Growing Pains: My journey to becoming an Artist

It has only been 14 months since I decided to pursue a career as an Artist. At first, I didn’t realize how much work went into being one, especially the part where you had to promote your own work. I am a naturally shy person. There are times where I get plagued with social anxiety. Talking and revealing myself to others can be a daunting task to overcome. But over time it has gotten a little bit easier after each attempt.

The first time that I admitted to being a Painter to another person was at an Open Studios event at my favorite local art store. There were a few artists presenting their work and even demonstrating what they do. I was so nervous but I managed to have a great conversation with Carol Aaron, an artist who specializes in encaustics. You guys should look her up, I thought her work was so cool! I even asked for her advice in how to get into the industry. She told me to be “stupid brave”, which still sticks to me today and motivates me to put myself out there.  

I think the problem with being an Artist is that you have periods where you are a total recluse, completely inspired by whatever you’re working on. Slaving away at your craft in the space that is your studio. But then you have to eventually come out into the world and shout “I’m an Artist! Here is my work!” Those are polar opposites that become extremely difficult to balance.

Standing in front of my painting "Stairway to Heaven" at the Pacific Art League

It is 2017 and we are inundated with the ease and accessibility of data sharing. Due to the progress of technology, we can reach millions of people through social media through applications like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Where once a website was considered a novel idea now is deemed a necessity. Where artists post videos on YouTube or make blog posts like this one. I guess what I’m saying is that I didn’t know that I had to be a painter, a people person and a computer guru all at the same time! Through a bunch of trial and error and consistently tweaking my website, I finally have something to show for it! I’m gradually building up my portfolio and hopefully letting more people into my world.

I think all this effort is definitely worth it. My problem is that I’m terribly impatient. I’ve grown up so motivated to achieve at the most efficient rate. Slow was not in my vocabulary. But that is what is necessary for me to hone my craft. It is extremely unrealistic for me to expect to gain hundreds or thousands of followers on Instagram overnight. As paintings take time to create, so does my career.

Scrolling through Instagram can be a mood buster for me sometimes. I follow so many wonderful artists and I sometimes get the green eye of envy. I end up comparing myself to their work and wonder about my achievements. But then I pinch myself because I am hindering myself by comparing whatever I do to some person I’ve never met. So then I resign myself to admiring those artists I follow and to work and be the Artist that makes me happy. I don’t expect to become a Master Painter or get famous and have a brand of paints named after me like Bob Ross, but I do want to make a mark on this world and show how I see things in my unique way. 

I hate Acrylics, why I use oils

The aftermath of the Paint off!

My husband challenged me to a paint off but…using acrylic paints. He chose the subject to paint (anything from the game Halo Reach) and we proceeded to do our best. Some trash talk happened, well more so on my end, and we worked while listening to a horror podcast. Ultimately, Justin gave up and I was proclaimed the winner. I chose to leave my painting unfinished because I hate Acrylics. Now, that is a strong word but it is one of my huge dislikes in mediums.

Justin's finished painting "Halo Rebels"

While painting our Halo Reach subjects, my husband had mentioned that the paint wasn’t drying off fast enough. I said that the paint was drying too quickly! What I love about oils is the drying time. It gives me the flexibility to change my mind about things. I can go back to a previously painted spot and alter and manipulate what was already on the canvas. I can further build up the colors and add texture without feeling that sticky/tacky semi-dried layer through my paintbrush that I get with Acrylics. There is this thing that happens when you put a thicker glob of acrylic paint on a canvas, it just dries like Elmer’s glue. There remains a goopy silhouette of the bristles from the paintbrush. Don’t get me wrong, I am amazed at how other artists use the medium and the amount of skill involved, but oils give me more satisfaction.

I remember when I was in middle school, and I ended up getting an oil painting set for Christmas. I’ve been begging my mom for this starter set of Winsor & Newton oil paints including within a wooden carrying box with a wooden palette and some mediums. I felt like a real Artist. At first, I had no idea how to use them. Back then, there wasn’t YouTube or other easily accessible guides for me to reference, but with time and experimentation, I improved my skill and love for the medium.

I also enjoyed the feeling of exclusivity that came with using oils. They are by no means an affordable material. Considering that an oil painter needs mediums, Turpentine, brushes and other various tools, it’s not for the faint of heart. Using oils also requires some finesse. Most of my peers preferred to use acrylics if they chose to paint at all due to its ready availability and ease of use.

Beside the feel and finish of oils, I liked the tradition behind oils. I imagine the old Masters mixing their own pigments using a limited palette. There is this one scene in the movie "Ever After" where Leonardo da Vinci is painting a portrait of Drew Barrymore's character. For some reason I always think of that scene and how simple yet beautiful it was. 

