A Cloudy Eclipse Day, Watering Plants With Coffee, and More Pattern Paintings

We were supposed to get a 75 percent solar eclipse here in Minneapolis, but instead we got 100 percent clouds. Oh well, there's always the next one. In twenty years.

Cloudy, rainy days are good for having our afternoon coffee at home, a tradition we started in the Covid lock-down times and, having become accustomed to the ritual, still do from time to time. There's usually a little coffee left over, even after I've had my second cup, which I pour into my plant-watering pitchers (one of which is an old coffee pot), to be mixed with water before pouring on the houseplants.

And that always makes me think of my Grandma Clausen (whose birthday was April 9!), because she used to pour her leftover coffee on her houseplants. She always had a lot of healthy plants, so I figured if Grandma did it, it must be good.

But one day I got curious and decided to do a little research on the practice. I wondered if anyone else did it, and if it was actually a good idea or a myth. As it turns out, it's a pretty common practice (see here and here), and may even be beneficial to plants, because coffee (and tea) contains some nitrogen and a couple of other minerals. But not all that much, so it's not really a substitute for using regular houseplant fertilizer. 

Both coffee and tea are also acidic, and that could be a problem if poured undiluted on houseplants that prefer a neutral to alkaline soil, so you probably want to look up your specific plants first. Since I usually have about a half cup of leftover coffee, and my watering pitchers hold about a quart, I figure my mixture is diluted enough to make little if any difference one way or the other. 

The really interesting thing about coffee and tea with regard to plants is the effect of caffeine, though. As early as 1911, researchers (link opens a PDF) were studying the effects of caffeine on seed germination, and found it to be allelopathic, which means it suppresses the germination of the seeds of other plants. So I nixed my plan to add the grounds to my seed-starting mix!

A more recent study on caffeine and seed germination (another PDF), concluded that it holds promise as an alternative to chemical pre-emergent herbicides. So maybe you want to be dumping your leftover coffee and tea on your lawn instead.

Meanwhile, My Art Practice . . .

I continue to loosely maintain my participation in the 100-Day Art Project, though in my case, it might more accurately be called a 14-week art project (=98 days), in that I don't really work on my art every day. But about midway through the week, I think about this blog and my self-imposed deadline to post something every week, and then I do a little dabbling with the paints.

At top is a cropped photo of a (shiny) gift bag, and beneath it a painting, using watercolor and gouache; size about 4 x 6.

For my 100-Day Project, which began Feb. 18 and has now reached the halfway point, I started out making mini collages, then moved on to spotting what I have called asemic patterns (in that they resemble writing in an abstract sort of way), taking photos of objects that suggest such patterns, and then interpreting them with watercolor paints. 

A scan of the inside of a security envelope, which had interesting flaws in its printed pattern. Beneath it is my watercolor background on top of which I plan to mimic the pattern.

This one's going to take a few sessions.

Another time (maybe next week), I'll elaborate a little more on the the practice of finding patterns all around us and making art from that, which I learned about in a workshop with Molly Anthony at our local art supply store, Wet Paint. But as this post already contains a bit of a rambler about coffee and plants, I won't add more words about that just now.

Fools and Delights

On some long-ago April Fools' Day, my mom baked cookies with a piece of cardboard inside them on which she had written "April Fools!" At least, I think she did that, mainly because I kind of recall my older siblings commenting that they became suspicious as soon as they learned she had baked cookies on April 1, because she so rarely made them.  

And I'm pretty sure I read about how our local zoo reported that they would receive calls on April 1 from unsuspecting people who had been left a note telling them to return a call from Mr. Lyon, with the zoo's phone number. 

I am not a prankster, mainly because I am incapable of keeping a straight face. But I am always curious about the origins and history of folk traditions such as April Fools' Day, and have read quite a few explanations, all lacking any supporting evidence (maybe they were all pranks?). What can be known about the day is summed up very nicely in this overview from the Library of Congress.

My 100-Day Project This Week

In truth, I did very little in the way of actually working on my project or projects, except to finish my scarf (watercolor) painting early in the week. See the beginnings of that one in last week's blog post (scroll down a bit to find it). I'm comfortable saying I'm done with it now. 

Some things I learned from doing this:

It really helps to allow a few days to do a painting, even a small one like this. It is too tempting to feel that I must complete a drawing or painting in one sitting, but it is nearly always a mistake to actually try to do so. 

