Let Us Begin (Again)

Learning to be confident in my art has been harder than learning realism. 

Turning 30 this year was very retrospective for me, because I finally realized that in order for me to really be able to help other artists fully, I need to learn how to help myself first. 

My first attempt at Patreon is something I will never regret, but it was also too ambitious at the time. I was not ready to maintain it long-term and had little confidence in my ability to teach. I simply got overwhelmed. One day I will be ready again, but for now we are going to try a different approach. Here is how I am going to start doing that!

• 8 years ago I had an idea for a story I was too scared to start. It all started with the name 'King Cholera'. Let's develop the entire thing here on Patreon and learn character design at the same time!
  
  
• Confidence building series using 'The Art Spirit' by Robert Henri as a guide. Overcoming fear, perfectionism, failure and staying motivated through it all. This is not just about improving the art, but the artist behind it.
  
  
• An in-depth study of Edwin Austin Abbey. More than just doing master copies of his paintings, I want to try to understand the how and why of his work. He is one of my favorite artists, and I feel like he is pretty underrated, so he is the first artist I want to examine over the next few months.
  
  
• I have never finished a sketchbook before. I have very little experience using traditional mediums, but I want to make it a goal to fill a sketchbook and practice figure drawing and portraits too. My realism does not translate well to paper, but the whole point is to practice until it does, right?
  
  
• I want to make a tarot deck one day, so we are going to practice using some of my favorite artists and traditional tarot cards as inspiration to try and further the style I already have into something that suits me best. TIME TO EXPERIMENT.
  
  
• Film and television studies focused mainly on practicing color, composition and storytelling. I love the idea of making paintings that look like screenshots, and even adding subtitles at the bottom of some of them. This will be good practice for that.
  
  
• And a ton of other ideas that I will add to the list as we go,  along with  things like Q&As, resources, etc.
  
  

That should be it for now! If you have any questions about this or anything else, please don't be afraid to send me a message here or ask in the comments below. I am so excited to get started. 🖤