Behind the scenes: Beams of Bless

How I create my weekly art series

Friends,

For this letter, I’d like to take you behind the scenes of Beams of Bless, a creative practice I share on Instagram every Monday.

A selection of Beams

I started this series in December 2023 with the aim of expressing how I feel as a human in the world and sharing that with my community. With time, it became a way to check in with myself creatively and emotionally: How am I doing today? How do I want to express this feeling on paper?

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A step-by-step process

It’s Monday. After a coffee and a good breakfast with my sweetie, I sit down at my desk and start free writing.

Oh, I almost forgot to set my Pomodoro Kitty timer. A little “meow” reminds me to get up and take a break every 25 minutes.

As I scribble and get words out of my system, the message I want to communicate starts to take shape.

Once the seed of the message is on paper, I experiment with different words, word order, and tone to help the message be as clear as possible. Reading it out loud always helps.

When I feel satisfied with the message I’ve crafted, I write it out on a fresh page in my sketchbook with pastel crayon.

Fun story: I found this container of crayons (as well as the paint set you’ll see below) in the trash on the Upper East Side in NYC!

Now, I move onto art. I re-read the copy and think of what colors this message needs. It feels like choosing an outfit for someone.

And from there, intuition kicks in. The shapes, texture, art medium, how hard I press on the paper, all connect from the source: the written message.

I keep adding onto the paper until I’m satisfied. If the composition doesn’t sit well in my heart, I start a new one. Usually the final art comes out after 1~3 tries.

It’s time to scan the message and the artwork and bring them into Photoshop. This is usually when I press play on a podcast, as I can let the thinking part of my brain go as I clean up the edges of letters and work on little adjustments in the artwork.

(Recently I’ve been enjoying the Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) podcast to learn about what life was / is like from the magazine greats. Think Tina Brown, Fabien Baron…)

I export 3 files: one with just the art, one with the message overlaid on the art, and one I like to call the “wild card,” as this composition is an inverted or color-filtered version of the original artwork. I think it’s interesting to see the same image in a completely different way.

Here is today’s Beam of Bless!

I screenshot memes and inspiring gems I’ve foraged from the Internet in the past week, and I combine everything into a carousel on Instagram and hope that at least one person finds this digital care package helpful.

After this, I turn my phone off and take a break, usually in the form of a lunch or snack with my sweetie. The end!

P.S. Another “Letter From Earthling” is headed your way! It will be in print in the November 3 / Weekend Edition of The New York Times. I loved working on this one, and I hope you will enjoy it too. 🪐

Soul spark ✨

What’s been inspiring me lately

As I was writing this month’s letter to you, the melancholic notes of a pan flute echoed through the street. This is how I knew the amolador was nearby. You can call out to these traveling knife sharpeners from your apartment window, and they will sharpen your knives and scissors for you! They play a beautiful tune. Give it a listen!

Keep your heart open for beauty,

Haruka