Music Playlists
Today's recommending listening includes jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, a walking-themed playlist, Bach's Cello Suites performed by Alisa Weilerstein, and a rock & roll dance party!
Get a free Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Library eCard instantaneously. It can be used to access our online resources including eBooks, eAudiobooks, eNewspapers, eMagazines, online classes, online tutoring, and learning games, as well as streaming movies and music, and more.Try listening to a streaming Playlist from Freegal Music, Naxos Music Library or Alexander Street free with your library card. Alexander Street will ask for an academic institution, use Glendale Public Library.
Learn About Music
Musical Activities to Support Parent-Child Relationships from the NEA Art Works Blog. During these difficult circumstances, singing and music-making are bringing people together despite being physically apart while practicing social distancing. Musical activities can also support one of the most critical social relationships, that between a parent and child.
Streaming Music
The Cool Quarantine, Henry Rollins' long format online radio show from KCRW! Long-form digital-only music show hosted by Henry Rollins featuring personal stories, deep cuts, rarities, bootlegs, full albums, EPs, and much more.
ScoreFollower, A exciting collection of contemporary music scores with recordings. They make videos of contemporary music scores that turn pages along with the accompanying recordings.
Billboard’s list of Livestream and Virtual concerts is updated very frequently.
Streaming Art
CreativeMornings is offering free virtual FieldTrips, meetups to interact, learn and collaborate in an effort to level-up your creative life. Events are limited to only 25 people. Your absence will be felt so please make sure that you can definitely attend if you sign up. Check out their podcast series as well for more inspiration. Everyone is creative. Everyone is welcome.
Art Online
More from the Library of Congress. The John Margolies Roadside America Photograph Archive is one of the most comprehensive documentary studies of vernacular commercial structures along main streets, byways, and highways throughout the United States in the twentieth century. Photographed over a span of forty years by architectural critic and curator John Margolies, frequent subjects include restaurants, gas stations, movie theaters, motels, signage, miniature golf courses, and beach and mountain vacation resorts. All 48 contiguous states are represented. In many instances, the only remaining record of these buildings is on Margolies' film.
The Online Archive at Letterform comprises nearly 1,500 objects and 9,000 hi-fi images integral to the history of typography, graphic design, and written communication. This new, free resource will provide a source of beautiful distraction and inspiration to all who love letters. Each object can be zoomed in on and viewed from angles that wouldn't even be possibly seen in a physical format.
Art Inspiration - Try It at Home
We are exploring hand lettering. More things to put in or decorate your sketchbook with (and also step one of next week's project).
A demonstration of how to draw a 3D CONVEX letter to give your hand-lettering a leg up. We are using the word CAKE because the letters demonstrate the different components of a letter. E is made of up of straight strokes, A and K have diagonals, and C is a curved letter.
The basic steps are: draw the outline of a letter. Then draw a line down the middle like a skeleton of the letter. Look for points where two lines meet. Connect the outside lines of the letter to the inside lines you drew in the middle. Then connect outside lines to other outside lines.
Supplies: Pencil, paper, ruler (or straight edge), eraser
Start with thick block letters. You can print them out as long as they are outlined or draw them. I used my gothic lettering reference sheet to draw them out but you can draw them less precise so long as they are thick.
Draw a line down the middle of each letter without going all the way to the edge of the line. Now you’ll have your letter outline, and the middle lines you just drew. Diagonal letters such as the A and K can be tricky. Where the diagonals meet at the peak of the A, there is a straight line down the middle connecting them, meaning there are two horizontal lines in A. On the K, it looks better when the points from your middle line down the meet.
Connect the middle lines to their ends of the outline, making triangles. Try to keep the triangles consistent. In the A, keep an eye on the middle bar connecting the diagonals, as well as how the peak connects to the inside point of the letter. The diagonals in the K are also tricky.
Look for points on the outline where two lines meet, and connect the lines of the outside letter. In the C, you want to find a good point where the curve goes through its main transformation. There’s no set point, you have to eyeball it, go with what looks right. The top of the A connects through the middle line and onto the peak of the inner triangle. Where the vertical and horizontal points connect in the E, connect to the inside.
I mapped out color values in numbers. So you have all these angles on your letter. Every space on the top or left of the letter, write the number 1. Every space on the bottom or right of the letter, write 2
Darken the spaces for 2, and you’ll start to see a neat 3D effect. You can color these in, but make sure to work the highest and lowest value of a color. Try baby blue in all the spaces for #1, and indigo or purple for #2 spaces. The higher the contrast in values, the greater the effect.
Try these ebooks for more examples: Hand Lettering A To Z, Extraordinary Hand Lettering, CardMaker's Hand-Lettering Workbook, and An Introduction To Hand Lettering With Decorative Elements.
Let us know how you did on all our try it at home projects with #brandfromhome
Staff e-Recommendations
If you're a fan of Neil Gaiman, you're in luck! Gaiman recently tweeted (from quarantine in New Zealand!) that he and his publisher were making his novel Good Omens available to download for free for a limited time. If you have a library card, however, you can login to CloudLibrary, Hoopla, Libby, and Freading, and read or listen to the audiobooks of Art Matters, Stardust, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Good Omens, American Gods, and many more! The wide availability of Gaiman's work is encapsulated in his self-narrated audiobook Art Matters. The audiobook is a collection featuring an inspirational speech, commencement address, a poem, and a plea for the public to support libraries. Gaiman is passionate about fostering growth and imagination, freely expressing ideas, providing equal access to information, and creating empathy through reading. As Gaiman states so emphatically, "books are real places!" Speaking of, if Art Matters sparks your curiosity, the physical book does have accompanying illustrations by Chris Riddell, who definitely makes "good art." -SB
See Neil (and some famous friends!) read The Graveyard Book and Coraline in their entirety on Mouse Circus the official website for younger readers.
John Luther Adams' Become Ocean is beautiful and comforting and will resonate with many people regardless of their musical interests. The piece was written by American composer John Luther Adams (b. 1953) who lived in Alaska for many years. It was premiered by the Seattle Symphony in 2013 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music in 2014 and won a Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 2015. The piece was inspired by the oceans of the Pacific Northwest and evokes a rolling ocean. It’s very accessible and reflects the composer’s love of nature. Taylor Swift was so moved by this piece she donated $50,000 to the Seattle Symphony. Naxos Music Library includes the booklet. Give it a listen! -BW
Covid-19 Resources
Reliable information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) is available from the World Health Organization, the California Department of Public Health and Los Angeles County Public Health Department and City of Glendale.
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