A friend wanted me to do a portrait of him, so we scheduled time for him to sit for me this past weekend. I was nervous and excited about it because this is the first time I've ever had to set up a portrait myself. Usually I work from photos or use myself as a reference, and the only live model sessions I've had have always been in a classroom setting. The knowledge I have about putting one together is minimal. But, I have PLENTY of experience in "winging it" so somehow we worked it out!After I got what I needed from my friend and came to a good stopping point, I took a good look at my living room and became super excited because it really looked like a space where someone creates. So much like a mini art studio! This is the type of stuff I always thought about throughout my art path, but never really knew would ever come to fruition. And yet here it is. Another piece to the "beginning" of something. It's a surreal feeling.I had to move everything back so that I could get through my apartment more easily, but I kept some of the stuff up anyway because of how it makes my space look. And of course, I had to take a picture. The next thing that hit me was that I'm going to have to seriously think about moving to a bigger place. My little "art corner" is starting to take over!
The Shop is OPEN!
Alright, it took quite some time for me to set up and get everything functioning but my online shop is up and ready to take orders! Check out what's available for purchase, there are several works available in their original or print form. Follow the Shop link in the menu above.I will say that it's very gratifying to finish everything on my own, but I definitely know now that I am not meant to be a web designer or developer. Thank goodness for sites like Wordpress and all of its plug-ins which help someone like me to be able to have professional and functioning websites, but it's still a lot of work. There's a lot that I still have to learn. A couple of years ago I tried taking some web design classes but it eventually became too overwhelming for me. I'll stick to Wordpress, it does all the hard work for me...unless I end up screwing some shit up - which I did plenty of times while setting up the shop! This past Sunday night I was determined to wrap it all up though, so I stayed up until about 3am trying to figure out how to get the final touches together so everything would work. All that time, just to figure out that I needed to add one simple piece of code."Oh hell nah...Are you f**kin' kidding me??! THAT was it?!" <<------- My reaction.I hope that this will be the last big technical project for a while. The mental rollercoaster was NOT worth it once I figured out the solution.Again, I am NOT meant to be a web developer and it was very clear that night especially. I'd much rather stay up that late working on a painting than this stuff. It's much more fulfilling, and I'm beyond ready to get back to sharpening my skills. But now I know what to do next time, and anything left to do here is just minor updates. Thank goodness...
Throwback: My RAWartists Interview
Here is a video interview that I did in August 2013 when I was in the Reno RAWartists show, Translations. This was the first time that I ever had to be candid about myself as an artist in such an official way. After the interview, there were thousands of things that I thought I could've said in better ways or could've added to my answers. In my head, I thought that I had bombed it. But looking back at it, I didn't do too bad! I like to be able to reference this video because I think that my style and confidence has changed a lot since then, and I think that I have a better grasp on the direction I'd like to head in now. It's funny how much things can change in a year!