The practical reason is to stop myself from overworking it while it's wet, which I've done often enough; the result tends to be muddy and opaque. But I also need to stop from overthinking it, and for that it helps to step away and go do something else, then come back to look at it with refreshed eyes. When I'm in the midst of it, I can't tell if I've done enough or already too much—and if it does need something more, what that might be. 

I don't have a plan for it other than to keep it in the box I am currently using for all things related to my 100-Day Project. And move on to doing another painting. And another one after that.

Books written for artists emphasize how you're supposed to produce a lot of work without worrying about if it's "good" or not. That's the only way to truly develop your skills—and to learn to relax and enjoy the process. It's the central message that I got from Lynda Barry's graphic memoir and creative guidebook, What It Is. The climax of the first half of the book is when she is agonizing about whether her work is any good, or is it crap? The right answer turns out to be, "I don't know."

That message is also central to the book Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland.  "You make good work by (among other things) making lots of work that isn't very good ... ," they write.

And that's really what my "project" is, and the reason I signed up for the 100-Day Project. To push myself to just make pictures: drawings, paintings, collages, with asemic writing and without. 

Random Delights

I make frequent use of the Online Etymology Dictionary, or Etymonline. Its creator, Douglas Harper, posts random short entries on his Patreon page that show up in my email inbox at irregular intervals, with links to entries in his dictionary that often seem like non sequiturs, yet curiously do relate somehow, though I would be hard pressed to explain it. He doesn't fuss over syntax with these, either, so they often read like little bursts of thought that spring spontaneously from his brain. Here's an example from last week:

"unburst ordnance: The goal is to sow the landscape thick with landmines of delight. Little things, unexpected crocus in the sidewalk crack, that sort of. Never where you'd look for them. Someplace no one goes, or you get there lost and bleary looking for something else. That's when you'll want it there."

This little paragraph is followed by links to two words, Thompson and thisness. 

It made me think of The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay, a collection of essays about noticing the delightful things one might easily overlook when we are too focused on, well, whatever we're too focused on. And that reminded me that I have always meant to buy the book but hadn't done so yet. Since it was published in 2019, it's easy to find a used copy nowadays. (In fact, I just ordered it after writing the foregoing.)

Meanwhile, Over at Wordsmith, the Solar Eclipse

Wordsmith sends a word of the day Monday through Friday, with a theme for the week, which is sometimes topical. This week it's all about the upcoming solar eclipse (April 8) that will briefly cloak a wide swath of the country in daytime darkness next Monday. This Monday's word was "umbra." 

Playing at asemic writing, and a little detour

Asemic writing is mark-making that looks like writing but isn't. The practice as an art form has been around for centuries, but the term seems to be a more recent coinage, or else it's just obscure. When I searched for it in a couple of dictionaries, they either asked me if I meant "anemic" or said it isn't in the dictionary. But it does have a Wikipedia page, and a few books have been written about it, including Asemic: The Art of Writing, by Peter Schwenger, published in 2019 by the Univ. of Minnesota Press, which I'll be fetching from my local public library this week.

I first encountered the term on Pinterest a year or so ago, when some mixed media art that incorporated the technique came across my feed (sandwiched among cute animal videos—I have got to stop clicking on those), and it's been on my radar ever since. More recently, I stumbled upon a Facebook group, Asemic Writing: The New Post-Literate, which has fed me a steady stream of inspiration and examples. 

So I thought, what better occasion to try my hand at this intriguing art form than as part of my 100-Day Project? I decided to once again use a journal page for this week's work: I would fill the page with a single composition, rather than a collection of mini works, and I would limit how much I would work on it each day to ensure that there would be something more to add the next day. I started by writing my start date in the upper left corner of the page. I then decided that I wanted to include some collage elements to make the page more interesting.

Two things I noticed early on with this one. First, it actually took some restraint to not try to "finish" it each time I sat down to work on it, which allowed ideas to percolate in my mind and be influenced by works that people were posting in the asemic artists' Facebook group. 

The second thing I noticed was how, as I was making my various squiggles, I recalled doing something like this as a kid, before I learned cursive, when wavy lines filled with loops looked just like handwriting to me. It gave me a warm feeling of nostalgia as I remembered spending hours with my childhood friend and frequent drawing companion, Vicki, doodling and drawing together with no particular purpose in mind.

