We wish you a Merry Christmas!

 

Hello and Seasons Greetings. I completed my annual Renard Christmas Card and for the first time, I recorded it so the process is now available on my YouTube Channel. Click on either of the images to watch this video.

Here is the completed Pan Pastel paintings which I drew from life and a photo of Renard. The Tomtes or Gnomes all posed for me as I worked. Renard was downstairs sleeping on the sofa. I worked on 10 x 14 black Stonehenge hotpress watercolor paper.

In Sweden the Tomte is a farm elf or spirit of a long ago ancestor who is attached to and protects a family. The Tomte may live in the barn and is never seen but when you put out milk and porridge for this family friend, it is gone by the next day. This link is to an article with a wonderful explanation of where the Tomte comes from. Swedish illustrator, Jenny Nystrom, defined the appearance of the Jultomte in the many  Christmas cards she created. 

And here is the card. I used the image as a background on a single slide in PowerPoint, added the text and voila! I will print them on 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 cards. Which ever I have on hand. I think that this is our best holiday card ever! I love it. The artwork is still on my drafting table so I can keep looking at it and I finished it two days ago. I believe I'll have to frame it rather than just filing it away.

From Renard and me, "We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

Imaginary Landscape.

I've done that all of my life as most artists do but this is art that has been inspired by meditation and journeying. So.... along with my wildlife and pet art, I'll be doing inspired pastel paintings and drawings.

Long story shortish. My art is reflective of all I believe and would like to know and understand. I'm on a lifelong journey with the rest of you and I don't understand squat. I finally came to realize that I get to understand it all when I pass. But I can't help myself. I still want to learn more and connect with my soul and reconnect with all the bits of my soul that seem to run away with every scary event. The one tool I have is creativity. I can connect with the Creative by creating pretty pictures. I love painting with pastels and sharing what I do with others. 

This video is ASMR. I do speak but, not too much,  and I use my telephone voice. Click on the image below to see this video. If you have any constructive comments, I would like to read them.  Thank you in advance for taking a look. It's only 33 minutes long. I was going to use a second channel but I'm afraid of losing traction and it's all about creative work anyway. I'm tagging this work Wise?Woman. 

 

A turn on the path...

 

It's been around for decades, ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). I hadn't heard of it until recently although I had seen the initials and wondered for about 30 seconds. It was a Reiki video and I thought it must be a new variety. New personalized versions of Reiki pop up everywhere. The woman whose name I don't remember was whispering in what seemed like an imitation of Marilyn Monroe and was jingling her earrings as she chanted on about sending healing. The comments were complimentary. I made none and never watched another video because I found her whispering contrived and irritating. Last week I came upon an ASMR drawing video. Okay. It has nothing to do with Reiki. I looked it up and from my take these are supposed to be relaxing videos. Some may send you off to sleep. Well, I did find the drawing video relaxing and I watched a few more. Some I liked and some I didn't. I watched ASMR videos where people crackled plastic and brushed the microphone. They were okay and I might listen while I was going to sleep. In one article they mentioned Bob Ross and the relaxing effect his voice had on the viewers. I got it!

It was what I wanted to do all along and thought wouldn't work because people would want instruction. But I enjoy listening to the sounds of materials and pencils brushing across paper. So I published two and I have two more upcoming along with my narrated videos. There is no time lapse because time lapse rushes the eye. My thinking anyway. Click on the images above to see the videos. 

At any rate, I prefer to work in silence or giving little commentary while painting. In real time the viewer can see what my hand is doing; what materials I am using. I created these two videos specifically as ASMR projects. The others are videos I was going to narrate so I didn't. I am whispering in a normal manner in some of the videos I am recording now and in others I don't.  I'm trying to find what works best for me; what's most comfortable.

This is a real thing, not just an internet meme. Scientific American even published an article about it. This is the link:   https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-asmr-real-or-just-a-pseudoscience/

Although my videos only date back to February 2021, I have been making and posting videos on other media. When I decided to leave the others behind and concentrate on pastels and graphite, I deleted the old ones. It didn't occur to me to just make them private. I still have them saved and I'm reviewing them to see if anything is worth working on. Some are in pastel so I'm still on track with my favorite medium.

I know when people, most people are making ASMR videos, they are planning around the repetitive sound. What I like is that I can just paint with my pastels and forget the instruction. I am trying to be careful to let my movements be clearly visible but beyond that, I'm just painting. I LOVE IT! or in ASMR  i love it .