Author Archives: Emily Klatt

Learning skills isn’t hard when you’ve got yourself a library card!

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I know you’ve heard that having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card, but did you also know the library makes it easy to learn new skills online?

Long ago, Arthur and friends sang the praises of the public library’s print resources. But in 2024, the library is also home to a wide range of digital resources including streaming sites, apps, and ebooks – all of which could help you with your learning project!

Up until now, I’ve done most of my learning for my learning project by watching short painting tutorials posted to social media sites like Instagram and TikTok. These have been really helpful and I’ve gotten to learn from some great artists, but I was curious about what longer form content was out there and decided to check out what Regina Public Library had to offer in terms of online resources.

As always, the library did not disappoint! A quick search of RPL’s digital resource offerings led me to a database called Creativebug. According to the RPL website, library users can use Creativebug to access “thousands of videos from experienced instructors and learn to craft and create your own projects; the only limit is your time and imagination”. Basically, Creativebug is the online arts and crafts school of your dreams: thousands of video lessons taught by professional artists on just about any kind of craft, visual art, and DIY medium you can think of.

RPL + Creativebug login page

From there, you can choose from all kinds of video courses that are categorized by medium, level, video length, etc.

 

Just “chicken” in…

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Hey there! I’m just “chicken” to share my latest watercolour painting – chickens! 

Why chickens, you ask? Well, these were painted near the end of March, which marked two important chicken-related occasions: Easter and my dad’s 60th birthday. And while the Easter-chicken connection is obvious (eggs), I’m sure you’re confused about what chickens have to do with my dad and his birthday.

For as long as I can remember, my dad has loved chickens and chicken-related media. He thinks chickens are funny and weird, I guess? When I say chicken-related media, I’m referring to things like the movie Chicken Run, the chicken cannon from the show Royal Canadian Air Farce, and the odd but delightful depiction of chickens in Gary Larson’s the Far Side cartoons. Also the first joke I ever told was a terrible version of “Why did the chicken cross the road?” that made no sense but lives on as a beloved family story to this day. Anyways, I ended up painting these chickens to use as a homemade birthday card for my dad. He liked it!

Learned from @dearannart via Instagram:

 

 

Tulips, three ways

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A long-awaited update on my watercolour journey!

Since Valentine’s Day, I’ve been working on a few different things. One of these was painting florals for spring and Easter. I’ve also tried to step up photographing my work by propping it up against an easel, rather than hovering above the paper like a spy plane and creating terrible lighting.

The flower I’ve been painting the most has been tulips. I’ve utilized several different online tutorials, which I will share below, alongside my own interpretations. So, now I give you: tulips, three ways (insert drum sting sound effect here):

1. Pink Tulips by @shellycluf_art via Instagram:

My valiant attempt at this painting

2. More pink tulips by @dearannart via Instagram

More pink tulips (Emily’s Version)

3. Mutlicoloured tulips by @manajoypaperco via Instagram

Attempt #1

Attempt #2 – I think I’ve gotten better?

Which do you like best? I lean towards the multicoloured ones, but that’s because I think they’re more visually interesting. It was interesting creating similar works of art following instruction from completely different people.

What is neurographic art?

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Since we’ve been having a lot of discussions about how technology can negatively impact mental and physical health, I thought now would be a good time to share something that might promote overall wellness: neurographic art!

You’re probably asking: what the heck is neurographic art!?

According to the Vancouver Visual Art Foundation, neurographic art is…

Neurographic art is a technique, which comprises drawing freeform lines or ‘neuro lines.’ These are meant to enable the connection between the conscious and unconscious, gaining access to the inner self by using a specific algorithm or method.

If that still doesn’t make sense, here’s another definition from the Minisink Valley Central School District:

This creative method stimulates new neural pathways by combining art and psychology.  Simply stated, connected neurons process information received. enabling people to interact,  experience emotions and sensations, create memories and enable learning. The art technique  was created by Russian psychologist, creativity entrepreneur and architect Pavel Piskarev in 2014.

