Happy New Year everyone 🙂 If I had to draw a chart of how 2022 went, it would be a lot of sharp up & downs, fortunately ending with a climb towards “okay” or “good”. I’m really ready for it to go. I already have some fun plans for 2023 and I don’t feel the heavy slog that I felt this time last year.
Last summer, I started a Patreon. You may remember I dicked around with trying to make something Patreon-like work on my website, but eventually I gave in because it was apparently going to be too complicated. The point of my Patreon is to support my studio fees, everything from the rent, electricity, heating, internet and supplies. The other point of my Patreon is to create a dedicated community space with regular updates & to create an art auction.
On Twitch, I’ve been periodically giving away paintings after my subscribers have covered the cost of a painting. Well, I moved that onto Patreon because not everyone goes on Twitch & Twitch actually takes a pretty big cut of the sub. money. (I still stream, by the way.) In fact, the exact same subscription amount gives me twice as much back that can go into the studio fees & the art auction instead of Jeff Bezo’s $500 million Yacht.
New Sticker Reward on Patreon
As part of the new Patreon, my goal was to eventually offer ✨Stickers!✨as rewards. I loved stickers growing up and still do!! I remember my mom or my grandma taking me to the news stand to buy new stickers to go into a sticker collecting book when I was probably around 5 or 6 years old. I remember having diaries covered in every sticker I got my hands on, including the ones off apples & bananas. Little did I realize, this would be the perfect medium for my monster art as well.
So this Christmas, I ordered a bunch of sticker samples. Actually, All Sticker Printing was kind enough to reach out to me and offer sticker samples, which printed and shipped very fast from the US. They can make vinyl & waterproof bumper stickers for your car. Here are some cute, square, and very holographic stickers of my Bonjour sunflower emote from Twitch that chat has been using since 2017! These will now be included as part of the reward for the Drake tier on my Patreon.
I have other sticker projects in the works (some already printed actually). I feel a lot more comfortable pursuing these kinds of projects knowing I have supporters behind me because even just testing out ideas like monster stickers is several hundred dollars of investment, nevermind the time & work.
New Art Auction #2 is up!
A few months ago, we had our first art auction, which was streamed on Twitch. You can view it here. I don’t have a lot of participants, it’s just our cozy community but man – is it exciting haha. I didn’t expect to feel so much suspense drawing names NBA draft style. I’m so excited for the future, where this will be happening with bigger artwork.
Anyway, the next artwork is up! If you join my Patreon now, you will be able to participate in this one. Or you can save up your auction tickets for the next options, it’s up to you. This is just another way to get original art to my art lovers & have some fun. I would love to see some new faces & have some fun mail to send out cracking open the New Year 🎉🥳
Just a side reminder: If there’s ever an artwork you want, I have AfterPay set up, which lets you break up the cost into several payments. I try to make buying real art as accessible as possible.
Art vs. Artist 2022
I think it’s cool to see everyone’s work from the past year in a neat collage. Here is my Art vs. Artist for 2022; you can find more of these by browsing the hashtag #artvsartist2022 on various platforms.
This has been a really tough year for me, so I have been sticking to discipline rather than inspiration and going with the series & ideas I have hashed out. Behind the scenes, I have sketches & lists of ideas in different stages so I don’t ever really find myself without an idea. I remember writing this post about motivation where I talk about knowing the reason why you create art to being with, and that has been indispensable this intense year full of low moods. It’s a testament that blunt & sober point of view on creating makes sense, because real motivation runs deep – it’s not a splash of dopamine, compliments, or sugary inspiration in the moment. Sometimes I think I improve the most in artistic practice when I’m at my lowest because there really is no rose-tinted glasses to trick me into praising myself & being your own critic is an important skill. I think I’m going into this year with a better artistic hand.