February 2022

As a new artist, it’s been difficult to find my style. I’ve always had too many interests and liked too many “things” whether it be for a school degree, career, hobby, fashion, or art. As someone who struggles to find things to dislike, finding my art style that is uniquely mine and distinguishable has been challenging.

Many artists immediately gravitate towards a single concept or subject, but I’m the exact opposite. I have no favorite medium nor subject, and I have taken classes and practiced drawing, painting, clay modeling everything from landscape to people to flowers and fruits. I didn’t like the idea of being confined to a subject because I didn’t think it accurately painted a picture (hah) of who I am as a person, not just as an artist. I wanted my art to reflect the range of interests I have, and with so many amazing artists in the world, it feels impossible to make my art unique.

For the first month of my art career, I felt discouraged as I watched successful artists on YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest share their art journey. Everyone seemed to have a certainty about their talent and a natural pull towards their art style from the beginning of their career. They would recommend, “try all different styles” and “just paint more” to develop a style, yet as a viewer, it looked like they had always had a certain style. I felt as if I had the skill to paint but lacked the imagination to make it mine.

“DayDream” is currently my best-selling print, and I owe it all to just blindly trusting the process and taking the advice I was so hesitant to trust.

It was 11PM on a Tuesday night, and I had promised some paintings to be delivered to a coffee shop that had agreed to hang my art on their walls for a small commission. I was ecstatic about my debut as an artist and anxious about my art being seen and judged by strangers. Although I loved to paint my whole life, only my family and friends saw the completed paintings. Most of my paintings followed a prompt given by a teacher, so there was no cohesive theme or style to exemplify who I am as an artist.

“DayDream” was born from the “don’t give a f—-” attitude that’s only possible late at night before a deadline. Something is better than nothing, right? I needed a simplified version of my previous paintings because I only had 2 days to paint. I always loved the illustrative landscapes I saw from other artists, but I never had achieved that carefree and minimal look. I’d always get caught up in the details and feel like the painting just wasn’t finished until I added one more highlight, one more shadow, one more flower, etc.

“DayDream” was completed in one sitting (a rarity at the time). I started from the background and layered mountains, trees, and grass. I didn’t use a reference photo so that I couldn’t compare the painting to a detailed photograph. I simply created a scene based on the hundreds of mountain views I had seen in my lifetime. Trusting my instincts to create a landscape was new to me, and after I had laid out the general shapes, I added some more clouds to the background and flowers and grass to the foreground. The freedom to change the landscape composition on a whim, rather than using a reference photo to create a sketch first, allowed for the minimal shapes and colors that makes this painting unique.

All “DayDream” prints come framed with hand-painted embellishments to add more texture and variety to the simple landscape. Some prints have snow capped mountains to show my love for early-spring hikes, some have an abundance of lilac wild flowers that add a pop of color to the blue-green original painting.

Check out my shop to grab your own unique print, or send me an inquiry about specific details you want painted on your print!