vast personal collection. Will post more later. (Is this ok, Anne?....let me know when my check's in the mail) IMHO...you should NOT have gotten a "real" job. The world missed out on so much. Thanks for making my site look better.
Personal Struggles as an Artist
Like, what happens when you're constantly told to quit drawing and get a real job, and they "don't call 'em Starving Artists for nothing." Or you learn to play an out-of-tune guitar and hafta relearn ALL your fingering positions. And yes ... there was a creative plus - I learned I could open-tune strings to get notes I needed that weren't available in standard chords. Always think CREATIVE! - my first and always love will be the piano.
Current Wildest Desires 13NOV23 - Blue Eye Samurai-GREAT work. Game of Thrones meets Rurouni Kenshin
24OCY23 Song: Like Dream-Zhou Shen from Chinese Drama STAND BY ME. Needed this song today. Some change is always good. Some change is not. For either kinds of change, there is always a song that somehow fits.
14OCT23 Watched a Japanese film - His - yesterday. Really decent. And for some odd reason, while I was surfing for news, I came across an interesting personal vid from a Japanese photographer going by YUU. Altho I don't usually read those, I felt compelled to look at this one. YUU shared a deeply personal vid about family dysfunction, much like that of biracial Asian kids. It was a strong reminder to me, to forgive and move on. Even if you know the stain will last forever, it doesn't have to rule your life. Good luck, YUU! Do me a favor and be GREAT at whatever you do from here on out!
26JAN23 - KE film: JUNG-E, CN series MistyKyushu Report,Blood of Youth
JAN 23_Editing music, watching a LOT of CDrama-KDrama, still not that great on guqin. And it's f-g TAX time again. Oh - Happy BDay, Mozart. I really like your stuff. Also been reading a lot. Really excellent book - UNTHINKABLE by US Senator Jaime Raskin. It gets a bit politic-hvy in parts, but the writing is passionate and skillful in a work dedicated to his only son who committed suicide 2 days before the 06JAN Insurrection at the Capitol. Also reading The Husky & His White Cat Shizun Bk-1. The English trans on this is outstanding!
NOV 22_Check out Korean Drama Alchemy of Souls. (I think everything clicks with this ...Hong Sisters script is GOLDEN w great characters and sharp dialogue) Also Under the Queen's Umbrella (which is kind of like Asian Desperate Housewives. Good mix of funny & serious. Just my US-born Asian-Euro opinon.
AUG 22 _ Been down awhile a/c operation on left hand. That barely healed...then I accidentally reached into a ground hornet nest and took a dozen hits to my right hand. So much for any guitar or artwork. Still dance though. It helped. Also bought a Fuxi style guqin to distract me from going nuts without my guitars.
Current Wildest Desires 09NOV22 Balming Tiger by SEXY NUKEM..street-danced in Walmart parking lot
Current Wildest Desires 08SEP22 Two Steps From Hell - Star Sky ( EXTENDED Remix by Kiko10061980 ) -
Current Wildest Desires 11MAY22 ckout Street Dance of China & movie I AM WHAT I AM
Current Wildest Desires 08APR22 - Studying freeware UE5. Looks like super animation program
Finished Chinese drama - The Long Ballad. Great characters and song, The Direction of Light. Got a little rushed into too-convenient happy-endings toward the last, but decent series. Next: The Untamed, plus Ever Night. Also searched thru about 300 songs for new motivator - settled on "Run Again (Orig Mix)" by Space Motion. It works!
Run Burberry's new Adam Driver ad on a loop over my bed and imagine filling it in with me and a Siberian Tiger.
Animenz's BIOS, (10th Anniversary) - Guilty Crown. Got no words. It's THAT good! Helps me sail.
Choreograph some hip-hop moves to Fluke's ATOM BOMB. Also....definitely have a go at: 31 (Original Mix) by Dense & Pica. It really travels. **JUST DISCOVERED NICK JOSEPH!!! AMAZING hand gestures and smooth choreo - (speechless now). Ahhhh - also found Korean street dancer Nain. She has Chicago-style flair!
Be dust on Theishter's piano if I would be sure he'd never dust the thing. Celebrated Animenz' 31st BDay. He had a super steaming concert. LOVE his guy's 3-hand method. Not a wasted space in any of his work. Dripping with jealousy right now.
Lastly, I've been saying for decades I'd learn to cook.
Friends and Family
Mainly for my two guys who asked why I didn't try to sell my music.
Cause nobody would buy it.
Serious Notes on Creativity
For truly passionate creators, it's a double-edged sword. I think success has every bit as much to do with ego and support as talent. And maybe just ONE person who believes in you whether you can cook or not. I've lost friends to depression, despair and hidden inner pain from self-inflicted failure or fear of failure. Not to mention the slings and arrows of outrageous critics. To me, every creative person is a brave hero going forward with something new and special just because the heart says do it, even if it doesn't bring fame, glory or that Lamborghini. Me, I decided to embrace my crazy with humor, acceptance and a website. I was born in a Tiger year. Not just any Tiger year. It was the year of the Metal Tiger.
And g-damn....That's who I am.
Dragon draw challenge - Thank U, EL - 1-16-22
El ok'd posting this amazing Dragon. And this is only one of many in the sketchbook. Talent like this is too good to just sit in a drawer. Thanks!
El was accepted at the University of Colorado major in Literature. Every artist should WRITE! but not forget to draw.
Update 26JAN23 - eL-1 geez it's hard to stay motivated lately
Life with the nocturnal feline, Xiao Ping
Ever wonder what urges a person to draw?
Especially in the most hostile of environments. Like when drawing is considered wasteful, or “sissy” or a lazy man’s way of life. How can someone with little or no specialized training pick up a pencil and spontaneously draw well. Or play music without a sheet of notes. More still, without help or prestige … just on the influence of a sound, or color, or the way the light falls across a point in nature least noticed by many others in the same place at the same time.
I believe in the theory of the collective subconscious. That Freud's ID-ian (okay maybe not a word, but we ALL have an ID somewhere in our brains) continuing … that the ID-ian part of our subconscious holds a near cosmic multi-generational collection of Jung's basic blueprints for skills or talents that served our ancestors well in the past. Because if they DIDN’T, those skills and abilities would have died out long ago in favor of habits more efficient or productive. So, that which exists today does so because it was and possibly still is crucial to our existence.
Art was always a form of communication. Even if some near-mass extinction takes almost everything about society away – the satellites, electronics, hard drives and cell phones, maybe even language itself, what remains to rebuild would be art. To recover our stories, plan our new futures, re-create the world thru drawings, theater, dance, music. Because art doesn’t go well without music. They need each other. To form a superpower that brings people together.
I also believe that’s how we need each other. That a feeling of déjà vu is not an abstract premonition, but instant response to a look, or tone, scent or feeling of This Has Happened Before. Followed by a sensation of – now was it GOOD? Or NOT good? Because through eons of time, the same situation has embedded itself in us and subconsciously replays against every one we ever meet. For the few privileged to find a match, it’s because generations have supported connection qualities to exist in each other, gifting ultimate happiness to the long-shot perfect combination. And we depend on perfect combinations to keep our social paradises alive because we have a need to recognize and appreciate love, even if we never find our own perfect match.
In story writing, according to Tobias' excellent book, there are only 20 Master Plots. All else is made fresh and new by characters with infinite idiosyncrasies, or the changing environment, culture, or some unique perspective … like telling a story about mowing grass from the viewpoint of the lawnmower. During an Australian bushfire.
But art and music have no boundaries. According to my religion … which I hate to get into because SOMEBODY is bound to be offended by it … Adam and Eve being driven from the Garden of Paradise was a metaphor for the darkening of three-fifths of the mind’s full capacity to understand and enjoy. In the two-fifths that were left to us, we were granted Art and Music. Well, that last part is MY contribution. But then, that’s what I believe.
I think Asian and African civilizations have some of the oldest and most prolific artists. Not only just to communicate and survive, but to actually find pleasure in life. I often think to myself that even though my Western side sometimes overwhelms me with practicality, my Eastern side helps me to feel. Get lost in the scent of rain, or green. See beyond primary colors. Hear color in melodic notes. Be compelled to move it all onto paper or clay or just a stick in sand … and make a feeling I can touch. Even share with anybody else.
Okay. I may have already lost you. No problem. We’ll live through it.
Meanwhile, I'll probably see this sometime later when I'm fully awake and be inspired by the delete key.