Also known as “doodling”, apparently. A fancy name for something you might already be doing. It’s basically the intersection between drawing and mindfulness/meditation practices. It’s really similar to something I also love called Zentangling (but that’s a different post). If that still doesn’t make sense, here’s a video from creator @JulesWhiteArt on YouTube explaining neurographic art (with visuals!). She also gives some instructions on how to do it.

Neurographic art has benefits for social and emotional wellbeing, as well as decreasing stress levels.

Here’s a recent example that I made, using this video from @andrea.nelson.art on Tik Tok:

@andrea.nelson.art

I used watercolor on this but you could use crayons or markers or colored pencils, or maybe you dont want to add color at all. You get to do what you want! Hope this is helpful for someone like me 😊 #artforanxiety #arttherapy #neurographicart #easyart #watercolor #mentalhealth supplies: sharpie, my tropical and basic watercolor palettes, canson watercolor paper

♬ fish in the pool・花屋敷 – ヘクとパスカル

Here’s my version (it’s not as nice, but it was fun to make!):

I’ve done something similar with students during my internship in arts ed, and I think neurographic art would be a great thing to incorporate for anyone. Would you try this in your classroom?

What to paint now that Valentine’s Day is over?

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For those who’ve been keeping up, I started my watercolour learning process as a way to create a bunch of Valentine’s Day cards to send to friends around the country. In total I ended up making and sending about 20 cards! It was a lot of work but I had fun doing it.

Here are some of the ones I made:

Also I painted a bunch of ugly ones that ended up in the garbage.

What to paint next…

Watercolour update and a Timelapse Free review

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A long overdue update on my watercolour learning project!

I’ve continued to make Valentine’s Day cards to mail to friends and family. Progress is going medium. For every card I share, there’s probably like three I have thrown out. Practice makes progress, I guess.

Is tomorrow Valentine’s Day? Yes! Have I mailed a single card? Absolutely not! People will get them when they get them, and I can always blame Canada Post for the delay (note: friends and family: do not read this blog!!!).

Most recently, I’ve been creating cards based on this example from @andrea.nelson.art on Instagram, where you use marker to draw out a heart and squiggly lines and then fill in with watercolours, creating a stained glass effect.

To document my process, I decided to a timelapse video using the mobile app TimeLapse-Free.

Overall, this app isn’t bad for something that’s free. Capturing video is easy for me as someone with little video experience, and the actual time lapse results were great. The app does include paid additions, however, in order to access the full editing experience. It stops recording after 15 seconds worth of time lapse footage, meaning I had to edit together three clips to make this video. It also does not allow you to edit together clips in the app without paying, so you need to export them to a different program to combine clips. Luckily it does allow you to save clips to your phone and I was able to edit them together using iMovie on my computer.

Overall rating: 3/5 stars

Pros:

Free

Available on iOS and Android

Takes good footage

Easy to use

Can export and save clips to other programs

Cons:

Max 15 seconds of footage without paying

Can’t edit in app

Crashes a lot

Pick your battles, or why I’m not worried about how much I use my phone

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I know that I spend too much time on my phone or otherwise connected to technology, and I’m honestly not that worried about it right now. Why? Because I disconnect regularly, it’s not ruining my life just yet, and frankly, there are bigger fish to fry when it comes to self improvement in my life. 

Yes, a lot of my technology usage is practical and necessary – being a full-time student who, until recently, worked a remote computer job means that I need technology to do things like make money and not flunk out of university. And sure, a lot of it is not necessary but still useful and enriching, like reading ebooks, learning to play music from YouTube videos, finding online recipes. Some of it is just for fun, but still has benefits. I do a lot of New York Times crossword puzzles! I play a knock-off Scrabble game with my mom and my aunt! I visit the Regina Cat Rescue Cat-a-Logue and look wistfully at cats my landlord won’t let me adopt! But also a decent amount of my technology usage is just for fun and not useful in any way – scrolling TikTok, watching reruns of the Golden Girls, Googling every health symptom and convincing myself I’m dying of some kind of rare disease. 

Would my life be better if I did less of the fourth kind of tech usage? Probably. Would I sleep better if I didn’t take my phone to bed and listen to random podcasts and get sucked into Wikipedia binges? Definitely. But neither of those things is the biggest issue in my life right now. There are other things for me to focus on improving first before I tackle technology usage, and sometimes even mindless scrolling is the lesser evil of coping mechanisms for stress. 

I’m also not too worried because I spend a lot of time NOT online as well. I regularly let my phone die for hours at a time (sorry Mom!), read a few hours every day, enjoy jigsaw puzzles, and love to kick my boyfriend’s butt at trivial pursuit. Most of my life is offline these days, and I’m grateful.

Technology usage is a tricky subject. Tech is so integral to everyday life at this point in history, but like anything, too much of a good thing can quickly turn into a bad thing. Bur right now, I’ll take my crossword puzzles and Wikipedia, even if it means sacrificing a better night’s sleep or a lower phone bill.

I’ve put my heart into this (Valentine’s Day-themed) learning project post

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Okay, I know I’m a post behind on my learning project, but I have a good reason: I made an eleventh hour change to the focus of my project and had to rethink my timeline and the ways I would go about documenting my progress.

I initially planned to improve on my ukulele skills. I play a bit already, but not well and it’s a useful skill to have in the classroom as an arts ed teacher (or any teacher, really). But every time I sat down to play my ukulele, or write a blog post about it, I didn’t want to. Not that ukulele is bad, but it’s just not what my brain is interested in right now. Lately I’ve been wanting to mostly work on my watercolour painting, in part due to my annual valentine making tradition.

Backstory: In 2021, I started making homemade valentines and sending them to friends and family around the world. It was a hit – turns out people still love getting physical mail. I’ve kept up the tradition since, there are a few examples below.

A homemade valentine featuring a watercolour heart and a stamped envelope    

Anyways, this tradition usually involves watercolour painting of some kind. As Valentine’s Day is coming up, I decided to stop fighting my intuition and just transition my learning project to improving on my watercolour skills rather than my ukulele playing.

My baseline for watercolour is mixed. I’ve dabbled in the medium for the last ten years or so, but I wouldn’t say I’m proficient. I’ve utilized it to do some university assignments and in the classroom as an arts ed teacher. See examples below, from my ESCI 310 final project last year.

Watercolour painting of a robin next to her nest amd three blue eggs, nestled in a tree branch in early spring

A watercolour version of a tree showing what the tree would look like in each season

a watercolour painting showing two rabbits in their underground burrow beneath some tree roots. Above them, snow is falling and it is winter.

For my first week, I’ve been working mainly from tutorials posted by artists on Instagram. My mom also likes watercolour, so she’s been sending me tons of cool things to try out. I’ve tried this one from Mary Wu (@mamapandapainter on Instagram), and one or two of my own based on images.

Open photo

 

Emily online, or: ten years of blogging?

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Hello MTV* and welcome to my crib**!

*EDTC 300 classmates

**my education blog

Now that I’ve dated myself, I’ll cut to the chase: I’m Emily, I’m in my final term of an after degree in arts education, and I made my first blog just over a decade ago. The year was 2013: a new pope had just been elected , the largest tornado ever recorded hit El Reno, Oklahoma, Frozen was released and “Let it Go” quickly became the bane of every parent’s existence, and a grade 12 student named Emily Klatt decided it would be cool to start a blog. That blog, Emily Untitled, is still online and I’ll link it here for your amusement. That blog didn’t last long, but it did kickstart a lifetime of being Chronically Online, and now, ten years later, I’m creating another blog, but this time as an adult who has filed taxes and is allowed to teach children.

I took my first online course when I was in grade 10. Growing up in a small community, there were few options available for in-person high school courses – if you wanted to take anything beyond the basics, you needed to take a class online. I ended up doing a few online classes in grade 10, 11, and 12. Since then, I ended up completing almost two years of university online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve also facilitated youth programming online as an instructor. In my non-teaching life, I worked as a journalist and communications professional – both jobs that involve utilizing a lot of online technology and social media. All of this is to say – EDTC300 is not my first blogging rodeo.

A writer at heart, I’m excited to get back into blogging and learn from all of you how I can utilize technology in my classroom!

A Vintage Typewriter