Two years before the mast...

August 2023 Reflection ~

Hello everyone and welcome to my newsletter! I appreciate everyone who has taken the leap to subscribe and your interest in following along with my artistic journey. I’m so happy for you to be here with me <3

We finally made it! The Council of Spooky Bitches has spoken and fall is here! Although not officially until the 22nd of this month, I’m counting it anyway. Starbucks rolled out its fall menu at the end of August, stores have (slowly) been adding more and more Halloween decor, and the low desert has been experiencing weeks of cloudy days, monsoons, and 90-degree weather (which for us means cozy sweaters).

Inspired by the autumn weather, my artistic practice has shifted to take in the season. I’m creating far more spooky motifs, incorporating ghosts and pumpkins whenever I can, and experimenting with dark color palettes. I recently purchased a Procreate brush pack from True Grit Texture Supply and am loving the gritty, rough feel mixed with all these spooky elements. I have so many ideas for blending photography and digital illustration that centers around this time of year and can’t wait to continue creating.

What to expect

I’ve thought a lot about what I wanted this newsletter to be. For now, I’ve settled on a monthly newsletter sent from my fingertips to your inbox at the beginning of each month. I’ll share reflections on my life as an artist and slow creator. This might include my failures and challenges, my recent inspirations, unpolished works in progress or sketches, finished work, and where you can support my work. The content included within each month’s reflection will change with the passing seasons as I continue to grow as a person and artist, but here are some topics that you can expect in one month or another:

• Life lessons, personal matters, failures and challenges, and inspiration

• Featured artworks including new and old art and insights into my processes, techniques, symbolism, and inspiration

• Works in Progress (WIPs) and sketches such as photographs of work in progress, sketchbook tours, blackout poetry, and more

• Art product reviews, favorite art supplies, favorite books on art and creativity, artists that inspire me, studio tours, and more.

• Where you can find and purchase my art including new/upcoming exhibitions, new sale listings, and additional products as they are developed

Together, we’ll see how this monthly practice unfolds :)

Featured Artworks

Currently, my artistic practice is volleying between scanography, composite photography, and illustration. I do have many, many other hobbies that I intermix with these practices (since my brain can never be settled with one medium for any length of time), but these have sustained the test of time for the last year.

This month, I wanted to showcase a piece I completed about mid-April as I was toying with the idea of leaving Instagram and focusing my attention on long-form content.

Self Storage

I began planning this work in March after weeks of staring at the Self Storage facility across from my apartment in the evening, sunset-glazed light. I loved the way that as the sky grew darker the interior began to glow as the building’s edges faded to black. While the purpose of the building is to allow individuals to store belongings and access them whenever they are needed, I began thinking about some more conceptual connotations for the space. What if it was a space to store selves? To store versions of yourself as you grow older, to access again whenever you please? I wanted to distort the meaning of self-storage to mean to store oneself.

I initially wanted to design the interior in cotton candy hues with multiple, copied individuals waiting by the glass and tropical-colored clouds lining the building as if it were floating in the sky. After spending a month trying to force the color palette to work and feel like it aligned with my vision, I scrapped it and transitioned to a blueish, purple-y, pink color scheme with different silhouettes illuminated by the interior lights. I traded the multiple cloudscapes for a single cloud-covered sky and played with Photoshop’s Color Balance function to match my vision.

The building itself was photographed using my Sony A6000 while the other images were found using Unsplash and edited extensively. Most of the process included masking the backgrounds for each person, the surrounding elements of the building, and overlaying objects to create depth. Due to the brightness of the Self Storage sign, I added some vertical, abstract line “drips” to create balance.

Almost all of my composite photography work is inspired in part by music. While creating this piece, I was listening to a significant amount of dreampop, a subgenre of alternative rock that emphasizes atmosphere and “sonic textures” mixed with a pop melody. The songs usually include a lot of reverb, echo, and soft vocals. The two playlists below were played heavily while creating this piece.

What are your thoughts on this piece? How does it make you feel? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Thank you to Krists Luhaers, Andrea Ferrario, J W, and Briona Baker for submitting your work to Unsplash and allowing creators like me to use your work in new creative outlets.

Blackout Poetry

In April, I took a journey to my local Goodwill to search for a book to create some blackout poetry. I had been wanting to start a daily practice centered around this process for months, but hadn’t been able to make it to a thrift store to find the right book. I finally made it and found the most perfect blackout poetry book—a Harvard Classic called Two Years Before the Mast and Twenty-Four Years After by R.H. Dana, Jr.

I talked more about my plans and ideas for this process in my YouTube video below.

Since I shared this video a few months ago, I’ve read about halfway through the book while also reading other books and working on other pieces. However, I couldn’t wait until I finished to start creating poems so I’ve already transformed a few of the first pages into new pieces. Perhaps once I get some more pages completed, I’ll create an update video about my progress. So far, using blackout poetry as a daily creative process is everything that I hoped it would be.

A Beginners Guide to Scanography

I filmed and created the overall structure of this video back in April before life swept me away for a busy summer. After a few busy months, I was able to return to it and give it a refresh for YouTube.

This video is packed with everything that I could think to share about scanography to help beginners get started in the medium—all within a 9-minute timeline. I go over how I got started with scanography, some historical knowledge of the process, how to select objects to photograph, tools, photography ideas, and more.

I’ve also been slowly learning how to use Adobe Premiere Pro rather than Premiere Rush to enhance my videos so this one includes new features like captions and color grading!

In the Wild

Chateau Gallery: Americana

In March, I had the pleasure of being accepted into an online gallery showing hosted by the Chateau Gallery based in Louisville, Kentucky. The photography specific exhibition, Americana, was a month-long show “depicting the objects, people, places, history, and folklore of the United States of America”. The exhibit showcases some amazing photographers, and I’m so happy that my photograph “A Tractor in Cordes” was chosen to be featured among such great talents.

While the show is no longer live, you can check it out in their archive through the link above.