Sabrina Ward HarrisonThis is Room in the Trees, a podcast about living a creative life. Room in the Trees is hosted by Trent Reynolds and me, Sabrina Ward-Harrison.
Trenton Reynoldsshow notes including pictures links video and more for every episode can be found at
Sabrina Ward Harrisonroominthetrees.com you can follow us on instagram at sabrina ward harrison and at trent reynolds art and now Here's this week's episode. You had back-to-school night. Was that for your girls or for teaching?
Trenton ReynoldsSo it was two weeks in a row. Last week, we had two nights back-to-back that were the girls.
Okay.
Trenton ReynoldsSo Laura went to both of those while I stayed with the kids. And then the night after that happened, I had a back-to-school night for the middle school. And then last night was back-to-school night for the high school. So all those nights amount to like 10 o'clock. Yeah. So 5.30 in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. It's just a really long day.
Sabrina Ward Harrison5.30 in the morning.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. It is a kick. Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWell, it's been a few weeks.
Trenton ReynoldsI know. You have so many stories to tell. Can you hear me eating cake or is that going to be a problem? Is my cake going to be an issue? Yeah.
No. Okay.
Trenton ReynoldsHow do you feel about yellow cake, by the way? I love it. Like straight out of the box, you know, like Betty Crocker or whatever brand. Yeah. Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonMy mom didn't really make cake. Like if we had cake, it was a kind of healthy cake.
Really?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWell, I don't even know if it was healthy cake. It was just, I guess we'd have it for birthdays. I remember birthday cakes having the little surprise treats inside the aluminum foil. Do you ever have that? Would they bake it into the cake?
Trenton ReynoldsNo, that's fun. What kind of surprises would be in the aluminum foil?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI don't remember. Now that I think about it, I don't think they would bake it because it would probably put little things in. It'd probably melt. It's like deadly, melted, like plastic dolls.
Trenton ReynoldsChomp down on this burnt piece of plastic.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThanks, Mom. Happy birthday.
Trenton ReynoldsBunches of plastic.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's all like melting in your tongue. No.
Trenton ReynoldsEw. Ew.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonUh-oh. I like yellow cake. What's your favorite kind?
Trenton ReynoldsWhen I'm reaching for the comfort food, just straight yellow. When I was a kid, my mom used to, because there was five boys for the majority of time growing up. And then we had another, there's another boy that came along, but she would, she would just cook en masse and, you know, just trough style type, type of presentation. So she just cook a big old pan of, of just maybe two boxes of the standard yellow cake mix. and just put it on the counter. And, you know, throughout the course of the evening, we'd just be walking by and grab a chunk.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh.
Trenton ReynoldsSo I love just the straight yellow cake, maybe with butter on the top. That's, you know, kind of...
Sabrina Ward HarrisonButter on the top of the cake?
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI have never in my life heard of that.
Trenton ReynoldsLet me tell you something. I'm going to tell you right here. I'm going to get close to the mic. I want you to pay attention.
Okay. Okay.
Trenton ReynoldsThis butter on the top and it mixes with that little browned surface of the cake. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It gets this kind of delicate leather. It's not like a – It's like a – It's like a – Well, I'm not thinking of like cow hide leather. Yeah. I'm thinking of like a fruit leather, but very, you know, like fruit by the foot fruit leather, not the Trader Joe's fruit leather. You know what I'm talking about? Yep. Okay. Anyway, it's got this very pleasing rubbery sponginess. So recently, like within the last year, actually it's probably been about two years, started eating donuts at Sidecar Donuts.
Okay.
Trenton ReynoldsHave you ever had these before? No, never heard of it. Okay, so their kind of signature donut, it's kind of high-end donuts, three bucks a pop, three bucks per donut.
So worth it.
