I think every artist documents their process one way or another, whether they share it publicly or not. The photos you see here serve as records of my process back at the *original painting factory* more than 10 years ago, before I started this blog or my social media accounts. I thought it was fitting considering I will soon have to leave my current studio and move back there.

But this post was actually brought on by my seven-year-old niece. She’d made me a video a few weeks ago showing me how she made Merry, a little jewel-like monster cleverly made out of a plastic water bottle and who I just couldn’t help falling in love with on sight.
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‘How do you think?’ That was what this artist friend I was speaking with a few weeks ago asked me. The question caught me off guard; I didn’t really understand it at first. What she meant was, like, does the image come first, like in your head, or the words, or ideas?

It struck me as one of those ‘it’s so deep, I’m drowning’ questions, but it stuck with me because honestly it had never occurred to me before. I guess it’s just one of many things I’d taken for granted; believe me, I try not to take things that way, like I try to remind myself to be grateful even for the smallest, inanest things.

But it was when my artist friend explained that she had asked me, because of another artist she knew. This other artist, I understood, was a paragon of artistic skill, as tidy and precise as a ninja with a laser cutter ~ at least, until my friend told me this other artist was unable to visualise anything she’d never seen.  Like for instance, my friend said, a pink elephant with wings.
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And I mean literally, like if you're sick (or worse, injured) (and you’re not ambidextrous) (or have a fantastic futuristic orthosis-type thing) AND not if you’re in a slump.

Being sick (as in ill or unwell) and being in a slump are probably the top two reasons you can't paint EEEVEN if you super NEEED to (as in need which will always trump want).
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About a week ago, during a certain, super nerve-wracking (for me) (always) thing, I was asked on the spot who my influences were, and which artists I ‘copied’ (my interlocutor’s words, not mine).

This was kind of a difficult question for me to answer; I mean, I know what has influenced my art, I’ve written about that here on the jillablog before. But who, exactly, well. I mean, I know who my heroes are, at least, and I guess it makes sense for someone you admire to influence you, even in subtle ways, that is, even if you’re not, like, outright copying the work of that person.
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​So I finally got around to renewing my expired content marketing certification (I know, like it shows, right ^^) And while I was at it I had to come up with blog topics and this was one of them ~ sort of like, ‘for your next blog’. So this is me kind of ‘giving truth to the lie’ ^o^

I do have a few thoughts on this, very personal thing ~ I think setting up one’s ‘painting factory’ as I’ve repeatedly, *affectionately* referred to it here on the jillablog ~ is like one’s toothbrush. (Or one’s hat, as H Marion Crawford’s Watson put it ^_^) Or having kids ~ none of other people’s business ^^

But you know ~ on the off-chance anyone who might just be starting out or wondering about how to go about setting up studio space ~ for what they’re worth, here’s a jillamonster’s two cents ^^;
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I know it’s a brand new year and all ~ but there’s something I couldn’t help noticing about my work in the past year (and actually, in the past few), and it’s got something to do with colour.

This reminds me of something that happened waaay back when ~ I was giving something in to a book, a ‘group’ book ~ you know, the kind where everybody gives an illustration and they compile it. The thing I was supposed to be illustrating was a folk song about a butterfly.

My work was rejected because they said my work had always depended on colour (for it to be worth anything) and since all the illustrations were in black and white… (Anyway, lucky me x I guess they took pity on me and put my work in the table of contents. Not to be ungrateful or anything, but, yip (haha).

I had the privilege of participating in Ang INK’s latest exhibit called Guhit, Bulilit, Guhit! (Draw, Kiddo, Draw!) ~

I didn’t know it was going to be called that when they let me know about the show (thank you, Rex) ~ they just said ‘children and art’, and I can be, um, quite literal about these things, sometimes (read: I have no imagination 😅 )

Before anything else, I have always sucked at portraiture. So take everything that follows with a salt mine.

Weirdly, if you think about it, though, a greedy lion’s share of my work could be said to be portraiture, although I have never once thought of myself as a portraitist.

But like all my recent posts that have been just, reactions, basically, to what’s been going on in jillaworld, I thought I’d share a thought or two about portraiture and why doing it the slow, old fashioned, by-hand way is still worth trying to do in an age when you can just shoot people with your phone.

I mean photography was invented a bazillion years ago, but people still painted portraits and made busts of other people after that (although probably not as many). (I’m just writing off the top of my head, by the way; lazy jill’s not looking anything up.)
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I don’t know whether I’m saying this because I’m, me, or because, it’s true ~ I mean, what about the artists who work in pairs, or collectives, or, artists who have whole teams behind them? Like Michelangelo didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling all by his lonesome.

And even if artists didn’t have a team, there would still be the framer, or, the people at the gallery, agents, maybe, that kind of thing. Then, there are (obviously) married artists (sometimes to each other), or artists who have artist buddies. There are entire communities, too.

And what about orchestras or ballet companies, or bands? Writers have editors, and sometimes chefs have teams, too.

And what about the audience? Or the viewers? The listeners? The (pardon the parlance from my other job) target market?
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So yeah, I used to teach art ~ not at schools, as such, meaning, I wasn’t on the staff, or faculty ~ I would need a licence or I would’ve had to pass the LET (which is no walk in the park, and I have the deepest respect for anybody who’s passed it) for that.

Having made that full disclosure, I did spend quite a few years teaching art ~ in workshops, mostly (a few at a few schools, as a sort of art club moderator, I suppose you would call it). I taught kids, mostly, although I had taught babies (literal, months-old babies), teens, and seniors (as in older than me or as old as my mum and dad).

I taught classes (as in groups of students) and I taught one-on-one (or two, or three, if the student had siblings, or a cousin ~ usually in people’s homes. And I taught all sorts of things ~ drawing, arts and crafts, illustration, watercolour, acrylic ~ the last time I ever taught was an oil class at the museum (which was when I wrote this guide).