Creative Recommendations for April
What I'm reading, learning, watching, and making art with!
Hi friends,
It’s time for my Creative Recommendations for April! These are just for my lovely ~patrons~ aka my paying subscribers.
Each month, I curate my favorite things I’ve been reading, learning, watching, dreaming about, and making art with. If you want to upgrade to receive these once a month, you’d make my day 🥰
Making Art With
One of my big creative goals this year is to play around with mixed media. I picked up a few supplies at Blick today and can’t wait to try them out. I always feel like a kid in the candy store when I get to pick out new art supplies.
I picked out a few of each of these:
Caran d’Ache Luminance colored pencils
Faber-Castell Polychromos color pencils
Caran d'Ache Neocolor II pastels
I want to build out a regular sketchbook practice and here are a few of the artists who are inspiring me:
Helen Stark runs a gorgeous Substack,
Learning
I’ve been taking classes at Julia Rothman’s art studio, the Figure Assembly, and every time I go, I leave feeling overwhelmingly happy. It’s a magical little space filled with extremely talented artists. Last month, I went to a speed portraiture night where you draw the person across from you for 6 minutes.
I hadn’t drawn a face in high fidelity since high school, so I was a bit nervous. But I’ve been taking online classes through Domestika and YouTube to practice drawing people. Honestly, I’m pretty happy with how they turned out for a first attempt!
At the end, we created a little gallery and got to see all the portraits of ourselves. It was so cool to see 9 different portraits of each person in all unique styles. We did an art trade, and everyone got to take their portraits home!
I also went to an Art + Climate event hosted by Julia with Dana Cowin from the Progressive Hedonist and Piecemeal Farm. We learned about seed saving and created art inspired by the talk.
Watching
If you really know me, you know that I’m obsessed with Survivor. Last week’s episode was the best episode I’ve ever seen and made me sob like a baby for 5 minutes straight. The scene even made Jeff Probst cry!! And I cried again just now as I rewatched the clip to write this 😭
During the Immunity Challenge, Eva is visibly struggling. She has autism and has only shared that with one person on the island, Joe, who’s recently been separated from her team. You can see him watching helplessly, trying to support her from afar.
After Eva pulls off an incredible win, she was overwhelmed and clearly distressed. In an unprecedented moment, Jeff allows Joe to cross team lines to give her a hug. Joe uses the tools Eva previously shared with him to help her get grounded. Her “island dad” hugs her tightly, reminds her to breathe, and gently tells her she’s in a safe place.
After she finds her center again, she opens up about her autism with the whole group and shares her journey.
Watch full the 6 minutes here. Only if you’re ready to cry though…
Dreaming about
Once a year, I like to do an intensive learning experience. Last year, I went to the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont for a week and took a Coming of Age Comics Course. It was incredible and so transformative for my creative process.
I’m still deciding what I want to do this year but here are some dreamy options I’ve found during my research:
Gavin Snider, one of my favorite watercolor artists, is teaching a 2-week watercolor workshop in Italy that sounds amazing! July 15-28. Info here.
- is hosting a Building Your Creative Muscle workshop at Omega Institute. I’ve been to Omega twice and love it there. It’s super easy to get to from NYC too. June 6-8. Info here.
- is hosting a watercolor workshop in Paris. May 12-16. Info here.
Hudson Valley Writer’s Residency is a Live/Write/Work/Create community at a Victorian House upstate. Info here.
Artist Residencies in France.
Fine Arts Work Center in Cape Cod. Tons of summer workshops right on the beach in Provincetown. Info here.
Reading
I’ve been reading a ton of books on silence and our relationship to tech as research for my book. I needed a bit of a brain break, so I