Trenton ReynoldsBut their signature donut is a butter and salt donut, and it has that same kind of sweet, salty, leathery, not leathery. Leathery is the wrong word, but you know what I'm saying. just like mix consolidation of intense flavors. You know, it's just, it's all right there. Anyway, I think if you get the chance, and I want to just send this message out into the world, Side car donuts, butter and salt donut. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Is it side cart or side car? Side car. And all the best ingredients they have, they always have at least one gluten-free option and they're just heavenly. That's so good. Anyway, I'm going to continue eating my yellow cake here for a second.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI had a phenomenal piece of carrot cake that's worth talking about. I actually put it in my Facebook stories yesterday.
Really?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah. Sean's mom, Sean is my love, his mom called me up and said, invite me over for carrot cake. Did you? Just carrot cake.
Trenton ReynoldsThat's awesome. She just said, I got some carrot cake here.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonShe made some beautiful carrot cake, shredded the carrots, had the golden raisins. Those golden raisins are so good. It was best carrot cake, hands down. It had like the edges were crispy. Yeah. and had cream cheese frosting, homemade cream cheese frosting. Oh, man, it was so good. And I took a piece home with me, and I said, I know I'm going to get up and eat this. I know it. I got up at 5 in the morning, ate the rest of it.
Trenton ReynoldsThinking about that carrot cake.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThinking about the carrot cake. I made it all the way to 5. Usually it's like a 2 a.m. thing. No.
Trenton ReynoldsYou'll wake up out of a dead sleep like, where's the carrot cake?
Oh, yeah. Yep.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAbsolutely. Most nights I do. Most nights I need to get up and have a little snack.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. We've talked about the Midnight Newton.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh, the Midnight Newton. Oh, man. I haven't eaten those in a long time.
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI got a little nuts about those. And that's apple season again. It's leather weather. And this time it is really leather weather because Sabrina has got motorcycle clothes.
Trenton ReynoldsNo, really? I have. I got to see a picture. Did you send me a picture of a motorcycle outfit? I don't think so, yes. This is such a great story. How did you get the motorcycle outfit? Did you go and try things on? Yes, it was so exciting.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI went to Harley Davidson.
Trenton ReynoldsI love this story already. Oh, Harley Davidson, yes. Okay, I'm listening, I'm listening.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo, yeah, so I, Sean and I started, Sean's wonderful and he loves motorcycles and... And he said, so I wrote on the back of it, his one of his Harleys. And I was like, this is really, it's not like riding on the back of a, some small dingy, scary motorcycle. It's like a big, it has a seat in the back and like you can lean against the back of it. And my dad said, you, if you're gonna do this, you've gotta be suited up. You cannot be riding around without full on, stuff. So Sean took me to the Harley-Davidson store and was like, "Let's get you suited up!" So I got a great helmet. I got a jacket. I got knee-high boots that have three buckles on them. It's a hot look. It is a hot look.
Trenton ReynoldsDo the boots go over the pants?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWell, they will, yeah. So I was wearing them with just black leggings. So that was just the whole statement. And then I ordered some black leather pants. I just got them on eBay and I got them yesterday. This is my thinking. So when my grandmother died, it was actually a year ago this week. She left a folder of images that she wanted to sort of have people go through at her memorial, some sort of memory thing. My grandmother had left these pictures and she had this beautiful marriage to my grandfather for many, many years. He's passed away. but in these pictures, we went through them a month or so ago and there was a picture of her, a lot of people we didn't recognize. And one of them was this color copy blown up photo of her in the back of a motorcycle with some man that we have no idea who it is from taken probably like six years ago, which is, she was in her nineties. Maybe it was even in her 80s.
Trenton ReynoldsIt was recently. That's awesome.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd it just is sweet because it's not like someone that – it was not obviously someone that she was involved with or anything. It was a younger man. But the fact that she wanted this picture of her on the back of the motorcycle to be one of the pictures that we remembered her by – was the feeling like life is precious and short and, you know, it's like ride, like we ride and listen to Johnny Cash and, and, um, who did we listen to the other night? That was, um,
Bon Jovi.
