Hi friends,
I’m writing this from the airport on my way to Seattle for Bloomberg Green! Say hi if you’ll be there and want to meet up. I wanted to send over my Creative Recommendations for July for my lovely ~patrons~ aka my paying subscribers.
These are my favorite things I’ve been reading, learning, and making art with. If you want to upgrade to get these 1x/month, you would make my day!
Before we dive in, for my New York friends, I’ll be teaching an En Plein Air Watercolor Class in Prospect Park next Tuesday, July 16 at 6:30pm. I will guide us in an activity to deepen our connection to nature through art. You will leave with a beautiful painting of Prospect Park and new creative friends! RSVP here!
Reading
I read “Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness” by Ingrid Fetell Lee and absolutely loved it. It explores the psychology of how our physical environment can impact our emotions and bring more happiness into our lives. Read here.
She shares the 10 Aesthetics of Joy: Energy, Abundance, Freedom, Harmony, Play, Surprise, Transcendence, Magic, Celebration, and Renewal. Lee provides tips on how to use each of these elements to evoke more joy in our lives. One of my favorite examples is:
A home in Tokyo that encourages a full sensory experience designed to combat aging. The Reversible Destiny Lofts designed were developed by Arakawa and Gins. Get a virtual tour here.
Some action items I’ve taken since reading this include:
Buying flowers every week
Adding (even more) color to my apartment in thoughtful ways
Rearranging my room to have more symmetry
Feeling more confident wearing exactly what I want to, experimenting with mixing bold patterns that normally we are told might “clash”
Learning
I’m going to Vermont in 2 weeks to take a week-long course on how to make comics for young adults at the Center for Cartoon Studies!
I’ve been taking classes through Amy Kurzweil’s Patreon as much as I can before I go to prepare. Amy is a New Yorker cartoonist and a brilliant teacher. Her Patreon includes the archive of every class she’s taught since Covid began. Classes I’ve taken so far are about Imagined Worlds, Wordless Comics, Found Forms, Desert Island cartoons and more. Learn more here.
I also took an in-person class with Sofia Warren, another New Yorker cartoonist, and had a great time!