Showing Off Your Hobby in Public

What I do is look for opportunities to practice my hobbies in public. Not in the classroom, not in front of my teacher, but in front of a real audience. There's lots of ways to go about this: enter contests, find a captive audience who will clap politely, or video whatever you are doing. Just knowing that it's being video will have the same effect. What's the point of doing it in public? To up your game. There is nothing to get your adrenalin involved like being in front of people for the newbie.

You'd think that I'd have gotten over my stage fright by now but that's not the case. This week I played a small concert on the guitar for my watercolor class. I did the same thing in front of my dad and one of his housemates at his assisted living facility. Being perfect at my level is not a realistic possibility, and these groups don't expect it. They just want to support you. Even though I knew everybody, I still had a pretty good case of butterflies going. And of course I had more fun than anybody else there. Once you've broken the ice and played in front of a "safe" crowd, your confidence is up and you can work toward playing in front of a lesser "known" crowd. Hey, we could play at a Borders or something. It's all about just getting in the water to learn how to swim. If you don't get in the water, you'll never swim.

I also entered an art contest this week. I didn't know whether the woven painting or the portrait would win. Most people thought the frogs were the slam dunk, but I wasn't 100% sold. I thought Al Pacino might win over adorability. He IS pretty adorable, too. And he won. So what does this accomplish? Did I get any money? No, I got a ribbon I don't get to keep. And I paid $30 to enter the two pieces (and join the Friends of the Dallas Public Library). But it upped my game! Now I'll enter more contests. AND I have another show scheduled in the spring for all my new portraits and woven paintings that I've been cranking out. Thanks to the Dallas Public Library.

How do you up your game with reading? Books on tape! I'm almost done listening to Jane Eyre at the office (I have one of those jobs that I can do while listening to books and watching the daddycam at my dad's house), I'm listening to The Unauthorized Biography of J. Edgar Hoover in the car, and on the train and at lunch and on the elliptical or in bed I read What Happy People Know or a Thomas Wolfe. So basically, this week I've upped my reading by doing it in public.

Why would you want to up your game? There's lots of reasons to do a hobby, but improving your skill is part of the deal. Plus, if you don't challenge yourself, it's not nearly as fun. There's lots of ways to keep your brain active, and learning a new skill (a new song, a new painting technique, a new exercise) is about the best. Watching TV is about the fastest way to turn your brain to mush. Think about it. We are all born with that particular skill mastered.

Woven Paintings: Create a Special Painting from Two So-So Ones

We had a demo last year in my watercolor class that basically rocked my painting world. I always like to develop new watercolor techniques that are easy and turn out consistently good results. Weaving two paintings together is about as easy as it gets.

First you paint two separate paintings of the same subject. Landscapes probably turn out the best. Portraits are a bit difficult and, although Liz Taylor is recognizable, I have to deviate from her true skin tone in order to get any variance in the paintings. In the above I used orange, so it might come out just Liz with splotches of orange around the mouth. I don't think too many people at the office who saw it even realized it was a woven painting. I could have gone WAY off the natural skin tone, but then she wouldn't look like a person. Or green. Or blue. Skin tone on the first painting and orange and gold on the second just says bad skin.

OK, so let's say you are going to pick a landscape, a seascape, an unusually shaped structure, aspen trees, or an animal. You do two exact pictures by tracing. I personally go one light, one significantly darker; one pastel, and one more primary. Opposite colors on the color wheel work great. I tend to stay away from browns and a whole lot of realism for the colors. However you do your painting, it will come off abstract in the end due to the weaving. I would say the less complicated your subject, the more recognizable it is. The building in Santorini above is a good, basic building with the shadows on both paintings in the same place. Most areas can be lined up on a simple subject. If you do mountains with varying shaded areas, the tops of the mountains can be lined up, but not the shading. Some people don't mind things being out of alignment, but it just depends on how recognizable you'd like your subject to be.

Once I have done the paintings I start on the cutting. This is also arbitrary. The most common is one vertical and one horizontal. I think that's a bit boring, and tend to go with circular lines on one and diagonal lines on the other. Even if you like straight lines, diagonal is far more interesting. Curves add movement to the picture making it almost swirly. Curved lines can be drawn with a big bowl. I draw the lines on the back of the picture, and if there are details on one painting I want to retain in the finished painting (e.g. a cool cloud formation or in Liz's case the eyes in one were better than the other) I draw the lines on the front of the painting around that area and build the cuts around that one strip.

Finally you cut it based on my little video, and just weave the strips together ony by one. It might take a good while to get everything to line up. I sometimes start over. The best way to avoid getting things out of order is to number the back of the strips.

What comes out in the final product is a big surprise, especially to me! I have NO idea what the weaving will look like. But so far, I've been more pleased with the woven painting than I was with the original works. I guess it's because it really is an accident and it's SO easy to make it all come together.

Portrait Painting

Every week before my watercolor class, I draw my subject from a photo. I draw each area of varying shades. What really carries the day with a picture is the values (although color gets all the credit.) Just like painting ship sails, painting a face is all about painting shadows. I start off with a wash of burnt sienna. Everybody starts off as a light skin tone, and I find burnt sienna applies to everybody, regardless of race. I then paint the shadows, layer after layer. Going gradually darker over about two hours. (Of course the eyes and teeth are left white until I get the skin completely done.)