Trenton ReynoldsOh, yes.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonEvery rose has its thorn.
Trenton ReynoldsOh, my gosh. Yeah. That's too much. That is too much.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt has big speakers on it so we can drive and music's just, like, going.
Trenton ReynoldsOh, it's not in your helmet. It's, like.
Mm-hmm.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonNow it's coming out of the Harley.
Trenton ReynoldsThat's even better. That is amazing.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, so hashtag next phase of life. I'm good with that.
Yeah, so.
Trenton ReynoldsDid you ever read the book Zen, the Art of Motorcycle Making?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonNo, but I remember you talking about it being such an influential book for you.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, it really was. But ever since reading that book, I've wanted to do a like, long distance cross country motorcycle trip. Yeah. I think that would be amazing. Well, that, that is by itself a huge, huge story and a huge chunk of life, but you've on top of that, is there anything else to the, to the motorcycle story? I didn't want to leave out any details there.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonNo, just that there'll be more of it. I don't plan them. Like I don't, as of now, I don't feel like riding my own motorcycle. I just like being on the back. It's really nice way to spend time together.
Trenton ReynoldsIs it, can you talk or is it just listening to music and just cruising?
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's a little bit of both. When you're going fast, you can't really talk, but it's just nice to hold on to him. It's fun. It's really nice. I'm really in love, like, big time. It's really, really wonderful.
Trenton ReynoldsThat's awesome. So, yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYes.
Trenton ReynoldsOn top of that, you have just recently returned from Italy.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah. I... came back. I went away. I came back and yeah, we did the true living experience. Italia, great, amazing group of women and just beautiful to watch, you know, these friendships with women, all different. So six, seven women, Nadia came who I'd love to have on the podcast who's a big listener and she'd come to a retreat of mine in Bali, no not Bali, in Baja about 10 years ago and so that kind of propelled her creative life forward and so she I asked her to assist, be my assistant on this trip and she was just dynamite, she speaks Italian so she was such a great asset and just so wonderful to be around and such a fantastic support. But just watching these women connect and these friendships happening just seems like really beautiful, lifelong friendships happened.
That's awesome.
Trenton ReynoldsI think I saw pictures from you and from Nadia as well. The just gorgeous landscapes. Yes. Sunsets. Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt was a beautiful location. La Misha Fisha. I don't think I'm pronouncing it right. I can't. I forget. But it's a reading retreat started by a wonderful man named Clark Harkins. And then this woman, Cece, helps. She looks like kind of the girl from Amelie, just sweet. And they would cook these wonderful meals. And it's an old pump house to pump the water through the fields. But it's been beautifully restored and has been These big, beautiful rooms are each filled with hundreds of books and each have their own distinct artists. It's all the work in that room is done by different specific artists. So that.
Trenton ReynoldsSo it was overall, though, a success and and seems like you saw some incredible country. And yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah.
Trenton ReynoldsDo you think you'll do more trips or is that.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI don't know. I don't think right now I'm going to schedule anything. Yeah. I think ideally we'd love to have some people be able to come here and stay in Madison. It would be lovely, but I don't think I'm going to have anything on the calendar right now. What I'm excited about is opening up Liberate. Seeing what students have been doing in these books, I mean, Susie has over 250 pages of her book done. Emily's just they're just books are blooming right and left so
Trenton Reynoldsand are you seeing are they posting images of work in progress or yeah on social media that's really cool and so that that event takes place when
Sabrina Ward Harrisonour kind of gathering it will be in May here in Madison and then but the next 2020 uh Liberate it's gonna open in January for registration so the next class of 2020 got it I'm excited about to dive into with people. What about you? What's been any deep, deep confusing life thoughts have you had?
