Sing With Me…Home, Home on the Range…

Hooray! It’s that time of year again, it’s Inktober!!!

What is Inktober you ask? It is a global online event where artists commit to creating artwork each day during the month of October using pen and ink. First create the work, second post it online, then repeat for thirty-one days! This is my eighth year of participation, and are we gong to have some fun or what!?! Each year I have chosen a different topic or theme and then spent thirty-one days in October creating with pen and ink…it’s a blast! I invite you to join me as this year I am hoping to make you want to sing along…

My great nephew graduated from college this past May, and while we we’re waiting for our dinner reservation, we walked into a local book store. You know, one of those book stores that smells like books and encourages you to read a book right in the store! It was floor to ceiling used books and it was FANTASTIC! I found a book from 1972 that featured the lyrics for family sing-a-longs while driving on vacation. Of course, I know, that was before everyone had their head buried in an electronic device while using headphones…time travel with me! In the 1970s a family vacation was a sweet, cheerfully annoying time when you were trapped in the car listening to the music your parents liked…unless you were willing to sing the songs someone started humming, or whistling, or shouted out loud! I opened the book and started humming. I then read the lyrics out loud and my family and other patrons in the store actually chimed in! WHAT!!!! How cool was that!?! I bought the book for $2.42. It was a fantastic purchase!

SOOOO…I am going to create a piece of calligraphic art for this Inktober featuring songs from that song book. I will use different backgrounds, papers, pens and of course ink to somehow illustrate and enthuse you into humming along as you read my blog posts about this musical adventure! Let’s have some fun…and sing along with me!

I learned this one at Girl Scout Camp. It is considered a traditional Cowboy tune, and this piece features the chorus. I used a scrap piece of Chiyogami Japanese paper to create the clouds. I glued that scrap onto watercolor paper. I had my studio table covered in a variety of pens, so I grabbed eight different ones to write the lyrics. I then filled in the counter places with a blue glitter gel pen. I am not going to pressure myself to be perfect, I am going to letter all these lyrics as if someone ends up singing off key…so bear with me. I like it and I am going to have fun!

Let me encourage you to forget about what other people think and let yourself have fun. Sing out loud, sing strong, let your voice crack then giggle at the terrible noises you made! Channel your childhood enthusiasm and revel in the joy that is a rowdy Cowboy tune. Sometimes we just need to let go and allow ourselves to be silly and untalented, joyful without fear. Remember, today we are traveling…where the deer and the antelope play…where never is heard a discouraging word, and the sky is not clouded all day!