Patchwork Psychology

I decided last night to pull out the sketch pad and oil pastels and flesh out some ideas I had for my upcoming EP. I hadn’t really touched pastels in a serious way since elementary school, so it was a messy experience. Thanks to some tips from roommate Mike, the product was much more than I had hoped it could be.

This is my first real album, and so it’s mostly a new experience. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing with most of life, and tackling that one moment at a time is what makes life come alive. I guess that’s what this album is about in a way.

I’ve really been embracing the idea of my previous post. In talking with friends, I’m learning how deeply rooted the bondage of premeditation of life is–and how widely-reaching the consequences are. I think that I could mostly-correctly blame premeditation for many of the social ineptitudes that I think I have. Perhaps the key is in the last four words of that sentence–”I think I have.” I’m only troubled because I think I am.

At any rate, I’ve been writing songs. Despite Scott’s advice (not that it’s bad advice), I’m not making an instrumental album this time around. I will, and it will be awesome in its minimalism, but this is something I need to do right now. I have to share these ideas, and right now my heart is pouring out with my voice more than my fingers.

I have three songs so far, so I’m about half-way. I have no idea how good they are, but they come from deep inside, so whatever they are, they’re me. I can’t wait to start arranging and recording.

But this post is about oil pastels.

I bought the pastels probably two years ago, thinking I could be an artist. I thought about it way too much and came up with some junk that hearkened back to fifth grade. So I packed ‘em up and didn’t look at them until yesterday. I’m not sure how they didn’t get tossed out with the rest of the trash when I moved.

Really, when I was working on my idea, it was the same fifth-grade experience I had the last time I used pastels. I knew that it was just going to be a really rough example of what I wanted, but it was worth it to get a visualization. Then I did something unusual.

My roommate is a graphic designer. He went to college for art. He knows what he’s talking about. Normally, for pride or whatever reason, I would shy away from consulting such a person who was my friend. Perhaps I want them to think I’m awesome and can do anything or something. Either way, I asked him for his thoughts on it–probably because I didn’t sit and premeditate the whole thing. It made all the difference.

He said that when he last used pastels, he didn’t really rub (I had been rubbing the colors together and into the paper using my fingers) so much, but just used the pastels themselves to blend the colors–just pile up more and more oil until it’s there. That seemed like a good idea, so I gave it a try.

Turns out that it’s pretty awesome. In some ways it was less messy, but mostly it’s even more messy. I love it. I got oil everywhere, as you can kind of see in this picture. It was definitely worth it. Also note the extra items in this photo, including a Half Nelson disc (Anomalism) and a Jeremy Enigk disc (Return of the Frog Queen).

So blah blah blah, cool, awesome, etc. Here’s what I have so far. Imagine beneath the stars, in the field, the title of the album (which is yet to be decided) cut into the paper, just as the stars are (that’s why they’re so white–I scraped away the top fibers of paper that were saturated with oil. It’s great.).