Trenton ReynoldsOf course. Yes. No. Well, one thing that I feel like I need to bring up because just – for the sake of integrity and something that I've been thinking a lot about is you challenged me last time, uh, to post a, uh, just description of where I'm at on the Facebook group. Uh, and I didn't do it and I've been thinking about it and, uh, I can tell you all sorts of excuses why in life will always be busier than I can manage, but, um, just, I think it comes down to not knowing, right? Like, I don't know. Anyway, so I am going to recommit. I had hoped to be able to get that done before you and I spoke today, but it just... did not happen. But I am recommitting and it's something that I really want to do because I do feel stuck and I do still feel like I'm kind of at that place that last time we talked. Yeah. So in terms of the studio and kind of my vision for where I'd like to go with... you know, my relationship with teaching and making, I feel very much at a standstill and that's frustrating. But let me tell you something a little happier. I think I posted on, on, on Instagram a little video of the cricket machine doing one of my iPad drawings. Did you see it?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonNo, I didn't see it. It's in here.
Trenton ReynoldsSo there's, have you ever heard of the Cricut machine? No. Some people, it's C-R-I-C-U-T. It's this crafting, like journaling, what do you call it? What? you call that when you like have like pictures and little templates and lettering and there's a word for it crafting or anyway you know what I'm talking about though like when people cut out like little bubbly frames and letters and pictures and Kind of the stereotype cheesy photo book type thing. Okay. Okay. Anyway, that's what the Cricut machine is, I think that's what it's made for, is cutting out stickers and cutting out lettering and stuff like that. So we've got two of them at the middle school and they use them to, you can print out a color sticker and then have the machine cut out the shape of the sticker. which is really cool. And kids love putting stickers on their laptops or whatever. What I found out, though, is that it also has an attachment that you can put a little pen in it, just a regular fine tip, you know, marker. And it's essentially just like it has back and forth, side to side and back and forth. And it can lift the pen up and put it down. So you can feed it a vector drawing or vector graphic, which is basically just a set of direction and angle instructions that gives the pen a path to follow. So basically on the iPad, I have an application that I use. Actually, Adobe just released a new iPad drawing application called Fresco, which is kind of cool. And it has the ability to – you can use vector brushes and export a vector file that you could then give to the Cricut machine.
Wow.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd it will actually draw – the drawing that you made on the iPad. And you can make it big, you can make it small, you can have it multiple colors, you can have it on different kinds of paper. I printed a drawing out on watercolor paper and then it's water-soluble ink, so you can... Oh, my God. You can use watercolor and gouache and paint into it and... It's kind of like been blowing my mind a little bit. And so I've done just so far been experimenting with it. And I've done maybe four or five little scribble drawings because that's kind of all I've had time for recently. Yeah. It's amazing. It's so cool. You do a drawing on the iPad and you can do a bunch of different copies of it in different colors and paint into them. There's just so many cool things you could do. That's something that I've discovered.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSee, I think you would be so great at doing these little courses on this stuff. It's just so, it's so great.
Trenton ReynoldsIt seems like blogging and course, these mini courses would be perfect fit for the kind of, for the way that I discover. Like just to be able to translate my own personal interests into something that's shareable. But I just haven't figured out how to do that yet. Anyway, but leave that alone, whatever that may be. But this cricket thing is just wonderful. Do you have your phone right now?
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsLook at Instagram on my art, Trent Reynolds' art.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh, my gosh.
Trenton ReynoldsRight? I mean, the drawing's nothing to look at, but you get the potential of it.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh, my gosh.
Gosh.
Trenton ReynoldsHow cool is that? How cool is that?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat is super, super cool. You guys listening, we will link to it. And go to Trent Reynolds Art on Instagram.
Trenton ReynoldsOn Instagram, yeah. I'm so enamored with this little machine. And so typically the vectors that you're giving to this machine are really simple, like they're the outlines of letters. So I I today I printed out another scribble drawing and it took like it usually takes seconds to get this thing loaded up, but it took like 15 minutes for my my drawing to load. Because it's all these like squiggles, scratchy, you know, lines that the computer doesn't quite know what to do with. I'm stressing the limits of this machine.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo when you talk about like vector, like what if you had a brush pen? Kind of the fact.
