Escape artist | “Summer Waltz” by NG Swett | acrylic painting (& video)

“Summer Waltz” by NG Swett 2024 | 14x11” acrylic on canvas board

I herein reveal…

• what made me want to paint this scene

• what I was trying to express

• how I think it came out

• how I made the video (below)

• and more

Heat wave! It’s been so hot.

As much as one wants to go outside and enjoy the summer, IF it’s cooler inside, then one would like to stay inside.

By looking out the window at the beautiful summer day, one can feel FOMO — the fear of missing out. Summer is here, but it won’t be forever. Summer is the season to recreate, enjoy life, and take it easy. If not now, when??

What made me want to paint this scene

I spotted this lovely scene out the window and I thought I would set up my paints as if I were outside painting, only I would do it inside where it was cooler.

I saw a chance to play around with the indoor and outdoor scenes and have some fun with paints — and my smartphone!

The scene outside the window was so summery, breezy and lovely.

And the scene inside the window was also lovely. A bouquet of flowers that our daughter brought sat on the dining room table near the window. The striped curtains fall around the scene like theater curtains.

But there was also something not so lovely: the feeling of not really wanting to go out into the extreme summer heat, feeling a captive inside the house because of that. Of separation from nature. Of watching and waiting. The emptiness of the lounge chairs on the lawn and the chair at the table…

What I was trying to express

The process of painting the two scenes together in one painting — one a kind of outdoor plein air scene and another as a kind of indoor still life — showed me a few things:

• initially I felt fear and trepidation, which is visible in the video — doubt that I could make a good painting or a good video

• the sense of aliveness in the natural world I try to capture using a dabbed impressionist treatment

• gratitude and appreciation for a longtime home, a place near and dear to my heart and where my family lives, albeit a more staged and less changing indoor setting

• longing, yearning and meaning of empty chairs but also of possibilities

• challenged — demarking the window screen as the focal point, the exact place where indoor and outdoor meet; it picks up sunshine along its thin silvery grid lines

• defiance! The curtains lent themselves to a modernist, expressionist treatment — very satisfying! Like, I could make these curtains more exact or prettier, but I just did ‘em how I felt like doing them

• the lovely flowers, though challenging in their detail, came through best for me using some abstraction

How I think it came out

I mean, I like how the painting and the video came out. Works for me! I always think it’s a miracle when my painting ends up looking like anything at all, let alone forming a complete picture.

I really had fun with the digital and video tools, too.

Here is the video:

How I made the video

Here are some notes about how I made the video:

• I videotaped with my smartphone and a tripod

• I edited the video in Canva

• the waltz soundtracks are all from YouTube’s free audio library (for YouTube use only)

• the scenes of me inside the painting are done with the image of the painting overlaid with a video of me with the background removed

Exile: its meaning, purpose & tips

I know, it’s an odd topic but hear me out…

Why though?

It’s so simple.

I went to the beach, I found a nice spot to set down camp, and once I had a swim and settled in, I got a feeling of being alone and far, far away.

To capture the feeling and to practice taking wide video and being “on camera” I recorded the scene on my phone. I thought, maybe I could even use the video clips at one point.

With the beach footage in mind, and the feeling it gave, I researched the idea of exile. It’s a subject that’s come up in my own fiction and poetry writing. It’s an interesting subject. The more I found out, the more a video came together.

So this is how I used the beach footage:

Notes on the video

I used:

• smartphone for beach footage, no tripod or mic

• my “Blue Wave” 10x10” mini acrylic painting in lieu of the beach’s water view

• ChatGPT, Answer the Public, YouTube and Google search to shape and research the ideas of the video

• Canva to make the longer, wide version of the video itself as well as shorter vertical versions for social media, the thumbnail, and graphics

• Audio from YouTube’s free audio library, including surf sounds and thought-provoking background music

What I like and what I don’t like

I like that the video felt fresh to me in the sense of experiencing something and within a week putting it into a video and dispatching it out to the world. If people knew more about exile, maybe it would be easier to survive and thrive through it.

I don’t like that the video reveals the kind of subjects that I’m liable to go off on a riff about. I mean, who thinks about exile??

~ Your pal, Nan.

Color “Muted Woman” modern abstract coloring page with Nan

Let’s color the “Muted Woman” coloring page from Nan’s Random Modern & Abstract Art Adult Coloring Book: 50 fun & challenging pages inspired by current events, modern times & famous works

Download pdf for free by clicking here.

Then print, get out your crayons or coloring pencils, and let’s color together.

To buy the complete paperback coloring book with all 50 modern designs, check Nan’s 4seasonshelf Shop for availability.

Color with Nan

Watch Nan color this coloring page with crayons in a short 12-minute video. Get yourself a snack and enjoy the video’s relaxing and cinematic YouTube audio library soundtracks.

Note on the video’s creation: video created in Canva; background instrumental songs downloaded from YouTube’s free audio library with no attribution required for videos posted on YouTube; photos and videos recorded on Nan’s smartphone near a window using a tripod. There’s some shadow on the page unfortunately, but hopefully you can still see well enough how Nan’s coloring the page.

More Coloring Tips

For more coloring tips from Nan, along with another short coloring video, see this blog post.

“Muted Woman”?

Yes, that’s what I decided to call this coloring page. When I made this coloring page, I was calling forth a version of that woman from the big pop art painters. Let’s face it, she seemed sort of desperate in a graphic, almost cartoonish way. “Muted Woman” is a simple coloring page that anyone could play around with.

