Share What You Know

How do you know what you know? Did you learn what you know from books written by others or from hands on experience led by others or by interactions with others? I am willing to bet that most of what you know is thanks to other people sharing what they know with you.

That being the case, my question to all of you is this: How often do you share what you know with others? Is it only occasionally when someone asks questions that are directed specifically to you? Is it all the time with no concern for whether anyone wants to know what you know?

Most of us share somewhere between the two extremes.

I know people who say that if you give answers to people who ask questions, they will never learn anything on their own. I know people who say that if you never or rarely give answers to people who ask questions, people will think you don’t know much of anything at all.

Thankfully, few people sit on the extreme outer edges when it comes to this subject.

Our local library has wonderful librarians who are constantly on the lookout for speakers who are willing to come in and speak with their teens and pre-teens on all manner of subjects from being a successful business owner to how to code and more. Next week, I’ve been asked to talk to teens and pre-teens about art, or more specifically, how to simplify the overwhelming aspects of creating art.

I’ve spoken on the subject of writing and how being comfortable with what you write is what makes a story stand out more than if all manner of fancy words and expressions are used. The upswing to that presentation was that a few teens and pre-teens who had great ideas they were afraid to write as stories in case they didn’t do it right found out there wasn’t a right or wrong way to write. All that was needed was the desire and drive to write the story down in the first place. Drafts and editing and proofreading were meant for after the story was down on paper.

So next week — and after a great deal of preparation for this presentation — I am breaking down art in terms of shapes and shading. Whether it’s anime or realism, impressionism or doodling, the concepts are simple and basic. Everything breaks down into understandable shapes and patterns, and when shapes and patterns are put together and shading is added, the results can be positively (and I do stress the word positively) surprising in a good way.

Some may be wondering how much I’m charging to share what I know. Here’s the thing: They’re teens and pre-teens. Should anyone be charging minors money for a presentation that opens the doors to more learning, inspires them to take chances, and dares them to dream? I don’t think so, and for that reason, I’m volunteering my time to share what I know about creating art — just as I did when I spoke to them about writing stories.

I am thankful that over the years, others have shared what they know with me which has motivated me to learn even more on my own. There are many others out there who are sharing what they know, and I salute all of you for caring enough to do that. Imagine how much poorer we would all be if no one ever shared what they knew … or if they only shared when they were paid to do so.

Elyse Bruce
28 January 2022

Do not reproduce without written permission
from the artist, Elyse Bruce. © Bruce 2022

Five More Fridays

In five more Fridays and the world will be ringing out the old year and ringing in the new year with high hopes that 2022 will be better than 2021 and 2020 were due to the pandemic. For those who are curious, 2021 has 53 Fridays in it because that’s how the days fell this year (there are usually only 52) and that’s because when the new year starts on a Friday in a non-leap year, it also ends on a Friday and that’s where the extra Friday comes from even though there are only 52 weeks in a year (regardless of whether it’s a leap year or a non-leap year).

This being December, I decided to participate in Drawcember which is like Inktober in October except it’s in December and there’s no requirement that inks must be used in the daily art. Just like Inktober, Drawcember also has a list of prompts that are published at the end of previous month so participants can ready themselves for 31 days of creating original art!

I know that December is going to be a busy month for everyone including myself, and some of you may be wondering why I would put so much pressure on myself to accomplish so much in such a busy month. I like challenging myself. I like finding out if I can prioritize my life appropriately so that everything that needs to be completed and everything I want to get completed actually are completed.

How does that apply to Drawcember which is, quite obviously, a chosen pressure? I looked at some of the word prompts and realized that some of these word prompts can be put together with the word prompt or prompts that follow, and so on days when doubling or tripling up is possible, I will create one piece of art — with each facet completed on the correct day — for the word prompts involved. But when I do combine word prompts, I won’t be dialing the creativity in.

What do I mean by that? I mean that just because chimney and icicles may happen together, that doesn’t mean the implied ‘home’ (the word prompt that follows chimney and icicle) will be tossed in so I can skip Day 5 of the challenge.

I’ll share the artwork here as I did throughout October so you can enjoy what I come up with, and while some will be completed with Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay India Ink, others will be done with markers or archival ink pens or colored pencils or what I feel speaks best to the spirit of the word prompt. There might even be some mixed media (in fact, I know there is bound to be some mixed media).

As you can see, Day 1 of Drawcember was about peppermint and what better way to kick off Drawcember than to draw candy canes? After all, who doesn’t associated candy canes with the Christmas season? But instead of just drawing them on a tree or on a table or in a more traditional setting, I decided to make these peppermint candy canes do double duty.

The word prompt on Day 2 was sweater but instead of drawing someone wearing a sweater or drawing a sweater on a table in a store, I decided to draw five folded sweaters in a pile waiting to be put away in a drawer somewhere in the house.

I love these challenges for so many reasons, but the biggest reason is because I believe it’s good for a person’s mental and spiritual health to set aside time to be creative and to enjoy the time invested in whatever creative endeavor is undertaken.

As I did with Inktober, I won’t be posting new art on this blog every single day throughout December. I think posting every three or four days is fine in light of the fact that December is a very busy month for everyone. So in a few days — somewhere in the early to middle part of next week — I’ll be back with more art to share and some insight into what else has to do with accentuating the positive and cultivating an attitude of gratitude and finding those silver linings in dark clouds.

Until then, welcome to December and all the wonderful surprises the last few weeks of 2021 are bound to hold for all of us.

Elyse Bruce
3 December 2021

Almost There

The next three days of Inktober were as interesting and as challenging as the first twenty-seven days of Inktober proved to be, and because the word prompts were approached with positive thoughts, the art that emerged from the next three days resulted in more traditional visualizations.

Being October, CRISPY brought forth a number of autumn themed concepts. In the end, I went with the crispy leaves that fall on city streets and in forests. Leaves that are never just one color but that, as they age, getting crunchier and crispier with time finally becoming fodder for next spring when trees begin to bud again. This made me smile because since, from the time I was a toddler, I have always loved autumn and the colors that come with that time of year, and most especially, the crispy leaves that crunch when you step on them.

When PATCH popped up as the word prompt on the Day 28, there were many ways a patch could be placed on something. Instead of focusing on the patch, however, I decided to focus on something else where a patch just happened to be part of the overall picture. For that reason, I chose an old-fashioned doll made entirely of fabric (including her head) with wool for her hair and a pretty pinafore dress. Well loved by some child, the patch was a visual nod to the patches we all wear that come from our childhoods into our adult lives.

As for SLITHER …

I am not a fan of snakes. I know some are dangerous while others are not. I know some non-poisonous snakes are great for keeping other poisonous snakes away. I even know that some are great natural pest control agents. And like I said earlier, while some are poisonous, most actually pose little to no threat to humans

I still don’t like snakes.

And yet, I felt compelled to draw a snake for this word prompt and once completed, I determined I am still not a fan of snakes no matter how innocuous they may be.

Now that being said, this piece did remind me of an old Jim Stafford song, “Spiders and Snakes” which I hadn’t thought of in a number of years. Thinking of this song again, made me smile as it was a popular request on local radio stations when I was a child.

Three more days of Inktober with very different word prompts and yet all three of them had a unifying thread tying them together: Childhood memories.

Regardless of whether you remember your childhood fondly or it is wrought with painful memories, parts of your childhood have made you the person you are today. The silver lining in all that is no one is every completely good or completely bad so the parts of you that are rooted in the past are also not completely good or completely bad.

Build on those things in life that enrich your situation, and set to rest those things in life that detract from it. Acknowledge all parts of your past and move through your memories, seeing them as they are but from different perspectives. It isn’t always easy to consider the possibility that our memories seen through the eyes of our younger self may not be as helpful as we once thought.

Elyse Bruce
31 October 2021

A Shift In Direction

Sometimes one creative idea overrides all other possibilities and that was the case for me when it came to SPLAT. Maybe it’s because I am also a traditionally published as well as a self-published author that this was the case. After all, while mustard and ketchup can also represent SPLAT, nothing said it quite as loudly for this prompt as blood did.

It was on Days 26 and 27 of the challenge that there was a shift in direction — literally. Up until this point everything was drawn portrait format. All that changed when the word prompt on Day 26was CONNECT.

