I've been a professional artist since 2005. Or, if you want to get really technical, I've been a professional artist since I made my first sale to a classmate in 2nd grade (for $0.25). But I began a career that took precedent for several years. In 2023, I had the opportunity to retire from corporate life. I dithered over the decision for several months. I enjoyed my career and loved my team, and I had exciting new opportunities ahead of me. But it seemed to me that your 30s are the best years for any career, art or otherwise. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost kept coming back to me. I taped the poem to my work monitor and decided to seize the day. Now I am full-time artist getting back into the swing of things.
In the past, I was a pretty active blogger. I enjoyed sharing my process, step-by-step. At one time, I experimented with livestreaming (here's my Twitch). It was fun, but there's a lot of technical and logistical work involved, and it can be really disruptive to creativity. I might dip my toes into streaming again, but for now, I think blogging is the way to go. I can be more detailed than on Instagram and not at mercy to algorithms. (As an aside, I think having uncensored nipples in my drawings probably doesn't help my Instagram views.)
My goal for this blog is to share some insight into my process as well as to hash out my own thoughts. Leaving full-time corporate world for full-time art, I have a very different perspective than I did 18 years ago (!) when I started my old blog. My number one goal for 2023 is to give myself the time and space to grow as an artist - whether it's from trying new ideas, trying new media, reading about color theory, or anything else that feeds creativity.
