Changes Ahead…

Not much about the artist experience is static other than being glued to your seat while working. I talked about some of the things I have been experimenting with while I was on a long blog hiatus last week but this week I’ll talk about a change I’m going to make with my brand and what I think I’ll try (really try lol) to focus on for the rest of this year.

My website started as a space for my automatism exploration but it has morphed into my portfolio site and because of that I’m going to keep that portfolio section as my landing page. Automatism is raw and strange so not necessarily where I can be mentally 24/7 and I want the site to reflect that so I’ve compiled my 25+ automatism/surrealism projects into a single gallery section for easy viewing. I’m sure that section will grow as automatism is just part of my normal practice now outside of my day job.

In contrast, I have been finding myself returning to my cartooning or “cozy“ style when I draw for fun and I want to get back into wimmelbilds and cartooning. Way back when I started this art journey 4+ years ago, I was very concerned about my “style“ which is something every artist goes through but the reality is you have to change styles to fit the client’s needs and that’s the portfolio I present to clients it’s me doing your style so my “qwirks“ come through .

I used to ping-pong between two styles a simpler cartooning style akin to a Sunday paper comic strip, and a not quite working comic book style with manga influences and some semi- realism. Over time, the cartooning style became this “cozy“ style I keep coming back to and I can’t tell you the last time I did semi-realism outside of some art studies back when I revisited fundamentals several years ago, so I think “cozy“ is here to stay. In some ways 15- year old me is disappointed my natural style isn’t edgier or darker but really my cozy style still has everything that influences and inspires me, it has surrealistic symbols, absurdist situations, dark humor, etc so it is more authentic to me than even the automatism works that sometimes feel completely alien to me. So in other words, I’ll stick with my “cozy” style and let that evolve, and keep that my niche.

Enough gabbing, here’s a random comic…