The Kingfisher Bird

I saw a photo of this beautiful Rufous-Backed Kingfisher bird sitting on a branch and had to draw it this week.  This drawing was done in colored pencils.  I added a colorful shadow to its silhouette to add more depth and three diagonal sun rays to build in dimension.  After Tuneful Nectar, my colored pencil drawing of a Humming Bird, I thought of doing another bird drawing as a companion.  I hung up the first one in my daughter's room.  I asked her if she would like to have another picture of a bird and she was excited about the idea, so the Kingfisher will accompany the Humming Bird on the same wall.

Here are a couple of earlier sketches followed by the completed drawing again.

The completed drawing:

Departures

I created this drawing in graphite pencils.  The emotions in this drawing are a reflection of feelings that families face during a time of deployment.  Five years ago, our family faced such a deployment.  Jake was almost two years old, Alex was a Captain in the Air Force and it was only our second year living a military lifestyle.  During that half a year, as our friends and family know, I was pregnant with our twins while starting to notice signs in Jake, of what we later learned, was autism.  I title this drawing Departures (and not Deployment), because this one big event of the deployment was not only a physical departure (for Alex), but also simultaneous departures, or beginnings, in our lives.  These beginnings took us in different directions, that ultimately condensed into a single focus of family and togetherness.

Here is the progression of the stages of Departures:

The completed drawing:

My Seattle Skyline

Last week, a group of friends and I went out to a painting class, where we were all taught how to paint the same painting, the Montgomery skyline.  A couple of the ladies were from San Antonio, so they painted that skyline, and I painted the Seattle skyline.  Since I have many fond memories of my time there, it only seemed natural for me to do so; but it was a last minute call.  I'm so glad that I went for it.  I share with you here, the three main stages of the evolution of the painting.  The painting style is in the flare of Van Gough's Starry Night.

Stage 1.  I created the sky with long sideways brush strokes in shades of blue.

Stage 2.  I painted the black skyline and afterwards filled in the buildings in black.  I then used white for highlighting the edges of the buildings.  I blended it in with the black paint, followed by dry brush strokes at the end to create a shimmering effect, as well as to add texture.  From the bottom of the buildings on downwards, I painted the rest of the canvas black.  Over it, in different shades of blue, I created the water with fast random sideways brush strokes of differing lengths.

3. Completing the painting: 

Next was the sky.  I made the moon, a large yellow circle, and other smaller yellow and white circles (stars).  I worked with shades of yellow with yellow and white paint.  Then, in small thin brush strokes, wavelike motions, and a small round brush, I created the shimmering starry night effect.  The little dashed wavelike lines are in yellow, white and shades of blue, blending in with the night sky.  Lastly, I created the shimmering lights reflecting over the water.  I painted small dots, thick at the base and thinning out towards the tops, like a bunch of grapes, and then, in the opposite direction, towards the bottom of the canvas.  At the base of the buildings line, in shades of blue, I used long grass like shaped strokes to create the reflection of the water onto the buildings.  After I took my painting home, I hung it over a large corner photo stand.  We have a water theme I think, starting in the living room.  I hope to continue growing this theme with other paintings.

Sea Horses

Sea Horses ~ pastels

Sea Horses is a creation that works in both normal view as well as upside down, because some of the sea horses are suspended upside down.  Try looking at it in both directions.  The sea horses are in bright colorful shades while a backdrop of coral is captured in tones of soft pastels, supporting the highlighted pop of color of its cozy cohabitant.

Solitude

 Solitude ~ pastels

Art is something that has always been an inspiration to me.  At different points in my life, it has been a tremendous means of creative expression.  I have created with art at times when composing at the piano has either needed to put to rest for a bit, or when it is the most easily accessible to me, like when my kids are occupied with a TV show.  I can sneak into the living room and quietly do something creative for a few minutes at a pop.  The vibrant golden color of the character's hair is symbolic of how golden solitude can be, and how we often need solitude in order to feel this vibrancy.  The disproportion of the shape of the eyes however, is symbolic of how solitude without interaction with others can cause us to feel an imbalance in our lives.  We need both solitude and interaction in order to feel fulfilled and complete.

2 Black Keys

Piano, my oldest friend, I have known you since my seventh year.  My first instrument loaned from a neighbor's, while they were far overseas.  I used to go to their home and treat myself to your black and white keys, as if you were a candy treat.  I chose you, my oldest friend, but little did I know that this was going to be a life long friendship, like the 2-colors of your ivory keys.  Or maybe, it was you that chose to help me find my path: to help me express things without having to find words, without labels, without making things fit into boxes.  Not even needing to see pictures in my mind, I only need to hear your resonating sound, and my spirit is ever uplifted.

How could I not share music with my kids?   

Growing up, I always thought that when I have kids, I would of course teach them to play the piano.  Having taught piano lessons for over twenty years (hard to believe how fast those twenty years have flown), it seemed even more natural for me to want to do that.  With Jake's autism however, it wasn't going to be that straight forward, as nothing usually is with autism.  Even teaching the basic recognition of the two different colors of the keys, and that the black keys were grouped in alternating groups of twos and threes, was not so simple as it typically was when teaching others' kids.   If I ever encountered behavioral challenges of young kids, it was mostly because they didn't want to sit through a lesson.  With Jake's autism, it wasn't an issue of him not wanting to be there.  It was the challenge of finding a new unfamiliar way, that would work for him, to teach him what I have taught for years.

