I'm one of those artists who make art for a living, and to live. I use it as a coping mechanism. One of my weaknesses is I imagine scenarios in my head a lot that it makes me just think and paralyzed. It's maladaptive. I just use that weakness as an advantage to tell stories through my art.

Tortured artist, as they describe it. I'm not gonna romanticize the idea but I'm not gonna say I'm not one of them either. It sucks, but that's how it is. Lol. That's why art helps me a lot and I can't think of myself being in a different career right now.

...two faces?

With that said, I can say I have two moods in art. Two process, or two different kind.

-One is the serious art, the one that I pre-meditate and plan down from concept to the composition. It would take days and sometimes weeks. Most of the narratives are from the scenarios I imagine in my head.

The other one is the playful, more direct, and spontaneous art. It's the one you see above. I don't plan it, I just do it right away without thinking. Just relying on the "now" and doing what makes me feel good. Allowing the subconscious to take over...

I think both of those methods should exist in my art-making. And it's also the thing that I fully embrace now.

Medium could affect the look of the art

I worry about it before but I realized I'm not the only artist experiencing this and it's actually "normal". Different mediums offer different feels... like oil paint making you more disciplined and acrylics make you more "free".

I have mentioned before that I have a love-hate relationship with oil and it is because I try to make it work like acrylic paint, and I try to do the same with acrylic.

I realized it shouldn't be that way. And just let go and go with the flow. Oils will work like oil and arylics will work like an acrylic paint. You really can't force them to work the same way.

Although there are several mediums that can alter the behavior of each paint, they are still not gonna be 100% the same.

Time to face my fears

This is probably gonna sound ridiculous to some but I am a bit anxious with acrylics. Mainly because my first experience with it wasn't good.

I got frustrated many times because, like I said, I tried to make it work like oil and I couldn't figure out how to actually be friends with it.

Of course, the material itself is also one of the reasons why I was having troubles. I was using cheap student-grade acrylics that is very plasticky and fades when it dries. Haha. You can imagine the frustration.

The brand matters. The quality of the paint matters so your expectations will be met.

After being an oil painter for the longest time, it's my first time to make a big purchase that are all acrylic and acrylic mediums. I also invested and made sure I'm getting the highest quality so I'd get the best results for my art. Gone are the days that I'm gonna be frustrated about the weird results cos I'm using cheap paints. Haha.

I'm very excited for the art materials to arrive. It's gonna be a "new" one for me and I'm excited to experiment with it.

I'm also hoping to be able to record the process of my painting more often, now that I am in my new studio.

<3