Trenton ReynoldsIt's kind of, I'm trying to think of a good way to explain the difference between vector and raster. So, like, Photoshop deals with raster graphics, which are, like, you have pixels that make up an overall image, like individual points of color, right?
Mm-hmm.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd as opposed to a vector, which is just a set of instructions that says go this direction for this long at this curve till you get to this point. And then from that point, go to this point. So it's not little pixels that build up into an image. It's just a set of instructions on how to get from here to the next point. Does that make sense? So if you make that bigger, if you make a vector bigger, you don't lose any quality. It looks just as sharp as it does small because you're not changing, you know, trying to take a small number of pixels and spread them over a larger area. You're just making the instructions, you know, just expanding those instructions out. I don't know. That's not a really good way of explaining it. Anyway, so if you use a different kind of mark, like in a drawing app, if you were to use a brush tool, it would have to figure out how to translate that essentially into paths that a pen could follow. So you don't really have any kind of, all you have is a line pretty much. A pen going, it's not going to really mimic any brush effects per se. Okay. All right, it's just a line. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I can see the technology being developed that could do something like that, that could have degrees of force pushing down and then having a pen that has, like one of those watercolor pens that's thick at the top and thin at the bottom and being able to manipulate that. But this is just like a fine tip, you know, Sharpie essentially.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonBut so cool how like loose and you know, rough it can be.
Yeah. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd that's what I, that's what I love about the laser too, is it's like you can get it to do these really gestural and like loose drawings so precisely. Yeah. You know, it's like this tension between this high precision reproducing exactly what's on your screen, but you're reproducing something that's really, you know, imprecise and gestural.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat's what I think is the coolest part about seeing what you're doing with this stuff. It's the abstract quality of how much... Yeah, the combination juxtaposition of technology and machines with, you know, loose abstract hand gesturing, gestural mark making. yeah that's what I love about it so cool yeah I love the idea also using the water-soluble ink I'd love to see what you what you do with the watercolor
Trenton Reynoldspaper yeah I'll try to send you a couple pictures of just just I printed a couple out and just ran them through water just to watch the lines bleed and it really cool stuff so I'll shoot you some images. So that's what I've been up to. And besides that, I got walking pneumonia last week in the middle of all those open houses and just laid me flat for, so I left school a little bit early on Friday and slept all of Friday afternoon, night, and a good portion of Saturday. I was just out and just today and yesterday have started to feel better. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a rough, rough couple weeks. It's all good, though. I got my cheesecake. I feel so much better with a little bit of yellow cake. You know what I wanted to talk to you about? What?
And...
Trenton Reynoldskind of along the same lines as this, you know, this iPad and using this cricket machine and the lasers. I think artists kind of, and maybe this is rehashing an old conversation. Tell me if it is, but I think artists have a natural antipathy, kind of like a natural dislike of machines and mechanized processes and You know, like you've got this like studio artists. I notice this a lot, like just going through different painting and drawing programs where we tend to kind of romanticize traditional materials and techniques. Right. And I think it's also the case that people that don't like computers and machines and things that look complicated and impersonal. They probably just naturally gravitate towards art anyway. So it's kind of a self-selecting group to a certain degree. But I've definitely noticed over the years that there's this almost, you know, righteous dismissal of anything kind of tech related in a lot of art programs. Like at this current school that I'm at, a lot of the fine arts people just didn't want anything to do with the space because they saw it as computers and machines. And what does that have to do with paint and pencils? So I guess you are somebody that has also, similar to me, ridden that line a little bit. Yeah. I guess, traversed over into digital realms. You've done video. You've recorded stuff. Obviously, we're doing this podcast. Do you have any feelings of where... Do you have a line that you feel uncomfortable crossing in terms of incorporating digital technology processes or digital imagery into your art making? Or do you see those as two separate things?