I recently realized how long it had been since I posted here! Earlier in the year I had my hand in a few creative things here and there, and I was fairly consistent with posting videos. I had been doing some practice paintings and painting exercises that for some reason I missed out on sharing here at the time, but over the next few blog posts I will get you all caught up on those pieces as well as other projects I've neglected to mention. Even though I had built up a fair amount of momentum at the beginning of 2019, eventually I fell behind myself and I let it happen because I just wanted to chill. It wasn't burnout, at least not in the way that I had always known it. I wasn't exhausted or struggling with my morale at all. I just decided to take a break to enjoy my friends and enjoy life. The transition felt pretty natural, surprisingly. I ditched a schedule, scrapped all of the over-thinking and did a lot less "planning." It felt great to be able to choose to be more leisurely with my time. I spent a lot of that time recalibrating, learning, observing and gathering ideas. I suppose we all have to change gears every once in a while. Also, I took a few months off from certain social media platforms, for reasons that I'm not going to bore you with on here. To be honest, sometimes it's not much fun for me to be online and go through the rigmarole of marketing myself and sharing shit. I probably should care and push it a whole lot more, but it can be hard to get myself in that mindset. I think so much of it is ridiculous, and the measures of success (or whatever you want to call that) are unreliable. But I digress. At any rate, Now I'm feeling ready to hop back on the horse and talk about my creative life again. So in this post and in the next two or three to follow, lemme gone 'head and get you caught up.
R.A.W Magazine Feature
photo credit: Mason Taylor for R.A.W Magazine
The first really cool thing to happen this year was that I was asked to be featured in R.A.W Magazine for their Winter 2019 issue (that's not me on the cover). It's a quarterly online and print publication that features artists and working creative people from various backgrounds. I answered some thought-provoking questions ranging from my creative process to who inspires me. Take a look and let me know what you think! Follow your nose to the article here.
"Hoops n Hood Culture" @ UNR
Back in February of this year, I helped lead a painting group at the University of Nevada as a part of their Black History Month celebrations for the students. It was organized by the wonderful folks from The Center, an on-campus cultural diversity group that supports the students. I certainly don't consider myself a teacher, at all, but I tried to figure out a way to make the project approachable and customizable. I had to choose what I wanted people to paint, and come up with a supply list. If there was ever a moment where I could say that I felt "official" it was sitting in a coffee shop deciding what supplies I thought were appropriate to lead a group of painters with a wide skill level range. The night of the event was a blend of fine art and a touch of "hood culture" by way of classic and new rap music. I have to say that it was the most fun event that I've done so far this year! I chose a piece by Washington, DC artist LlanaKila whose work I thought was perfect to share because of her color sensibilities and the way that she depicts her black female figures. The particular piece that I chose allowed the attendees to use it as a template to either replicate or personalize it with their own vision. I was so pleased with what everyone was able to create.
"How to See Color and Paint It"
This will be a separate series of posts, but I thought that it was still worth mentioning. I had started doing painting exercises from a book called How to See Color and Paint It, and sharing my results on my YouTube channel. I only made it up to about the 4th project so far but I am going to return to it. My goal is to finish all of the exercises by the end of the year, but we'll see how that goes. The lessons in this book are very technical and specific about how to translate the color you see to the color you are able to mix with physical paint. It took me a couple of exercises to get used to the process. It's simple, but challenging. Be on the look out for updates on that series of projects, but if you want to see how I've done so far, you can see my videos here.
All the rest...
There is much more to share but again, I'll be breaking it all up into separate posts. I just wanted to do a introductory check-in to reintroduce myself to writing/sharing in this space again. I know that it's been awhile and I'll still be slowly trickling things out right now, but if you haven't already, I invite you to find and follow me on all the other spaces where I share things. I don't want you to miss out: