The Yellow Ochre Newsletter
A weekly curation of encouragement and practical wisdom to turn your art from a hobby into a purposeful blessing for your community and culture.
Thriller Digital Painting
Thriller. Fall officially begins September 22.
Fall officially begins September 22. But, you know…we’re almost there.
And what else says Fall than a good 80s Halloween reference.
Thriller (digital painting, 2024)
The Mission Has Always Been The Point
Augustine asked Ambrose where to begin reading the Bible after conversion.
Ambrose told him Isaiah. Why?
Augustine asked Ambrose where to begin reading the Bible after conversion.
Ambrose told him Isaiah. Why?
“Presumably because the Gospel and the calling of the gentiles are foretold more clearly in that book than in any other.” (Confessions IX, 5)
The mission has always been the point.
My Advice for Songwriting
A friend recently asked if I could teach songwriting. After writing songs for over 20 years, I had never considered sharing my version of the “secret sauce.” Here’s my attempt...
A friend recently asked if I could teach songwriting. After writing songs for over 20 years, I had never considered sharing my version of the “secret sauce.” Here’s my attempt:
Try it. Seriously, this is step one. No fluff. Literally, just try! If you don’t do anything else on this list, do this one. I once heard Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine say that he assigns his new students their first homework after the first lesson: to create a song using only the two chords he teaches them. Why many of us don’t try: trying to make up a song requires thinking about something we don’t often get permission for. Push past this resistance. No matter your skill level.
Lyrics: Write what frustrates you. Write down ten things that bother you most about life, the world, gaps in your life. What heartaches have you had recently? What core memories from your life make you most sad? Most happy?
Lyrics: Write what hope you have. Write down ten hopes you have. Where did those hopes come from? What do you hope is the outcome of those frustrations?
Genre: Choose your weapon. What genre or art form expresses this best within your skill set (no matter how skillful you are)? The genre provides the natural limitations needed to force your creativity. Do the genre that feels most natural.
Build it! Pick two or three combinations of notes. Pick a song structure that makes the most sense for you (ex. intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus). Regurgitate and repeat what sounds the coolest to you (it’s ok if you don’t know why it sounds cool). If you don’t like what you’re hearing, throw it out.
Practice + Share it. Don’t bypass this step! Practice and share. Practice and share. Practice and share. Use a voice memo app to record yourself to remember it.
Congrads. You’ve just written a song.
“Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “Iʼd like my crayons back, please.”
Transforming Your Trouble into Your Work
"The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work." (The War of Art, 24).
I love this quote from Steven Pressfield:
The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work. (The War of Art, 24).
What We Pass On
Did you know that as bees consume pollen, some gets stuck on their bodies? This pollen then drops onto other flowers as the bees fly by.
We are not so different though, are we?
Directly or indirectly, we pass onto others what we consume ourselves: bad habits and good ones, what we say as well as our manner of speech, the products we find useful, stories we love, and news we care about.
What we treasure, we feed others with.
The other day, I was reading my kids Flower Talk (Levine and D’yans), a children’s book about the purpose of plant colors.
Did you know that as bees consume pollen, some gets stuck on their bodies? This pollen then drops onto other flowers as the bees fly by.
We are not so different though, are we?
Directly or indirectly, we pass onto others what we consume ourselves: bad habits and good ones, what we say as well as our manner of speech, the products we find useful, stories we love, and news we care about.
What we treasure, we feed others with.
Our Yellow Ochres
Starting a new canvas can be intimidating for artists. For some reason, staring into that 11X14 inch rectangle can evoke more out of you than a completed piece. “Fear,” “worry,” “joy,” “overwhelmed” are all words to describe how the artist might feel.
Starting a new canvas can be intimidating for artists. For some reason, staring into that 11X14 inch rectangle can evoke more out of you than a completed piece. “Fear,” “worry,” “joy,” “overwhelmed” are all words to describe how the artist might feel.
Insert a color. Fears go away.
Color is always interpreted by the context it sits. A green looks differently next to blue than it does red. With the color white, there is no color anchor point. When one bungee jumps, we at least know the cord is tied to the ankles. No so with a white canvas.
One color (there are several) artists often use to help kickstart their work is by applying yellow ochre all over the canvas.
The takeaways are endless to this metaphor. But I’ll offer a few:
What are some “yellow ochres” in your own life to kickstart certain practices you’d like to develop?
What “yellow ochres” do you offer others to their better serving the world?
The Gift of a thing learned
As a young person, I didn’t fully recognize the significance of the choices I was making at the time, whether they were decisions made, skills learned, or habits formed. Often, we don’t immediately feel the impact of how we spend our youth.
As a young person, I didn’t fully recognize the significance of the choices I was making at the time, whether they were decisions made, skills learned, or habits formed. Often, we don’t immediately feel the impact of how we spend our youth.
I never imagined that my food jobs would later equip me with the skills to make pizza for our weekly family nights (one of my favorite things to do). And who could have predicted that those golf lessons would eventually lead to special moments shared with friends at the driving range? How could I have known that watching my dad wake up each morning would make it easier for me to start that habit?
The reality is, we never know how all the inner workings of our past could be used to bless and serve others today. What are some of your gifts, talents, or skills that could be used to serve others?