I had a couple of days midweek (days 4 & 5) when I didn't work on it because of other demands on my time and attention. Interestingly, the project emails that I got this week were about being flexible with yourself regarding what it means to "show up" for your project each day. And, indeed, I did feel that I was still working on it because it was on my mind and I was pondering what I wanted to do next.

On Saturday morning,  I took what I thought was my final photo of this week's work, and noted the date at the top right of the page. I wasn't sure whether it was actually done, but I was pretty sure I was done with it. Except I had a slightly nagging feeling that it still needed just a little something more. So instead of noting that it was finished, I just noted that I had stopped.

When I showed it to my husband, who is a writer, editor, and an avid reader, he insisted on looking for words among the squiggles. He pointed them out to me, saying this part looks like the word "anything" (later, he said it looked like "everything"). Then he pointed to the word "Zen," which was a little more plausible (see it in the upper right, by the blue dot?). Perhaps the whole thing is some sort of koan. 

I still wanted to find that "something more" to complete the work, so I picked up a small vintage paperback about photography to look for an image, and there was a black-and-white photo of a man looking at a script, which made me think of the way my husband looked at my squiggles, trying to make sense of something indecipherable. It felt like just the finishing touch it needed, to put that quandary right in the middle of all the asemic nonsense.

I like having this one in my sketch journal, because it feels and looks like a kind of sampler to me. I plan to continue working with asemic writing and collage, but move on to a different substrate now and quit using the journal (probably white watercolor paper). Enough with the brown pages! Plus I want to reclaim it as my visual/junk journal/scrapbook again, in which I paste various things relevant to recent activities, or put stuff in makeshift pockets, with (legible) commentary and observations. I'll show you some of the pages in a separate blog post another day.

A Little Detour, or Other Mini Projects

I was clearing some of the clutter on my desk this week when I came across a clipping I had saved earlier in the year. It was from my local newspaper, reprinted from the Washington Post, titled "Seven easy steps to a more fit 2024," by Gretchen Reynolds.

Keeping the clipping on my desk only to get buried by other detritus didn't seem to be doing me any good, so I thought I would paste each of the tips on separate cards, repurposing some playing cards from incomplete decks in the process. Because if they are in the form of a set of cards, with some splashes of color and a picture, then I'm sure to actually get out there and do the things. Right?

Meanwhile on Etsy . . .

I added my newest zine to my Etsy shop, titled Green: A zine about a color. You can read more about it and see pictures on the listing page. I'll be mailing that and the also-recent Zine of Days and Dragons to two of my returning customers today (Monday), with a couple of other things. I always include a few stickers with orders, and some other little freebies just for fun. Packing up orders and shipping them off is one of my favorite parts of having an Etsy shop, and I'm quite content with my slow pace of business, which allows me to take my time preparing orders—and to do other things, like the 100-Day Project. I used to try harder to promote my shop and follow Etsy's tips and suggestions, but it wasn't any fun and I never really had my heart in it, so I stopped doing it. 

That's all for now. I'll be back next Monday.

My First Week of the 100-Day Project, and a New Zine

 

I started the 100-Day Project on an impulse last week, having learned about it just one day before its official start date of February 18, so I didn't spend any time planning a project or even deciding what type of project I would do. Because I had just done a couple of mini collages in my scrap journal, I figured I would keep doing that, with the idea that I would go about it as a kind of study, experimenting with materials and composition, intending to incorporate some drawing and other mark-making into my collages. Which I did, more or less.

But I was also in the midst of finishing up a zine that I had started about a year ago and then set aside because of timeliness. The zine is about the color green (possibly the first in a scattered series of color-themed zines), and when I started it last year, March was upon me already and I could see that it wasn't going to be done in time to peg it to St. Patrick's Day, so I quit working on it with the intention of picking it up again this year. 

About two or three weeks ago, I had a vague recollection about it and was pleased to discover that I had already done several illustrations and written a fair amount of text. I got right back into it and was enjoying some momentum when I stumbled upon the 100-Day Project. So after a couple of days of mini collages, I decided that finishing something I had started before was exactly the sort of thing that this project was made for.