 

 Piano For Autism

I decided that I wanted music to be a part of Jake's ABA therapy.  I have his therapist use a toy baby grand piano as well as our upright acoustic piano, to have him repeat short basic rhythmic patterns that she plays.  This develops pattern recognition and aural skills.  Through his therapy and music being taught in an ABA manner (Applied Behavioral Analysis is the most common autism therapy that instructs with lots of short repetitions) I figured that he would build some tolerance to eventually sit through a real half hour long lesson with me.  I also did a bunch of experimenting, to see how long of an attention span I could get from him.


I did a lot of hand over hand instruction, so that he could feel the keys move under his fingers; tapping into potential muscle memory.  I tried to not speak a whole lot, since his attention span was short already.  When I did speak, I would do so in a consistent rhythmic pattern.  For example, I took the pattern of short-short-long while simultaneously saying "2 black keys" at least two times in a row.  I positioned his index and third fingers to make a V shape/peace sign, and with hand over hand did the "2 black keys" exercise with him.  He eventually followed along and started chanting those words in that short-short-long rhythmic pattern.  Since then, he has on several occasions, sat on his own at the piano, and did this pattern by himself while using his words.

I used the same type of teaching with the twins, even though they are not living with autism.  Using ABA teaching techniques can be used to teach anyone.  Kids living with autism will benefit from it the most, because they don't pick up on many things as naturally as their neuro-typically developed piers, especially social things (but that's saved for another blog post).  The teaching style of breaking a task down into several smaller/shorter steps with many many repetitions, is what gets optimal results.  

The twins are only three years old, so their attention span is not very long.  They just mostly want to play on the piano for a few minutes and move on to somethings else.  I don't push it on them or Jake.  I want to expose them to music and have them take interest by seeing me playing the piano.  I then have them play at their request and just interject brief spurts of teaching moments.  The other day, they were both fighting over playing the piano.  They both wanted to show me that they can do the "2 black keys" in rhythm.  So far, they have not differentiated between the groups of 2s and 3s, so they chant "2 black keys" while playing on the 3 black key group with an open hand.  Forget that peace sign Mom.  I don't force correcting them very much, because they want to be independent so much.


For now my old friend, I'll keep exposing the kids to your two-toned steps, and as their attention and tolerance develops, more teaching will take place for the musical Roses.  A moment of reflection puts things into new perspective for this one student.  Just as the two black piano keys repetitively resonate for my kids and unlock a world of possibilities; with one key turn I wave goodbye to my childhood piano lessons.  The second key turns, unlocking a door to a hope with new possibilities.  Once again, I am ever uplifted.

Musical Strings

Music ~ acrylics

Listening to Andras Schiff performing some of Bach's Prelude and Fugues on my drive home from the base today brought up some emotions to the surface for me - the main one being gratitude.  The genius of Bach never ceases to amaze me.  His musical thread initially starts out with direct sincerity, as if it were as simple as black and white, and then before we know it, a multitude of colors spin out majestically, leaving us at awe of what had just transpired.  They unravel multi dimensions of emotional depth.  Each layer pealed back, reveals gratitude for all of the little intricate details that connect our life's fabric.  A single spool spins out one seamless piece of string.  As it unravels, it unfolds for each one of us, our individual life's path.  

A man who had lived his life not being appreciated for his gifts yet, is only later appreciated and glorified after his passing - much too late.  As we reflect on what we not knowingly let slip through our hands through the cracks of music history, we ought to not let that happen with the little intricate details of our daily lives.  Some of the challenges that spin out our inner struggles, not yet capturing the lessons to be learned from their journey, may only seem black and white to us now.  However, if we let them slip through the cracks of every day's burdens, we may miss the later multitude of splendid color that would spin out too swiftly for us to appreciate.  Once the string completely escapes the grasp of its spool, there would only be a shadow left behind - only an afterthought.  It is with this mindset, that we'd only appreciate things after they are gone - much too late.

Clefony ~ charcoal pencils

Hold on to that piece of thread and take note of every unraveling rotation of that spool, because once the colors start flowing, it's hard to appreciate all of the detailed intricacies that turn that one piece of thread into our personal life's path.  Hold on to the little details with gratitude while they present themselves, and not after they spin right by you.  

There are many lessons to be learned from the life and artistry of one man who was too precious to be recognized during his life's spool of thread.  He was a visionary - ahead of his time.  If we had only known back then what we know now...imagine all the possibilities....all the musical strings yet to be played.

Creations

Clefony a made up word for a symphony of clefs
charcoal pencils



The Rose
charcoal pencils

  Seaweed
Acrylic 

Solitude
Pastels

Music

Acrylic

 

Waiting

Charcoal pencils

Musical plate

Blue
paint on tile

 Hummingbird
colored pencils

At the beach
charcoal pencils

 Deployment

The Kingfisher bird
colored pencils

Who knows what’s next....