May 2020 Covid19 Update
Hey guys! It's been awhile since I've updated the blog, hasn't it? I thought a catch up post was in order! As always, if you're interested in what I have to say, Twitter is a great place to keep up with daily goings on and to chat! And if you enjoy my art, I share it regularly on Instagram.
COVID19 has most of my readers in some form of lockdown, and that includes me. That means no just for fun trips to Jerry's Artarama and no in-person classes at PlaZa, so as you can imagine, that also means I'm buying far fewer new art supplies. While I miss going to art supply stores (they're so relaxing for me!), it's nice to focus a bit more on my backlog of reviews. And it's not just PlaZa that's had to cancel classes- my classes with The Little Arthouse, Nashville Public Library, and Watkins Art College were all cancelled as well, leaving my March financially bereft. Fortunately, as of today, my family and I are all mostly in good health, and I hope this can continue.
So what's been going on?
In March, right before the stay home orders went out, I flew down to help my mother for surgery. Unfortunately, her surgery was cancelled, and I ended up staying in Louisiana an extra week, hunkering down in self quarantine. Joseph drove down to come get me, and we drove the eight hour drive back up to Nashville (and more self quarantine). While there, I painted a BUNCH of etegami postcards and reviewed a bunch of mechanical pencils. Artnerds have already received all the videos as early access, and the etegami tutorials drop on Mondays on my Youtube.
To help others (and myself) deal with all this self isolation, I started streaming again, switching our night from Friday to Saturday. Every week, I try to present a self contained art workshop- the goal is to create a piece of art from start to finish, live on stream. We've done watercolor marker waterlilies, metallic fish on black watercolor paper, alcohol marker tree frogs, and three color roses, and this week, we're going to do poison dart tree frogs in POSCA on black paper! The stream starts at 8PM CST on Saturday nights, so I hope I'll see you there!
Even before the stay home orders, I've been painting SO MUCH. I've mentioned it on just about every social platform, but I'm just about finished with 7" Kara Volume 2, so I've been working on painting bonus illustrations to finish out and promote the book once we're ready to launch. I definitely want to talk about my journey to Kickstarter more in another post, since we've been trying a few different things. Some of these paintings have been recorded as tutorials, but many were not. You can check out almost everything I've been working on recently on Instagram!
Joseph's been working like a mad scientist to get an advertising campaign going for Volume 2. His first priority has been starting and populating a Volume 2 mailing list. This one's a little different from the Artnerd mailing list- the Artnerd mailing list focuses more generally on art and art supplies, but the Volume 2 mailing list is all about creating 7" Kara Volume 2! My writing time and brainspace has gone from updating the blog to creating posts for the mailing list, so if you're interested in how I make comics, or would like information on Volume 2, please sign up!
As a thank you, you have your choice of a free PDF of Volume 1, or a free PDF of Lilliputian Living Volume 1!
Right at the end of April, my mom's surgery was rescheduled, so Joseph and I drove the 8 hours down and 8 hours back up to help out after that. Unfortunately, it seems like her surgeon didn't get all of it, so while she's scheduled to go in AGAIN on the 22nd, I cannot afford to make the drive twice in the same month, so sadly, I'll be staying here.
Although in-person classes have been cancelled, and I've lost a significant stream of income, a few of my favorite employers are moving towards online class options, and haven't forgotten me! Hopefully I'll be able to regularly host Zoom classes in the near future! If you're a parent, teacher, librarian, or someone interested in private art lessons, and you'd like to arrange for Zoom classes for yourself or a small group of people (either in person or remotely), please contact me via email! I'm happy to help you design a curricula suited to your needs.
Growing in in Louisiana, I'm no stranger to hurricanes, cancelled school, life put on hold, and even sleeping on the floor of extended family. In some ways, this isn't so different from self isolating due to Covid- hurricanes have a way of shutting everything down and massively changing the trajectory of your life. Unfortunately for those of us who have suffered hurricanes, only the areas affected by that hurricane really appreciate the damage done, and even within those areas, accommodations may not be made to help those affected catch up. At least with Covid, we're all in this together and can empathize.
While my life has changed in some ways (I sorely miss teaching live classes, and I miss hitting up my favorite art supply stores), in others it's no different from the Nashville status quo. I've always been highly reliant on the internet for communication, sharing my work, and finding new work, and have used Youtube and this blog as teaching tools for a long time. I definitely miss social opportunities, and I know that the loss of those takes an emotional and mental toll, but it's important to stay home and try to create work that will entertain and uplift others.
It's almost like every family, every house, is it's own little raft floating on the ocean. Amazon deliveries are delivered via albatross, messages are shouted from raft to raft, or floated via bottles. Now that the Volume 2 mailing list has launched, I have a bit of brainspace open for updating the blog, and I'd love to talk to yall a bit more about my recent teaching experiences, how quarantine has affected the life of this work from home artist, and share my future adventures.
Have some free time? Need to entertain your kids?