I value the patience and careful planning involved in order to create a beautiful piece using oils. I love how oils give you the option to manipulate colors and layer over dry or wet layers. I also love the effect of using your fingers to blend the paint. While painting my subject during the paint off, a head-shot of a Spartan soldier, I tried blending the paint with my fingers but it ended up just completely lifting off of the canvas. I’m not sure if it was due to the quality of the tools I was using as we were reluctant to spend too much just on this competition and settled for student level paints.

I keep on looking back at my unfinished painting. Justin had urged me to finish it as he believes that the quality is good. I don’t disagree, I just don’t see the point in using my limited amount of energy before carpal tunnel kicks in. The entire time I painting, I thought to myself, “I wish these were oils”.

My unfinished painting "Untitled"

I think what I learned is that it’s good for me to take a break from my good friend and practice using other materials. Besides this competition, I’ve also been sketching a lot lately. I believe that improving my skills with other tools and mediums is only going to make me better as an Artist while giving me different perspectives and ideas for future projects. Today has definitely cemented my appreciation for oils and how much I look forward to using them in the future.  

What is your preferred medium and why? Let me know in the comments!

How Children’s Entertainment has shaped my creativity

My sketch of Totoro in colored pencil

Ask anyone close to me and they will tell you that I’m like a big kid. At almost 30 years old, I still get excited with things aimed towards ages 5+.

An avid reader, I would find myself plunged into a variety of worlds and adventures. I still remember books that inspire me today with their wondrous stories and timeless illustrations. When I was in elementary school, a book called “The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister had the most beautiful illustrations. Long story short, it is about a fish with beautiful shimmery scales who learns to share his beauty with others once he gives his scales away. Besides the lovely message the book shares, I was drawn into the colors and details of this underwater world. The author used a combination of pencils and watercolors to achieve the mystery of the ocean waters and its inhabitants.

Another book that inspires me as an Artist is “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss. Despite the fact that the illustrations are crudely drawn, their effect opens up the eyes of the reader and invites them to learn simple and beautiful lessons. I especially loved the neon colors used by Dr. Seuss for the Truffula trees which reminded me of cotton candy. Almost good enough to eat.

As I got older, I read “Le Petit Prince” by Antoine de Saint Exupery in its original French. What still strikes me today is the size of the inhabitants of each planet relative to the planet’s actual size. How the baobab trees cover each inch of the planet and ultimately conquers the planet and consumes it for its own needs. I had visited an exhibit dedicated to Antoine de Saint Exupery at the Morgan Library & Museum several years back. The exhibit consisted of early sketches and mock-ups of the books. Going through the progression of Saint Exupery’s vision through his sketches and watercolors made me feel as if I was in a world where everything was bold yet simple. Where a little boy and his adventures to understand the world could be relatable to anyone.  

My creativity has also been highly influenced by animation, specifically Anime. I am admittedly, a huge Sailor Moon fan. Naoko Takeuchi created the iconic character with her band of Sailor Scouts in the early 1990s. The characters features were so exaggerated and otherworldly. Beautiful, strong and stylish, I wanted to be Sailor Moon. Alas, I am merely a human. Another Japanese artist I recently started to admire is Hayao Miyazaki. The man behind Studio Ghibli brought us “Spirited Away” and “My Neighbor Totoro”. What blew me away besides the wonderful storytelling, were the uses of colors. A simple scene showing fields in the country with a beautiful sky of light blues and white clouds leaves the viewer feeling uplifted and even hopeful. The fictional and often absurd characters lend me room to imagine far from what I see with my own two eyes. What I really love is the juxtaposition of the characters compared to the background scenery which almost looks impressionistic.

Overall, I believe that creative inspiration can be found anywhere. As I focus on simple and overlooked things, I find the beauty within them which I aim to share through my paintings. Are there any things in particular that inspire you? Let me know in the comments!

Background Noise: What I jam to while I paint

I don’t know about you but I like to have background noise on while I am working. Unless my full concentration is required for important adult things like taxes, I usually have some type of “noise” on.

Now I don’t have anything that’s way too distracting, e.g. anything that requires me to think or is just plain loud and screaming. I also don’t listen to things that may put me to sleep. What I am going to share is pretty embarrassing but I’m just going to roll with it. The various genres that I have in the background are the following: music, TV shows and audiobooks/podcasts.

Here comes the shame…

For the music genre there is a guaranteed way to get me excited and continue to motivate me to paint. My main source of music entertainment is…K-Pop (Korean Pop). I use YouTube and listen to a playlist of popular girl groups with perfectly synchronized and highly commercialized voices and dance moves. My husband is so used to my love of K-Pop that he even knows the intros to many songs and sings them to himself. There is something about this genre of music that is just so catchy. I end up singing or humming the chorus of a song while working on my current project. It reminds me of the whimsy and joy of being young which I try to convey in my work.

Also at the moment as it is the holiday season, Christmas songs are on full blast. I am a sucker for the old school Mariah Carey, Britney Spears and NSYNC Christmas singles. In addition, Michael Buble’s voice makes his smooth like melted butter appearance. I purposely have songs that evoke happiness and positivity. As a rule, I only paint when I’m in either a neutral or positive mood. The way I see it, painting is a reflection of myself and what I want to show the world. There are enough bad things out there that I don’t want to add to that garbage. Hence, I try to reflect in paintings an overall sense of hope and tranquility.

