Every January, I spend the month just thinking, reading, and reflecting. I take the pressure off myself to make new work since most people are still recovering from the holidays. Time has become very weird since the pandemic started. Most days I forget what day of the week it is. Something about spending so much time at home has made me want to start blogging again. It helps give structure to my week, but also helps me put my thoughts and feelings into words.
It's been a little over two years since I last updated this blog. I think for a while I thought "what's the point?" since I doubt very many people still read blogs regularly. But I think it's always been more meaningful to me to keep a blog and have a place for my works in progress to live aside from Instagram. It's definitely a lot easier to search through the archives of a blog then endlessly scroll back in time in the Instagram feed.
But I also see the potential for my blog to be helpful to others…especially other artists who are just starting out on this very long journey. I think we've gotten too used to Instagram showing us the pretty end product or a very curated/staged looking work in progress shot. Let's bring back the messy desks and the paintings that didn't quite work out. I also think I've spent enough time painting that I can now share some of my tips and techniques, and general art supply knowledge.
I don't really know how consistent I'll be with updating this blog, but I'll try to stay on top of it. Here's some of the quick paintings of Sebastian that I did real quick in my sketchbook. These were painting with the HIMI gouache set that's available from Amazon for $17-25. It's nowhere near comparable to artist grade gouaches like Winsor & Newton or Holbein, but they're really fun to use. I did a lightfastness test over the Summer and most of the colors held up pretty well. Prussian Blue, Magenta, and Violet experienced the most fading, but those colors typically aren't lightfast anyway.
