I'm painting nebulae this week as well as starting a celestial siren. I'm constantly cleaning my brushes and plucking cat hair off my paintings. That's fine though. Micah has a birthday coming up and the weather has been in the 70s the past few days. I've been enjoying the afternoon rays and the pale winter sunsets. I don't know what I'd do without sunlight. I'm not sure what Rina would do without sunlight either. That's all for now.
For the most part, I enjoy social media. I'm a visual person and I like seeing all these amazing and beautiful things other people share. It's also really cool to find other artists, etc out there and sort of become online friends. Weirdly enough, this is also what I don't like about Instagram (there's other issues as well).
Awhile ago I stupidly downloaded an app that lets you know how many followers you gain/lose, and I didn't realize how bad of an idea that was (originally I thought it would be interesting to track). Of course people are always going to unfollow you, and that's fine. What was hard was seeing people I knew, i.e.: artists I admired, schoolmates, and some of my favorite local shops, all unfollow me. I guess it didn't bother me too much until last week when an artist who I admired and chatted with every now and then all of sudden unfollowed me out of the blue and I kind of thought…what? What did I do! Too many cat photos? Regardless, the unfollow app is getting deleted, and I'm no longer looking at who follows OR unfollows me. I suppose it really doesn't matter, right?
I like sharing photos and I like viewing other's photos, and really it should be left at that. Sometimes I think we get too caught up in the likes and dislikes that it begins to ruin the whole experience. You shouldn't care how many people liked or didn't like your selfie, if you want to post a photo of yourself just do it and leave it at that. Mean comments? Ignore them or delete them. I think social media is good/bad, but the good is sharing the human experience and being inspired by what others have to say. Plus sometimes it's fun to just look at cute cats.
It's been abnormally cold in Austin the past few days and I've been drinking green tea from my favorite mug and burning candles in the studio. The heater is also on and Rina is being very cuddly, which is nice aside from the cat hair that keeps getting in my painting.
I'm working on several paintings at the moment, including this round panel of the Orion Nebula. I've been using a lot of prussian blue lately and it's definitely becoming a favorite. I fall in love with new colors everyday.
I also just got these pretty lights from Urban Outfitters here and love them so much. They're tiny rosebuds! Eee, they're so pretty.
I have more nebulae in the works as well as some celestial sirens. I'm excited about it. Updates later! Have a lovely weekend!
I've had some pretty vivid dreams lately. Two of these include my cat running away, and another where I found a secret cave inside my tooth. Weird. I think my dreams get weirder and more vivid when I'm cold and/or stressed. In college I based my senior project on weird dreams I was having at the time. Perhaps I need to brush up on symbols and meanings within dreams; I'm pretty fascinated with this stuff.
In other news, the holidays are coming up and I'll be visiting my sweet city of OKC soon. I'll keep most items available in the shop during my vacay, including these little original watercolors from my 366 Sketchbook project. Most of the pieces from this series is sold out, but I have a handful left!
And of course, you can find prints and other things in my shop. Hope you all have a lovely holiday! I've been enjoying them so far in Austin, and I'm excited to continue celebrating in my hometown (OKC) soon.
I'm currently the featured artist over at STASH, a lovely little store in Norman, OK. I'm so thrilled with how everything came together and can't thank them enough for setting it up perfectly. If you are in the area, check it out! Theres a mix of original oil paintings and prints all for sale.