Why not read 7" Kara together? You can download the PDF using the link above, or you can read the first six chapters at 7inchkara.com
Want to start a new hobby? I have lots of great art classes on Youtube! Now is a great time to
Learn to draw:
Favorite Drawing Tutorials
Start Making Comics:
Intro to Comic Craft
Making Comics and Zines
Learn watercolor:
Quick and Easy Watercolor
Watercolor Basics
COVID19 has most of my readers in some form of lockdown, and that includes me. That means no just for fun trips to Jerry's Artarama and no in-person classes at PlaZa, so as you can imagine, that also means I'm buying far fewer new art supplies. While I miss going to art supply stores (they're so relaxing for me!), it's nice to focus a bit more on my backlog of reviews. And it's not just PlaZa that's had to cancel classes- my classes with The Little Arthouse, Nashville Public Library, and Watkins Art College were all cancelled as well, leaving my March financially bereft. Fortunately, as of today, my family and I are all mostly in good health, and I hope this can continue.
So what's been going on?
In March, right before the stay home orders went out, I flew down to help my mother for surgery. Unfortunately, her surgery was cancelled, and I ended up staying in Louisiana an extra week, hunkering down in self quarantine. Joseph drove down to come get me, and we drove the eight hour drive back up to Nashville (and more self quarantine). While there, I painted a BUNCH of etegami postcards and reviewed a bunch of mechanical pencils. Artnerds have already received all the videos as early access, and the etegami tutorials drop on Mondays on my Youtube.
To help others (and myself) deal with all this self isolation, I started streaming again, switching our night from Friday to Saturday. Every week, I try to present a self contained art workshop- the goal is to create a piece of art from start to finish, live on stream. We've done watercolor marker waterlilies, metallic fish on black watercolor paper, alcohol marker tree frogs, and three color roses, and this week, we're going to do poison dart tree frogs in POSCA on black paper! The stream starts at 8PM CST on Saturday nights, so I hope I'll see you there!
Even before the stay home orders, I've been painting SO MUCH. I've mentioned it on just about every social platform, but I'm just about finished with 7" Kara Volume 2, so I've been working on painting bonus illustrations to finish out and promote the book once we're ready to launch. I definitely want to talk about my journey to Kickstarter more in another post, since we've been trying a few different things. Some of these paintings have been recorded as tutorials, but many were not. You can check out almost everything I've been working on recently on Instagram!
Joseph's been working like a mad scientist to get an advertising campaign going for Volume 2. His first priority has been starting and populating a Volume 2 mailing list. This one's a little different from the Artnerd mailing list- the Artnerd mailing list focuses more generally on art and art supplies, but the Volume 2 mailing list is all about creating 7" Kara Volume 2! My writing time and brainspace has gone from updating the blog to creating posts for the mailing list, so if you're interested in how I make comics, or would like information on Volume 2, please sign up!
As a thank you, you have your choice of a free PDF of Volume 1, or a free PDF of Lilliputian Living Volume 1!
Right at the end of April, my mom's surgery was rescheduled, so Joseph and I drove the 8 hours down and 8 hours back up to help out after that. Unfortunately, it seems like her surgeon didn't get all of it, so while she's scheduled to go in AGAIN on the 22nd, I cannot afford to make the drive twice in the same month, so sadly, I'll be staying here.
Although in-person classes have been cancelled, and I've lost a significant stream of income, a few of my favorite employers are moving towards online class options, and haven't forgotten me! Hopefully I'll be able to regularly host Zoom classes in the near future! If you're a parent, teacher, librarian, or someone interested in private art lessons, and you'd like to arrange for Zoom classes for yourself or a small group of people (either in person or remotely), please contact me via email! I'm happy to help you design a curricula suited to your needs.
Growing in in Louisiana, I'm no stranger to hurricanes, cancelled school, life put on hold, and even sleeping on the floor of extended family. In some ways, this isn't so different from self isolating due to Covid- hurricanes have a way of shutting everything down and massively changing the trajectory of your life. Unfortunately for those of us who have suffered hurricanes, only the areas affected by that hurricane really appreciate the damage done, and even within those areas, accommodations may not be made to help those affected catch up. At least with Covid, we're all in this together and can empathize.
While my life has changed in some ways (I sorely miss teaching live classes, and I miss hitting up my favorite art supply stores), in others it's no different from the Nashville status quo. I've always been highly reliant on the internet for communication, sharing my work, and finding new work, and have used Youtube and this blog as teaching tools for a long time. I definitely miss social opportunities, and I know that the loss of those takes an emotional and mental toll, but it's important to stay home and try to create work that will entertain and uplift others.
It's almost like every family, every house, is it's own little raft floating on the ocean. Amazon deliveries are delivered via albatross, messages are shouted from raft to raft, or floated via bottles. Now that the Volume 2 mailing list has launched, I have a bit of brainspace open for updating the blog, and I'd love to talk to yall a bit more about my recent teaching experiences, how quarantine has affected the life of this work from home artist, and share my future adventures.
Have some free time? Need to entertain your kids?
Why not read 7" Kara together? You can download the PDF using the link above, or you can read the first six chapters at 7inchkara.com
Want to start a new hobby? I have lots of great art classes on Youtube! Now is a great time to
Learn to draw:
Favorite Drawing Tutorials
Start Making Comics:
Intro to Comic Craft
Making Comics and Zines
Learn watercolor:
Quick and Easy Watercolor
Watercolor Basics
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