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.