As with the other prompts, there were a lot of possible directions to go off in when it came to creating the art for this word, the most obvious being electrical connections and connections of the heart. But sometimes instead of going high tech, I think about all the fun low tech moments from childhood and that’s what happened with this piece which also insisted it had to be landscape format instead of portrait format. I was glad to oblige, and the final result was one I particularly liked because of the reflective nature of the cans.

This took me to the only other landscape format art completed for Inktober 2021 when the prompt was SPARK. Whereas many Inktober participants created pieces with fire at the heart of their idea, I thought Chevy’s electronic car aptly titled Spark was what I would draw. And so I did although I’m not certain this vehicle comes in orange. In my creative world, it does hence the color.

At Day 27, there were 25 portrait pieces and 2 landscape pieces, with the landscape pieces being back-to-back.

Sometimes in life, in order to find what works, we have to shake things up a bit. It doesn’t have to be an earth-shattering change to be effective. Sometimes it’s as easy as looking at things in a slightly different way. Sometimes all it takes is stepping back from what the default thinking is to see what was right in front of us in the first place.

And sometimes that’s all you have to do to see things differently without changing anything else. If you’re having trouble finding the silver lining in life, maybe today is the day to take a step back and see things from a slightly different perspective. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.

Elyse Bruce
28 October 2021

Three Weeks In

Inktober can be a month of extra work to embrace or a month of extra work to complain about when things don’t fall into place as expected. I would rather see the good that comes of extra work over berating myself for having voluntarily agreed to take on extra work. Maybe that’s why Inktober isn’t a chore for me.

The word prompt on the 22nd was OPEN and although that looks like a simple enough prompt, I took three runs at it before I completed the artwork. The first two efforts were dark (as in dark backgrounds and lots of great shadow opportunities) but neither felt right. My third effort was a much simpler, much smaller, much quieter rendering of the word and worked on a number of levels.

When LEAK came up as the word prompt, I strongly considered doing something that was water related. After all, it was a theme I had explored for the word prompt on October 9.

I decided against going in that direction mostly because I suspected a great many people engaged in Inktober would do water-related artwork for LEAK which left me to consider other options. What I chose to go with required far more time than I had anticipated, but in the end it was well-worth the extra work. What took the most amount of work were the shadows which surprised me as I had anticipated the hands and hoodie would be the most labor-intensive. Surprise!!!

This was followed with the word prompt EXTINCT and while I didn’t want to go with drawing one or more dinosaurs, it did remind me that from time to time I joke around about how I seem to be a dinosaur in today’s society. That led me to consider all the things that were new technology back in the day that no longer exist.

I remembered that back in 1980, I splurged and bought a SONY® Walkman™ for about $200 USD (the equivalent of nearly $666 USD in 2021 dollars). It was a crazy amount of money to spend at the time (and people who are fearful of the number 666 will point to the equivalent cost in 2021 dollars as proof of how insane the amount was). In 2021 dollars, it’s still a crazy amount of money to spend on break-through technology (although it’s still cheaper than a low-priced cellphone these days).

If you ask most people these days if they know what a Walkman is and how many songs can be stored on the data media played by a Walkman, most of them will give you a sideways glance with raised eyebrows. Yes, they may not meet the expectations of music lovers these days, but back in 1980, they were state-of-the-art technology and if you could afford to own one, you were considered avant-garde and forward-thinking.

I just loved music so being thought of as avant-garde or forward-thinking weren’t considerations.

The interesting thing about the last two prompts especially is how technology has careened from being a nice advancement that adds to one’s quality of life to constantly being at risk of being shut down. What was once seen as a positive now brings a lot of negative feelings along with it.

That’s why I believe people should never forget — or let go — of those things from their past that bring them joy and wake up happy memories. Sometimes a few decades becomes more than a lifetime away from the present. That’s okay. Just remember to keep those memories alive while living in the present. Don’t wind up living in the past. Don’t fret over the future.

Devote yourself to finding those silver linings in life that keep you safe from harm in a world where so many are intent on dragging you down into the mud with them.

Elyse Bruce
25 October 2021