 

When I've gone as far as I can with the hills and valleys of the cheek bones, chin, neck, etc., I go for the detail work of the eyes, lips and hair. Then I shade the whites of the eyes. If at this point I see that I've gone overboard on the skin tones for the shading, I can remove a layer of the shading by "painting" the shadow with water, maybe giving it a little scrub with a clean brush, and patting it with a paper towel. If I need to take the whole area off, I can do that with a slightly damp Magic Eraser. This really is magic. If I want to put in a highlight where one doesn't currently exist, I can take the Magic Eraser and rub out a circle where I want the cheekbone or forehead to come forward to the viewer.

See if you can name all the famous people in the paintings!

Tennis: Healthy Fun at Any Age

I used to say that my purpose for being on my tennis league was to make people feel really good about their game. I was slow and erratic, although I had pretty good hand eye coordination and a wicked backhand and serve. However my game went, I had more fun than anyone else out on the courts. The social connection is just as much fun as the game. If you are willing to have fun and not get overly caught up in the competition (beat up yourself, your team mates, or your competition) you can do this well into old age and stay fit.

HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY:

There's lots of continuing ed courses all over the place including city rec centers, tennis centers, and junior colleges. These last eight weeks or so and are in groups. You can also take individual classes. Although these teach you the mechanics, you don't actually play any games so you don't learn the rules or etiquette. There's plenty of easy books out there and now you can find whatever you want on the Internet.

JOIN A LEAGUE:

Don't get stuck in the trap of lessons, lessons, lessons and more lessons. After about two series of lessons, you are ready for a league. Leagues have different levels, and obviously you will start in the beginner league. You don't have to be proficient to be at this level. League playing is where you will really progress. Since you are a baby player, you should join a city league for less than $40 for however many months the league season goes (which goes toward reserving courts). I was in the Carrollton league for five plus years (never did leave the beginner league) and we had people from their twenties to about 70. In order to progress, you have to play people better than yourself. This is why you don't want to get stuck in lessons without actual games. In lessons, you are competing against yourself. In leagues, you are competing against other people. It keeps you far more honest. In lessons, you are paying an instructor to tell you "Man, that was AWESOME," whereas, on a league, you might hear that and you know it's the truth. Or, on a league, you might hear dead silence or a sigh or a "Next time, try hitting to her backhand." You can always take lessons while playing on the league. You can also get your league members to take private lessons with you and split the cost. Now that's a blast.

Your first league should probably be a doubles league. This is less taxing to your body as you are only doing half the work, or maybe less. It's just as much fun and you will make lots of friends as you have four people for each match. Depending on the courts, that could be eight to twelve people running around in an evening.

BUYING A RACQUET:

There's a huge difference between an el cheapo $30 racquet and a $120 racquet. You might want to try out a few racquets at a tennis center and then find your favorite online and buy it (for half the price). I played with what felt like a caveman club for the first three years. When I finally decided to invest in a decent racquet, it truly transformed my game. It was like playing with a pencil, it was so light. But my gosh, I could hit the ball three times harder. I just wish I hadn't waited so long.

DEALING WITH THE WEATHER:

Our league played in the evening, and in Texas at 6:30 that was the peak of the heat in the summer. During this grueling months, you might want to take a break. The key is to dress as light as possible and drink a lot of water. In the winter, it was just the opposite. At 28 degrees, we would play with layers on to the point where we looked like Eskimos out there barely able to swing a racquet or run. I was a little afraid to take months off and leave the league short handed. The thing is, in the winter at least, you can always warm up by the end of the first set. With 100 degree heat, you simply have to take care of yourself by taking time off if necessary. Everybody gets that. The upside is, you will lose five pounds of water in a night!!

STAYING IN SHAPE:

I found the best cross training for tennis was yoga. Tennis involves a lot of quick reflexive movements from a standing position. Fast arm swings, fast sprinting, and your brain gets very quick at telling your body what to do before you've actually thought anything through. The ball is moving fast and you don't have time to consider choices. Your body just somehow gets there and does it's thing. Because of this, you can be in some pain and the adrenaline will allow you to tune it out. Once you've pulled a hamstring, it's always vulnerable to the next injury. For me, the only time my hamstring didn't hurt was during the game!! So I offset all this herky jerky exercise with stretching by teaching yoga. As you saw from my yoga post, that was several classes per week. All that stretching allowed me to keep up the tennis two nights a week. All the tennis was anaerobic and burned many more calories than the yoga.

My tennis girlfriends and I got together with our husbands and boyfriends for potlucks, weekend tennis camps, restaurants, and tennis socials. I watched their kids grow up. This is a great way to make longterm friendships with people who like to stay fit, are a little bit competitive, and know how to have a great time. Like golf, you don't have to be terribly athletic (you see old overweight people playing at both sports all the time!). Your lack of athleticism can always be offset by some sneaky killer shots that you've perfected over the years. Our seventy year old had arthritic knees. She was slow. But she placed her returns where you couldn't reach them every time (she had a smokin' shot to the sidelines) and therefore was a highly desirable partner! This is the one sport where practice and finesse almost always beat brute power. Just like in Toastmasters, you can't go by what a player looks like.