Musically Thinking

Far Away - by Ingrid Michealson
"I will live my life as a lobsterman's wife on an island in the blue bay
He will take care of me, he will smell like the sea, And close to my heart he'll always stay
I will bear three girls all with strawberry curls, little Ella and Nelly and Faye
While I'm combing their hair, I will catch his warm stare On our island in the blue bay"

Music always runs through my art. In the first grade I illustrated a collective of drawings inspired by Disney's Cruella DeVille song. In retrospect, I think it was mostly just page after page of black crayoned space with big scary eyes stabbing you with harsh white contrast, indicating that you were being watched from underneath a rock.

The Cruella pictures are the first memory I have in what must be at least a 21 year run of drawings inspired by music.

Some of my favorite artistic musical highlights have been playing 45s of Cole Porter to kindergarten classes while they roll around on gigantic butcher paper with Pastels. I always explain that they should just go where the music takes them. I've done weird scientific space drawings based on guitar strings and music notes. I've storyboarded music videos, but my favorite thing to do is a Sketch-ercise I invented in really boring art class in high school with the help of my ultra hip 'Discman'. This is something I call 'Skip Listen Draw!" It's kind of like Tic-Tac-Toe in that it is awesome and that it's mega-lame if you can't see someplace to go.

Here are the rules:

1. You HAVE to draw something from each song your ipod randomly plays in Shuffle mode.
2. You have to have a theme - this one is kid's illustrations because I was three ideas short on PbIdMo. Sometimes I do "Things animals do" or one of my favorites is "This Only Happens in the Kitchen".
3. You can listen to the song twice
4. You can't give yourself space or any time to think between the plays.
5. You have to throw your pencil down the instant the music stops playing the second time.

Here are some PbIdMo thoughts based on Pod's selections this morning.

All I Want is You - as covered by Tristen Prettyman
"If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float."

The Ninjas - by Barenaked Ladies
"I looked all around my bedroom -Underneath the dresser
Behind the curtain -But nothing could be found
There was nothing left behind them -No way that I could find them
No finger prints or crumbs on the ground"

Matters of the Heart - by Tracy Chapman
"Here I sit
I'm feeling sorry for myself
It's quite a sight
But I have you to thank
For reminding me
We're all alone in this world
And in matters of the heart"