Latest Family Drawing

Emilio and I haven't been drawing much this year. He's been busier with school--now that he's in first grade. And I've been busy with work. But I so miss drawing with him. When we collaborate, he adds a certain quality I could never have--a boldness of shape, which is somehow simultaneously careful and carefree. My marks are usually repetitive and obsessive--which makes a nice contrast with Emilio's style. Usually Emilio makes the first quick marks--setting up the overall composition and then I will spend hours, sometimes spread over a few days, filling in all the spaces. This is the process in which we made last weekend's drawing.

Here it is:

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Recording "Rock-n-Roll Thing," First Try

Okay, it's time to return to my first blog post of the month, where I listed subjects of blog posts that I would write if I didn't care what people thought. One of the items on that list was sharing my music (and bragging about it.) This is one the most vulnerable of things for me to share, and yet, I know it's time. I have been pouring my creative energy into writing songs, singing, playing guitar and (more recently) ukelele every day for the past two years. I am ready to take the plunge, and share my songs and the process of making music.

This is the summer that we record my newest songs. I have 10-20 songs never recorded and most of them never performed in public. I don't know what you will think of them, but I love them.

Lucas and I have had a living room band, called Garafön for ten years. Lucas is an amazing multi-instrumentalist. For Garafön, he  plays drums, bass and sometimes writes catchy & beautiful unfinished rock/pop songs. He also plays: piano, guitar, accordion & penny whistle. We will be doing the recordings together on Garageband. The last time I recorded (in a real multi-track way) any music was 2003, in NYC, with my all-lady band, Social Service.

I am going to share with you one of my most recent songs, which Lucas and I performed for the first (and only time) at Mariposa Night in February. Mariposa Night is a community multi-arts performance and guerrilla gallery event I launched earlier this year through Art For Life, my community arts organization & business in Southern Baja.

The title for the song was inspired by Emilio, who told me he was a rock-n-roll thing way back when he was 3. He's almost 6 now. His latest favorite song is: Ring of Fire. The kid has taste. We listened to it together this morning in the car.

This was our first recording of Rock-n-Roll Thing. Just a test. A first draft to check the sound. We will be re-recording it very soon and adding more instrumentation. I would like to speed up the tempo, and the vocal performance could be better. I am sharing this with you to show the process of making music.

Here goes: