Color

(c) 2014 L Keane

It's been a really long time since I've drawn anything. Last week, my friend Becky asked me to draw her D&D character, a cleric of the Raven Queen named Penny Dreadful. It's Penny's sad fate to remain alive to spread the good word about death to the living. As such, she is a cheerful goth chick.

I know it's silly, but I am hugely, inordinately proud of myself. I've always been pretty bad at coloring things; in school my primary art medium was pencil or charcoal. Shadows and light make sense to me, but color has always been messy.

At any rate, I'm happy with how this turned out. I always find myself a little in love with the characters I draw. This one is the same. I think it's because I managed to capture some kindness in her expression, with a hint of wry, self-deprecating humor. Also, I gave her freckles, and I've always been a sucker for freckles. She seems to be a lot of contradictions - goth and sweet, angular and full, luxurious and austere, soft and sharp, kind and severe. She seems like someone I want to get to know.

People often talk about their art coming to life on their own. Despite how many characters I've written and how many pictures I've drawn, this is the first one that ended up surprising me.

I love that feeling.

I need to start creating more. I also need to collaborate more with Becky, because clearly our visions combine into excellent things.






On my trip to Vegas, I got to play music. Like, with other people who play music. It's been such a long time since I've gotten to just sit and indulge in a boring musician's jam session. Taking turns playing songs, following along with chords you don't know, humming when you don't remember the words. The kind of thing that would be desperately dull for anyone not actively participating.

I miss that. Becky and Molly and Meghan and I used to do this all the time, figuring out a new Decemberists song, or four part harmony to something we loved from the 90s, or just messing around on our guitars.

Playing music on your own can be right, exactly what you need - just you and the keys, just you and your vocal chords, losing yourself to the song, shedding embarrassment, silencing the internal critic for just a little while. I miss the practice rooms in the music building at my college. I'd head over there at midnight, have the security guard let me in. I'd find an empty practice room and sit down at the piano bench, surrounded by plywood pegboard walls that were painted a dispirited bluish grey, and I'd run my fingers along the smooth, cool keys, and I'd put the stress or heartache or worry or anger of the week into the instrument. I would play until I was falling asleep over the keys, hands getting numb with cold, the hum of the empty building the perfect white noise to drown out the circular internal monologue. I'd play until I'd bled off whatever extra emotions had been pressing on the inside of my ribs, hammering them into something beautiful as they escaped.

But college was also a time to play music with people - not polished, tight melodies. Just messy togetherness. No technique, just joy or heartbreak. Twining your voice around someone else's, peeled and raw, not worried about sounding great or being impressive. Just sharing.

It's true that musicians can be self-absorbed. I'm speaking as a musician here. It's true that we're showoffs and vain and competitive. But there are times - just sometimes - when you just close your eyes and abandon the ego, when the music is more important than who's making it and the only thing real is being a part of it.

I miss being able to make the space for those moments to happen in.

I think I've been starving the artist in me for too long. I have to remember to take the time to put on the admittedly-sometimes-pretentious glasses (metaphorical ones, of course) and to see the world and myself like an artist.