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, that's a good question. I think initially, as soon as you start talking about the topic of it, I think fear comes up. I think that, at least in my mind, I'm like, I'm an artist. I can't. I don't know how. I don't know how. I don't know how to do the tech, even going back to art school and the computer and learning about, you know, layouts. And I was like, my mind doesn't think that way. I'm left-handed. I'm right-brained. I can't kind of... can't do it. And so I'm going to, my fear, all kinds of fears come up. Like it's going to take too long. It's going to look really bad. I'm not going to be able to get the look I'm wanting to have. And I think when I finally embraced, like, I don't know how to use this, but I'm going to use it. Um, quality of like, okay, I want to shoot some stuff and I'm going to use this kind of crappy camera, but I'm filming and I'm, uh, and you know, the lid, this lens doesn't work, but whatever. And, um, things like that. I think then interesting work comes from that place. So, but you know, like I've gotten it, I finally got an iPad, but I don't, I don't yet know how to, I haven't broken. So there it goes again. Like, I don't know how, so, um, you know, procreate looks so interesting, but I haven't kind of broken through to go, okay, how can I experiment with this technology? Right. I'll get stagged up by something like I can't freaking get the photo to come in in or something like that. I can't delete the photo and they're like, well, screw it. So that's the line I go into is just like if I'm spending too much time trying to figure something out and I'm just getting frustrated, it pisses me off so much and I don't want to go back and solve it.
Trenton ReynoldsHow do you think you've been able to overcome that, though, in other ways? In making movies, were there just not as many points of friction that you got stuck on? How did you teach yourself how to make – you've done some amazing editing, right? Yeah. smoking a lot of pot. And I think your movies...
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAt the time.
Trenton ReynoldsA little substance help.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah. I think at the time, honestly, I think, yeah, I think at the times that I was making my movies, I was smoking pot and I think that there was an element of like, I just dropped into the super, like, this is cool. I'm totally in. I'm like going with it. Honestly, I think, I don't know. I don't know. That's just a thought I had just reflecting back on that time. It was a combination of wonderful things, but yeah. Um,
Trenton ReynoldsI remember you showed me those movies though I'm not remembering specific ones but there was this thing where you would be you'd have one cut that was a different aspect ratio so one would be 4.3 and then one would be 16.9 And so you'd have like this shift, this shifting of like, you know, black bars on the sides and then it would cut to something with black bars on, you know, or be full screen. And it created just this, this texture and I don't know, broke rules in this really, in a way that, that meshed really well with the, the subject of your video. Like it, it created this flavor that made sense. And I think it's, it's something to kind of what you're saying is like you, you took it. And even though you didn't exactly know what you were doing or the lens wasn't working right or whatever, um, You just went forward and pushed through and made something with it, you know, to the best of your ability. And there's like this unapologeticness and like intentionality, like it feels like you wanted it to be that way. Right. Whether or not that's just a representation of where your skill level is at the time or doesn't really matter. Like you owned it in a way. that was just as compelling as if you had, you know, been working with film your whole life. Do you know what I'm saying? And it's like, I'd love for, and I feel, I feel that myself like this kind of joy when I bumble through and I make all the mistakes. Yeah. And then I see that this technology do something that I couldn't have done alone and, you know, and make something that's above and beyond or greater than, you know, it's this tool that has empowered me to do something kind of incredible, right? And it's kind of weird, little scratchy drawing, but it's like... I don't know, just being able to use a tool to create like that is... It's exciting, yeah. It is. And I'd love for more people to be able to get that feeling and not be so dismissive of like, well, I can't do that or that's not really art or that's not an artist's tool or whatever that...
