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January
Monthly Theme Drawing
The art-challenge theme for this month was “Hibernation”.
Full story & process photos on my Patreon page.
Red-shafted Northern Flickerview
Little Mini Bal Tune
I recorded this original tune with my laptop last month to get the idea down. It's evolving a bit here and there, so I'll likely post an updated version sometime in the future (and by then I'll have proper recording gear and hopefully a knowledge to go with it!).
I'm pretty sure this one was at least partly inspired by my trip to Big Branch, a Balfolk festival (Western European social folk dance & music) in Ontario back in September. Lots of small, repetitive fun ditties were taught and played there, so I think this is my version of that sort of thing.Originally shared on my Patreon page.
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Witnessing The Warming
I made these 10 BC-birds out of Model Magic, and painted them with gouache. Then they gathered around a tiny campfire I made them, so I took this picture of them. This piece was made for the Metchosin Art Pod's Bird & Song show.
I go into depth about how I created this over at the original post on my Patreon page, where there are also lots of process photos!
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December
Ludo Puppet
A couple weeks before Christmas, I spent a few days working on this puppet for a gift. It's based on the character Ludo, from the movie Labyrinth (Directed by Jim Henson, starring David Bowie). All the materials were scrounged from whatever bits I had around the house: two old hole-y sweaters, buttons, leather scraps, socks, foam, sponges, stuffing, markers, fabric, thread, and a holiday stocking made out of faux-fur that I found last year.
Full story of the process and more photos on my Patreon page.
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Another Weird Layered Tune
Here's another experimental thing I made a couple months ago. There are a total of 10 layered tracks, and I tried out some effects on some of those— a voice-alteration thing where it lowers the voice and makes it kinda grungy, and a guitar patch that made one of the piano parts sound like an electric rock guitar. All recorded with my laptop mic using GarageBand.
Presenting a simple, repetitive composition for piano, voice, whistling, toy piano, toy glockenspiel, fake guitar and nose-flute comic-relief :P
Originally posted on my Patreon page.
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November 2019
Chanterelle
This month we decided our monthly art-challenge theme was going to be “mushrooms”. In October I went mushroom picking in the wild with a couple friends (and their dogs), and we each got a decent basket-load of chanterelles and boletes. Yum! I think that's why I gravitated towards making a chanterelle-esque mushroom.
Full story & more photos on my Patreon page.
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New Video— Waltzing with Bears
This was shot at the Woodstove Festival at the beginning of the month by budding filmmaker and fellow musician, Lukáš Hyrman.Waltzing with Bears is a song I associate with my grandfather Harold, who used to sing it often, accompanied by his guitar-picking. It's originally from Dr. Suess' Cat in the Hat Songbook, but has been adapted by many people and found its way into the familiar Rise Up Singing songbook, where I learned this version from.
Be among the first to get sneak-previews and see extra behind-the-scene bits of videos like this by joining me on Patreon.
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Another ol' loopy layered tune
Here's another laptop-recording from the vault.
For this one, I started with a piano bass line and melody. Then I added some percussion, creating a “brushes”-like sound by rubbing my hands & fingernails over the wooden surface of the back of a small boxy harp-like toy, and then tapping a rhythm on the box. Then I banged out two simple accompanying melodies on the trusty wooden glock toy:
Originally posted on my Patreon page.
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Shelldon
Meet Shell-don: the new, needle-felted inhabitant of a shell that my mum found when she was visiting this past summer. He likes to lick things.
Full story & more photos on my Patreon page.