Creative Recommendations for May
What I'm reading, learning, watching, and making art with!
Hi friends,
It’s time for my Creative Recommendations for May! These are just for my lovely ~patrons~ aka my paying subscribers.
Each month, I curate my favorite things I’ve been reading, learning, watching, and making art with. If you want to upgrade to receive these once a month, you’d make my day 🥰
Making Art With
Last month, I picked up a few new supplies to try mixed media for the first time. Fast forward, and I am obsessed with travel journaling! I went to Wilmington, North Carolina for a family vacation and took my little notebook with me everywhere we went. It has been such a joyful process that makes me observe the places I’m in with new eyes.
Learning
I took an experimental animation bootcamp with my friend
last weekend. I had been wanting to learn how to animate for years, and this was the perfect way to dive right in.Once a year, I like to do a learning intensive, and this was my new skill of the year. I’ve been drawing wind turbines for 2 years, and all I’ve ever wanted was to make one spin, so this was extremely satisfying.
We made this animation by painting 10 individual frames on index cards and then putting them together as frames in After Effects. I can feel all the new possibilities of what I can create opening up in my mind, which is such a fun feeling!
Reading
I’ve been obsessed with sci-fi the past few months and devoured An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green in a single week. I haven’t fallen into another world that hard in a minute, and I forgot how fun it can be.
The story is about a woman named April May, who makes first contact with an alien and suddenly becomes the most famous person on the internet. I’m constantly thinking about how I want to interact with the interwebs, and there was a lot of insightful commentary on this while also being a fun read about aliens.
I just started reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers next and need a new book lined up for after. If you have any sci-fi recs, send them my way!
Watching
I’ve been watching Amy Poehler’s new podcast, Good Hang, on YouTube. If you really know me, you know how much I love Amy Poehler.
I recently taught a climate art workshop for NBC at 30 Rock for Earth Month (a sentence I can barely believe!). They gave me a full tour of the SNL set after, and I got to see photos of Amy during that time. I had to control myself from getting emotional because it was so cool 🥹
The introduction to the very first episode made me laugh so hard. She starts each podcast by bringing together friends of the host to talk about the guest behind their back in a nice way. For the episode with Tina Fey, she brought together Seth Meyers, Rachel Dratch, Zarna Garg, and Fred Armisen. It was one of the most chaotic introductions to a podcast in the best possible way. Watch here.
Listening to
Ok, my paying subscribers get access to the most embarrassing part of my newsletter each month, so here we go…