As for TV shows, I am an avid binge watcher. A very special breed of individual who ends up spending many hours watching a specific show. Since the shows are technically background noise, I do not put on shows that require me to pay attention such as Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, etc. Neither do I put on programs presented in different languages. I can’t translate the language or read subtitles while focused on my painting. What I do put on is still heavily entertaining yet allows me to be engaged in my primary focus, painting.

During the first few days of the workweek, I catch up on my professional wrestling shows. Yes, I said professional wrestling. You wouldn’t think I was into WWE but I sure am, big time. And I don’t want to hear those people saying it’s fake, blah blah. It just is something that doesn’t require me to think and is highly entertaining. My husband has accepted and further embraced my fascination with sports entertainment even going further as buying me memorabilia and going to live events with me. But back to the point. I play the latest show from the night before through Hulu and get straight to work.

Besides wrestling, I binge watch shows straight from Netflix. I went through the all the episodes of ‘Once Upon a Time’ recently and I don’t regret a thing. Other times I watch episodes of Futurama, Bob’s Burgers or Archer. As I’ve mentioned in my Artist’s bio, I am inspired by animation. If you notice in my paintings, I have a style that wavers between realism and animation.

Lastly, I listen to audiobooks and podcasts. At the moment my Audible app is playing ‘The Girl with All the Gifts’, a post-apocalyptic novel about zombies. I also alternate between several podcasts such as: ‘Modern Love’ a collection of love stories submitted to the NY Times, ‘Lore’ a narration of various urban legends and spooky stories, and a household favorite, ‘My Dad Wrote a Porno’, which is pretty self-explanatory. I highly recommend all these podcasts if you want to have a good time.  

Overall, I believe that it is important to have something motivate you or keep you balanced. Mine, is the background noise. I can spend hours painting and be so immersed in what I’m doing then to wake up and have the noise bring me back to earth. My collection of music, TV shows and podcasts are pretty embarrassing to say the least, but it makes me the person I am and the Artist I try to be.

I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and has a wonderful New Year!

Now that is controversial: Using reference photos

Planning my portrait of Chewie

I was at a workshop called “Composition in Photography”. During the introductions, I mentioned that I was a painter. The purpose of me taking the workshop was to understand composition in general and also to get a different perspective. I mentioned that I like to use photos that I take myself as references for my art. The response that I got from the instructor was, “Now that is controversial”.

That set me thinking. I understand the uses of other people’s photos due to copyright issues. In this case I use what I have taken myself, so there is no issue there.

I’ve heard some artists say that the use of reference photos was “cheating”. Cheating at what per se? According to some research that I did and of course personal experience, using reference photos has a bad rap. It implies that the artist is simply copying and limiting the creative process. I’ve even heard it referred to as lazy. According to a dissenter of the practice interviewed by the Huffington Post’s Daniel Grant for the article “Are Painters’ ‘Reference Photographs’ a Form of Cheating?”:

“Photographs have the tendency to flatten forms, he said, which may suit artists whose intention is to show how photographs depict the world, but it is not the world that they see and experience. The larger problem of relying too heavily on photographs is that they “stunt one’s sense of confidence. You are depending not on your own perceptions but on a foreign eye to tell you what’s out there, what truth is.”

But here is my argument promoting the practice. A camera shows an image from its own perspective. It captures things that the human eye can’t. It also works the same way for the human eye. The camera lacks emotion while the person viewing what is shot is creating a memory. To be honest, I’ve never been one to completely rely on my own memory regarding proportions and various other details. I’ve stuck to what I knew would be the most efficient which was recording and cataloguing. I still go back to old photographs taken God knows when and I see the potential in them. I don’t aim to copy the photo exactly. I interpret what was captured and in turn I convey how I feel onto a canvas.

After choosing a photo as a reference, I proceed to edit and manipulate the photo through Adobe Photoshop Elements. The use of these tools allows me to add different levels of light and dark, saturation and temperature. I can also crop the sections desired. Once satisfied, I print out the photo for a hardcopy reference. I use the hardcopy and also view the details on my computer screen while planning and creating my current project. I know that achieving the same details and colors from the reference photo are impossible. Which gives me more creative room to play. I then see colors and shades that weren’t there before. I invent a personality for the piece which reflects my own. At the completion of a painting, as long as the piece conveys emotions, a story and most of all interest, I believe that the piece was worth all the effort.

In response to the “controversial” comment, I said yes it may be, but I like to do it this way. I think art is an ever evolving beast. As subjective as art is, so are the tools used to create it. The process in itself allows me to think and explore using various different perspectives, my own or of others. I believe the journey itself is Art and the tangible painting left after the journey ends is something to be appreciated. 

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Holidays!