I’m really amusing myself with the titles I’m coming up with for my anatomy series. This piece was especially fun to work on. I like how cells look so abstract. This nerve cell was inspired by a recent injury I am recovering from. It made me think about how complex our nervous systems are, and how fascinating nerve cells look.
I think I’ll have to do some more cell collages. This has been a fun change of pace from the usual portraiture and animal pieces that I do.
I decided to take a break from still life and anatomy pieces and worked on completing this flamingo piece the other night. This was another collage I worked on while live streaming my process. I’m having a lot of fun answering viewer questions while I work. I also previously made three other flamingo collages, and since all of them have sold, I figured I might as well tackle this subject once again.
I focused more on using solid colors for this one, while mixing in a few fragments of texture. Sometimes I feel a need to incorporate more patterns and textures into my pieces, but for this one, I was more interested in mixing solid colors of pink.
This was another composition suggested by one of my followers during a live session on TikTok. I’ve never done a dolphin collage, so I enjoyed tackling this for the first time. I struggled with this one for a bit, and I don’t think I’m entirely convinced that this is finished, but for now it is. Sometimes you need to set your work aside and tell yourself it’s finished, so you don’t overwork it. We’ll see if I revisit this one again in the future…
This is part of my new anatomy series. Previously I made a heart and brain collage, and this was another fun challenge. I like how abstract and interesting different organs are, and I enjoyed figuring out the composition for this one. I also like coming up with interesting titles (like figures of speech and puns) that go along with these pieces, instead of titling them they are and leaving it at that.
Lately I’ve been feeling really inspired. It’s amazing how one month you can feel so uninspired and then the next you can’t seem to have enough time in the day to make all the things you want to make. Even though I have a really small following on TikTok, the community there has helped motivate me to constantly work on new projects every week. I’ve been enjoying going live and streaming my process as well.
Earlier this month I made a “Citrus” collage, which made me realize I should tackle more interesting still life compositions. Completing that piece inspired me to work on this “Cherries” collage. I enjoyed the challenge of working with variations of red within the entire composition. I also worked on this piece while live streaming my process on TikTok, and I had a blast answering questions while working on various stages of the collage.
Lately my color palette has been really bright, and I’m enjoying how my live streaming sessions have inspired me to make so much new artwork this month. “Cherries” is my eighth piece completed so far in 2021.
This collage was another request from one of my art followers. This was my first time making a dinosaur collage, and I think it looks a bit rough, which means my next one can only get better. I like sharing a lot of my art, even the pieces I’m not really proud of. I like to share how not every work of art that an artist creates looks completely polished or perfect in their eye. I also like how sometimes some of my work that I’m not terribly excited about is actually work that other people love. You never know, we all have so many different preferences.
One of my art followers suggest I make a hummingbird collage. I made one last year that sold pretty quickly, so I figured I’d make another one this year. For this one, I focused on using fragments of trees from a few images so that the background would have a more uniform look. I enjoyed mixing a little texture for the hummingbird and decided to outline the bird to make it more visible since the background is more complex than what I typically do.
This piece is part of a new anatomy series that I’m working on, and lately I’ve been striving to tackle subject matter that I’m unfamiliar with. I’ve never really worked on anatomy pieces before, and I’m really enjoying this whole process. Actually, this entire month I’ve made more art than I’ve made in quite a while, and this piece is one of my favorite pieces that I’ve made in a while. That just goes to show that challenging yourself can lead to pleasant surprises.
Still life is a subject that I generally avoid. Previously I’ve felt uninspired by most compositions I’ve come up with, although with this piece, I had a lot of fun with it. I think I need to continue to challenge myself with still life. After all, I just might find another composition that excites me.
This piece was inspired by some tragedy that my family was faced with in the beginning of last year – my father passed away from glioblastoma (GBM) which is a rare and very aggressive brain cancer. Most patients diagnosed with it don’t live longer than twelve to eighteen months.
I made this to help communicate GBM awareness and I wanted to call attention to this organ that we don’t really spend much time thinking about on a daily basis. It does its job and we go about our lives, occasionally thinking about its existence. And here’s a reminder to take good care of your brain. It’s doing so much for you that you don’t really realize until something goes wrong. So here’s to celebrating our brains!