We just came off the pandemic with its isolating and crazy-making alternative realities, women’s rights are being trounced upon by a Conservative Supreme Court that Democrats have not truly acted upon with enough scale and urgency, and too many women’s voices are being muted and divided for a variety of reasons.

Recently I joined the Women’s Strike on the 2nd anniversary of the Dobbs decision, a 50-year right that women had to determine their own destinies and not have it decided for them by a network of violent perverts — until that right was lost on that infamous date, June 24. Which someone should declare Women’s Day forever more to be celebrated with nudity, loud music, effigies, pinatas and parades in the street.

My version of “Muted Woman”

The way that I colored in my version for the video came out differently than I thought it would. I mean, I guess I was having a bad day!

My “muted woman” looks like she has a lot to say under that gag there, and her eyes are quite desperate, don’t you think? Not brimming with tears so much as shades of anger and anguish. She’s a blue- and red-head, so there’s that. And she’s got a blue polka dotted face. Surrounded in gray.

If you download and color in the page, your own Muted Woman may appear…

Note for the men

Let me say again, as I always do, that I’m fortunate that the men in my life are awesome, and I love them. I think men can be terrific and incredible. I love my husband so much still after all these years that my first real book I published under a 4seasonshelf ISBN # was a book of love poems — to him! Plus it includes some feminist poems and mom poems and wife poems, and he knows that’s just me trying to inspire and defend womankind.

Nan Patience on strike: top 10 reasons why

Click here to download Women’s Strike 2024 image (FREE; public domain)

Perfect for printing on adhesive shipping labels from a thermal printer.

I designed this as a vertical story format size in black & white for thermal printing. You can download this one or make your own!

Hey You, it’s Nan Patience!

Some of us may not know, but a Women’s Strike has been called for June 24th. Tell the others!

Others are vaguely aware of the Women’s Strike but don’t know why it’s been called.

I’ll be on strike*. This is me trying to get the word out.

Here are my top 10 reasons why I’ll be striking on June 24th, counting down from #10 to #1 on the 4seasonshelf YouTube channel:

Reason #10 : to send a message

Yes, yes, to send a message to be sure, but in a mad yet fun way! So clear your calendar and drop everything on June 24th.

I’m also posting short vertical pieces of this material to TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest, like this:

Reason #9 : all of our work should count

Women are priceless, yes, and no you can’t put a price on love, but you can put a price on labor in the marketplace. Fun fact: did you know that unpaid women’s work adds over $200,000/year in uncounted value per household? That’s not just women’s math, that’s actual math.

If women didn’t contribute this much unpaid labor, jacking up the economy every day, falsely inflating the official numbers by leaving out the foundation of most families, then what? “Women’s work” is important labor and needs to get more R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Reason #8 : fairness

Women do more than our fair share of emotional labor, caretaking, preserving family legacies, coordination, celebrations, events, upkeep, planning, holding everything, homemaking, and household labor. At one point, it’s ridiculous. Each of us — men, women and children — need to pull our weight in this area.

Besides, “women’s work” is kind of nice. I happen to like puttering around my house making it nice, being a mom and wife, taking care of all the things. I don’t wanna hog it all when I could be doing nothing.

Reason #7 : women’s health

Women’s health needs attention. Much of medical science and research is based on men’s bodies. Too little is known about why women are more susceptible to autoimmune diseases, cancers, and dementia. In many ways, women are getting poorer quality care than men. Women’s bodies are not well understood to this day in ways that they should be, putting strange ideas into people’s heads. I mean, menopause is an enigma wrapped in a mystery.

Women are in danger due to mass confusion and massive government overreach regarding abortion and contraception, among other gender issues.

Reason #6 : financial insecurity

Motherhood is penalized when it comes to retirement benefits. You’d think mothers didn’t work at all. Those gaping decades of supposedly being out of the labor force, and when you emerge, they call you Karen and tell you to go hide under a rock. Solution: credit parenthood generously in Social Security benefits. It’s fair, and it would help families. Start Medicare at 55 for everyone.

Reason #5 : childcare crisis

Quality childcare is unaffordable even if we can find it, putting children in danger and behind academically. Children like to be with other children from a very early age, and they like to play and grow together under the guidance and care of qualified, experienced teachers, nutritionists, and administrators. Children with early education have better outcomes in life.

Reason #4 : school & work schedule craziness

For five days/week, schools let kids out at 3 o’clock and employers let workers out at 5. Not to mention kids get summers off, they get sick sometimes, there are many, many other days and weeks off, and this is all very stressful. Let’s make up our minds.

Reason #3 : unequal pay

Women are still paid less than men in the workforce.

I did different versions of videos using different audio soundtracks of each platform.

Reason #2 : fear of violence

Violence against women, guns and mass shootings.

Reason #1 : on June 24, 2022 the Supreme Court handed women over to the barbarians and said, do whatever the heck you want.

June 24th is the day the Supreme Court created a second class of citizens for women in America with no sovereignty over our own bodies.

So… I’ll see you out there on June 24th!

~ Nan

* Note: my strike is for women’s solidarity. I’m lucky the men in my life are great, so this is in no way a comment on any of them. Heck, I even dedicated my book of love poems to my husband. Love you!

What can I say, I’m complicated.

Up To Speed

I should get this car.

Re getting up to speed, it would be fun to do more projects spontaneously. It’s easier to be consistent when what you’re doing is fun and in the moment and not a tedious, discouraging bore. Less packaging work, more using all the cool tools to send messages in the moment.

I’d have to rely on experience, be brave, and have faith…

This radio poems session is a good example of fun, but it’s not quite in the moment, but I’m getting closer.