Well, now the Green zine is done and I asked myself, what next? I have other unfinished zines and was considering which one to take up this week, and then remembered that I really needed to focus on a very mundane but essential task: gathering all the relevant financial information for our tax preparer. Unfortunately, that includes a lot of catching up on my bookkeeping. The longer I let that go the more the stress builds up and becomes a real creativity killer. As a kindness to myself, I need to devote some time to it each day before it comes down to crunch time, so that it doesn't become the only thing I can let myself do for however long it takes.

But I feel that such dull necessary tasks can fit nicely with a daily art practice. In fact, it's probably the best way to get such things done.

The organizers of the 100-Day Project encourage participants to spend a small amount of time each day on their projects, like 10 minutes or so, in order to make it sustainable. If it takes too much time, a person is more likely to drop out. So this week, I am going to heed that advice and work on something for just a little bit of time each day, and not try to complete a thing daily. In fact, I am intentionally going to take the whole week to work on one mixed-media composition, filling a page in the same scrap journal where I made my mini collages (four on a page, each completed in one sitting). Or longer, if needed. There is no deadline, after all, there is only doing.

Since I still like the idea of blending collage-making with drawing, and since I have been intrigued by a type of aesthetic scribbling called asemic writing (it looks like writing, but it isn't), I am going to use this week to explore combining that with collage and just see where it leads. I began it this afternoon. Next week, I'll show you how it's coming along.

Having a go at the 100-Day Project

 I have seen various artists I follow on Instagram and elsewhere reference the 100-Day Project as a kind of daily art-making practice and have wondered about what that is, exactly, and whether it's something I might like to do. So, yesterday, when I saw that it starts today, Feb. 18, 2024, I looked over the project's website to get a better understanding of what it's about. I really liked how loose and open-ended it is and decided to just jump in. 

For example, I expected the daily prompts to be themes and motifs to include in your artwork, but they're more like messages of inspiration, and guidelines for developing a daily creative practice. In fact, the whole idea is to work on any project you want, not just visual art, as I had originally assumed. And it doesn't matter when you start or stop or whether you actually do it for 100 days. The timeline is just the duration for their newsletter about the project. There's a free version with limited information, and a paid version with more, plus access to the archives. I opted to pay $50 for a one-year subscription because I realize that a lot of time and effort and expense goes into what they're doing, so as long as I can afford it, why not support the project with my dough.

As it happens, I had just been playing around with my scraps left over from making ATCs (artist trading cards) for a group that I exchange them with, and had decided to make mini collages from these tiny bits and scraps in a sketchbook that I had turned into a scrap-collage journal. I penciled a couple of 2-and-a-half-inch squares and decided I would fill in just one of them each day until I used them up or got tired of it or for however long I felt like doing it. It's like I had a two-day head start on the project already.

I usually have a small pile of scraps after making ATCs for our monthly exchanges, which is what led me to start the scrap-collage journal in the first place. I like the bits and pieces of leftover papers and didn't want to just discard them (plus there's figuring out what's recyclable and what isn't), and I really liked the idea of pasting them into a journal for my own amusement with no other end purpose in mind. I've also used junk mail and other found ephemera to fill a page, with lots of text jotted on and around the things, because I'm really a words-and-images person, I just am. Perhaps you noticed?

The 100-Day Project does not have to have an end purpose in mind either, unless you want it to. They offer some suggestions for thinking through your intentions. Why do I want to do this?

• To nurture a daily art practice;

• To improve my skills, especially in combining collage, drawing, and painting. I want to nudge myself a little to combine these techniques more, rather than treating them as separate things, as I have tended to do;

• To play! Not just making art when I need an illustration for something else I'm working on (like a zine or the Useful Calendar), but with no end purpose in mind.

I had also originally included: To get in the habit of sharing my art on Instagram and Facebook more regularly, but then was immediately confronted with my own ambivalence about social media. I prefer sharing things by way of this blog because it feels more expansive and leisurely, and because of what I said already: I'm more of a words-and-images person.

So while I do intend to work on my 100-Day Project as consistently as I can, I plan to only "share" about it occasionally, when I feel like it. To begin with, I'm doing the 2-1/2-inch collages, like those I made on the two days prior to the start of this project, but I'm sure I'll want to change it up as I go along. 

Here's day one, showing one in-progress photo and one of the completed composition.