process for my gallery nucleus mushroom! ✿

Hello!! This is a little collection of photos from my painting my mushroom for Gallery Nucleus Portland (still can't believe my name is on this page alongside so many artists that I admire ;;)~ Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of like...insight? Or artistic advise or wisdom to bestow upon you in regards to the process of this mushroom, as it was a little rushed, and I was really just focusing on a process that would be 1) kind to me and 2) as straightforward as possible to minimize room for frustration/despair.

I made the little dudes out of air dry clay like two months ago, and knew I wanted them on this mushroom, and drawing quilt patterns is very soothing and doesn't require a lot of brain power, so since I needed to finish this mushroom in a span of roughly 5 days (again, that good ol' ADHD procrastination really does hit different), I decided to keep it simple and bright, and do a quilted pattern that the little gnomes would be sleeping on. It was a design that was something I knew I could finish confidently in a shorter time frame, and also be proud of having the final piece in the exhibition.

I sketched out the squares using a vermillion Neocolor II pastel crayon, (I roughly divided the mushroom into squares, and then divided each square into 12 squares to make drawing the quilt pattern much easier) cause I thought that the red would look good peeking through the squares (to lean into the quilted texture), but the water soluble nature of the pigment could also add something a little fun and unexpected potentially. It ended up not really playing into the final colors so much, but I do enjoy how it peeks out between the squares.

I did also go in with other Neocolor crayons to begin planning what kinda colors I wanted to put where, but unfortunately, these got more in my way than they helped. The water soluble nature of the pigment mixed with my gouache in really noticeable ways on some squares, so I'd need to go in with another layer.

I have a decent collection of Holbein Acryla Gouache, so I broke 'em out, and just used the colors straight out of the tube. I maybe custom mixed two colors?? But in the efforts of keeping this process as straight-forward as possible, I mostly used the colors as they were.

For the stem, I went back and forth on if I wanted to continue the quilt pattern or maybe do a little door to make it into a fairy mushroom house...and then while I was on one of my Pikmin walks, I realized that doing stripes could be a great way to keep the mushroom super colorful, while simultaneously not being TOO overwhelming, especially since I'd be using the same colors I used for the top of the shroom.

Color-picking was far and away the most time consuming process of this whole project. I didn't want to do too many layers of gouache, as on the wooden shroom, the texture of the paint was at risk of getting weird, so I wanted to do just one coat wherever I could get away with it. You can see in the photo above that I used some colored pencils to adjust some of the hues, if I felt the values of some colors were too same-y. I will say this definitely taught me more about the importance of value (how dark or light a color is) in composition -- a lot of the time, if two colors looked odd next to each other, it was because their values were almost the same, even if the hues were super different. It was very cool to see in action!!! ART!!!

I painted the little gnomes in a layer of gesso, to give me a base layer to work on, and decided to leave the white of the gesso for their faces and limbs, so they'd be the only spot of white on the shroom and be a fun focal point.

Painting their little faces was so nerve-wracking, I really didn't want to mess them up with my shaky little hands ;;

Once the mushroom and gnomes were both completely dry, I first used some glossy polyurethane to seal the gnomes, and then the mushroom, and then I used Gorilla Glue to stick them together, and left that all to dry overnight. And in the morning, the shroom was dry and the little dudes were firmly sleeping on it. uwu

TA-DA!!!!!

I'm so happy with it!! And I am proud to have this work on display in my first ever exhibition. It really does feel almost like a perfect distillate of my current artistic tastes: super bright colors, and silly little guys.

The opening night of the exhibition is April 5, from 5-7pm, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it for opening night...but regardless, I'm definitely gonna drive down and see the gallery in person at some point during the exhibit. All the mushrooms will also be for sale! I think I decided on $275 for this piece, so if you want these sleepy lil guys in your home, they will be available. 👀

Sorry I've been so quiet this month!!! I had two brand deals back to back and then this mushroom and then a play reading and I really overbooked myself, but it's all done now!! YAY!!! So y'all get my full attention >:) I'm not taking on any sponsorships for the next few months as a bit of a breather, and I want to use this time to make fun silly videos for y'all and my YouTube. I am thinking of filming my Baldur's Gate 3 character tour this evening...it's gonna have very strong "you're at my house for a sleepover and I'm telling you about my OC's and you can't leave" vibes. If y'all would be down for that. >:) what if i just start shit-posting on here?? like i'm a ramble channel?? I always fear that y'all are gonna get sick of me talking about all my nonsense but I'm learning people like listening to me yap on!! So lemme know!!

Love you lots <33 sketchbook tour and a big ol' March photo dump will be coming later this week!! MWAH