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat do you do then when you hit these frust, you've got like a limited amount of time, but then you're like, okay, I want to use this machine and then you can't get it some stupid problem with the computers like it's not reading the data.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, I was just thinking about, you know, it has to do with setting the like appropriate level of task for yourself. You know, like I had a kid come take private lessons from me one time. and he had obviously never taken a drawing class in his life, and he was talking about this animation that he was going to do. And, you know, he was taking a drawing class online so he could go to animation school and make this animation. And he'd always talk about this animation and how, you know, enamored he was with this idea and how he was going to make it amazing. But he wouldn't do his drawing assignments and he couldn't do his drawing assignments. And he got really frustrated because he couldn't do kind of these simple tasks.
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd I think he eventually just didn't go forward with the class. And he kind of lost interest. Like he just, you know, fizzled out. And I think there's something in that lesson. So with the lasers, there's a lot of really cool stuff that you could do that's really technical and requires a lot of knowledge and that I would love to be able to do and spend time with. but the reality is, is I've got my lunch break. Yeah. Right, and I've never done, never used a laser before in my life, and there's nobody around here that really knows how to do very complicated stuff, so I've got 30 minutes, and what can I do in 30 minutes? You know, I can... figure out how to turn it on and maybe set the laser height correctly you know and that's what I've got time for today you know yeah it's like it's it's not allowing yourself to get too caught up in what where you're going to end up and being able to do this really cool complicated thing and It's like first figure out how to turn on the machine, you know, next figure out how to... Or I was thinking about you and Procreate. Maybe like even using that app is too much to start with, you know. Maybe there's too many buttons to push and settings to learn and for you really to have... to be able to get to a point where you're excited about what you're doing quick enough for you to maintain your energy and interest, you know, maybe instead just going to the notes app on the iPad and sketching in the notes app, you know, or there's another, right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm not saying that that's the right answer for you. I'm just saying like, And then just spending time with the pencil doing that. And when you get good at that, maybe you think about how you could do that same thing in Procreate. And then maybe you can start adding bits and pieces on top of that. Maybe add an image in the background or, you know, whatever the case may be. Work with layers. I don't know. I think it's all kind of the same problem is like is when it becomes like you get out in front of yourself and you don't have like you don't have enough skill or knowledge how to get to where you're trying to go, you're going to lose interest and steam and just kind of give up. So like finding little projects and little things that you can complete and actually do realistically in the amount of time and with the skills that you currently have. I don't know. I think that's the trick with technology.
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI think that's a good one. That's good we covered it. So you're going to post something in the thing, the group.
Yes.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI'm going to do some experimenting with my iPad and play around with something and send it your way. Good.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd two, I don't know if I've mentioned, there's another app called Paper.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, I did download that.
Trenton ReynoldsThat's another one that's really simple user interface and the tools are pretty cool too.
Oh, right.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, are you going to go ride a little? gonna put on no because we you're not gonna try on the the outfit you're not gonna show sean the
Sabrina Ward Harrisonthe new duds well he's seen his yeah he hasn't seen the pants yet he hasn't seen the pants yet yeah i know all right well i'll just show him the pants i got my peening pants on right now he went to my studio for the first time today awesome that's that is another conversation
Trenton Reynoldsfor another time i would love to hear what his thoughts are about uh about your work and
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWell, we're doing our life. We're doing it. We're doing it.
Trenton ReynoldsThanks for listening. We'll be back next week.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonPlease help us grow our audience by rating us or writing a review on iTunes. To do that, you can use the link roominthetrees.com forward slash iTunes.
Trenton ReynoldsYou can follow us on Instagram at Sabrina Ward Harrison and at Trent Reynolds Art.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonand check out the show notes at roominthetrees.com where you can also get in touch if you have any
Trenton Reynoldsideas you'd like to share rate us on itunes and share room in the trees with a friend and now go
Sabrina Ward Harrisonand go and experiment go and experiment play around with something that's Maybe with technology that you don't know how to use and just mess around with and make something.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, you got a phone? You got a phone. You got an iPad? Yep. You got a computer? Do something you've never done before and just poke at it. See if you can make it bend to your will. I'll bend something to my will, that's for sure.