For the first time since 2019, I will be having an in-person art sale! My goals is to clear out a lot of older pieces from 4+ years ago to make room for new ideas and clear some space as I prepare to move. Sharing my art is a further layer of enjoyment on top of coming up with the initial ideas and putting them on paper. I'm always intrigued to see which people like which drawings and why; I learn more about them and how they see the world, and the conversations often spark more curiosity and creativity in me for future projects. The full information for the show/sale is on the flyer above. Because I want to keep my art affordable, most of it will be around $20-40. Also, I'll be selling my first two children's illustrated books for $10 and $20. I would love to see you there! 

 I'm currently in the middle of writing my third children's illustrated book. It's hard to believe, but also exciting! Recently, I finished the first draft, slowly chipping away at the plot and story in 15-minute increments. I'm purposely taking a longer time with the story than I did with my previous book, giving it a more prominent place in the process and letting it guide the direction of my artwork. 

When I was writing my last book, Daddy Emu, I started by focusing almost exclusively on the illustrations. I wanted them to be dynamic, entertaining, and professional. The story line was kept very simple, not only to accentuate the artwork but also to hide the fact that I'm insecure about my writing skills. When it was finished, I had reached my artistic goals: it looked amazing. I didn't think much at all about the story until a few friends and family read it and gave me some pointers. They suggested I explain more about the emu family: that I add more interactive material. At first, I filed the feedback away for when I would start writing my next book, but after talking to my brother and another close artist friend I realized it wouldn't be difficult to expand the story before I sent in my final files for printing. Even though I was ready to be done and wanted to move on to the next book, they encouraged me to persevere and put in a little more effort at the end in order to have a finished product I could really be proud of. They were right, and I'm so glad I took their advice. The final product was better than before, but I had learned enough through that exercise to change my plan of attack for the next book. 

This time around, my goal is to face my fear of writing and make the story as important as the artwork; I want them to be harmonized. A satisfying story with fitting artwork is doubly entertaining, doubly stimulating to both mind and eye. For a long time, I've enjoyed reading and had a great admiration for authors. Since my creative skills have always fallen into the visual art category, the craft of writing was always a bit daunting: more so now that it is a vital part of my books. However, I'm looking forward to this new challenge: expecting an uphill battle but also expecting to see considerable growth! 

Sometimes, life gets busy.
Sometimes, I can't follow my normal drawing schedule each week.
Usually, on my days off at the beginning of the week, I try to work a little on my business, a little on my next book, and a little on drawing practice. Ideally, I'll get out of the house and draw on location or at the mall so I won't get distracted at home.
But some weeks I don't get through my to-do list and still want to get my practice in before the end of the week. The solution I found was to draw in fifteen-minute increments during my breaks in order to get about a half hour of sketching practice each workday. I spend about fifteen minutes on my book, and fifteen minutes sketching with my pen. 
Although I can't practice catching movement when I'm drawing still lifes, I decided to make it a habit to draw from life, a different skill set than drawing from a picture. Because the available subject matter in one room is limited, I had to get creative if I wanted to keep my interest in practicing. 
What I chose to do is draw fabric. The amazing thing about drawing fabric is that even if I used the same blanket or towel or cloth every single time, I could drape it over the same chair in new ways every time and not get bored. Shapes and characters and shadows and folds fill the space of the page like a maze or a hidden picture game. The resulting images are kind of mesmerizing and hypnotic. 
It remains to be seen if they are something that would interest buyers, but in the meantime, fabric drawing has held my interest in sketching when I don't always want to put in the work. 
Sometimes, when I don't get to practice the way I would like, new opportunities present themselves and I would be foolish to ignore them. Instead, I try to take advantage of them!

How do you make time to work on your side business? I think about this often because I am in the process of growing my art business between full-time work, church, and relationships. Although not exhaustive, a few  things I do to ensure steady progress is to treat it as a professional business, put on a timer, and make use of the time in between tasks. 

One simple way to help make time for your business is to treat it professionally. Think, if this were my only source of income, and if its operations are going to reflect on me, how would I run it? There are many small, easy things to do for your business that will show your customers that you are serious about it and are reliable. For instance, my website and social media are the storefront to my customers. As I create new art and books, they should reflect these changes and be updated regularly. Emails are fast and easy to check in case a customer is trying to reach you. If your website has information that needs to be updated or product descriptions that need rewriting, you can take regular time to address small issues until it is completely refreshed. Consistency in paying your bills and licenses promote goodwill and trust with your landlords and city governments. Over time, these small, simple habits will create a business that's ready to grow when it takes off. 

Another easy way to make time for your business is to literally set a timer. Not only does it clearly show how much time you put into your business for the day, it also motivates you to be more productive with that time. Once you begin to see how long it takes you to do tasks related to your business, you can better plan how to charge a customer for your work or how to plan your work schedule for the day. Setting a timer also changes how you work. Even if the task is hard or boring, the timer focuses you to finish and not have to continue it later. In addition, giving yourself a set time to do something will force you to be more creative and concise. You will find that you produce more work and more quality work when you time it. 

Finally, one of the ways I've gotten through art projects, is by making use of the time in between tasks or errands. There is often unused time while you wait for an appointment or when you arrive early to an event. Sometimes, I use that time to recharge by praying or being still or thinking, but there are enough opportunities to also work quickly on a couple lines of a book or to draw a quick sketch. Instead of complaining that I don't have time for my business, I'm looking for opportunities to make time. An added benefit of making time this way is that I actually look forward to long lines and wait times instead of dreading them. Once you know the business-related tasks you can easily take with you, keep your tools, phone, book, etc with you when you go out so you're not caught in a waiting room with nothing to do. 

If you have a small business on the side, let me know in the comments if you have any other suggestions for making time or if you do any of these things and they are helpful for you. 

Finally, after two years of illustrating, editing, writing and learning how to self-publish, I am so happy to announce that my second book, Daddy Emu, is online and available for purchase! This 40-page 8.5x11" book is full of original colored pencil artwork and story. The influence of Bill Peet is unmistakable and unashamed. Why the emu? I don't remember the exact reason. But lately, it's been the "boring," everyday,  obnoxious animals that I want to highlight because they tend to be overlooked in literature. The process of researching the emus was enjoyable and educational, and I hope my book is the same. 

If you'd like to buy a signed copy from me, you can email me at [email protected]. Otherwise, I am proud to say that if you search the internet for "Daddy Emu by Francesca Helena Nunez" there will be many website options where you can purchase a copy. 

If you buy one and enjoy it, please let me know and tell a friend! 

Ever since I was introduced to the Impressionists as a kid, I've been attracted to the artwork by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Recently, I read about his life, influences, and major paintings from a short book that's been living on my bookshelf for years. His focus on plein air painting, people, and his use of color have subsequently inspired my artwork. 

Early in Renoir's training, he was taught to paint outside. En plein air means out-of-doors, and that kind of painting became a hallmark of the impressionists. Their aim was to catch the light, the movement, the weather, the season as it was in that hour, on that day, on that week: to paint exactly what their eyes saw on location rather than recreating a scene in the studio with careful palettes, brushstrokes, and compositions. Renoir eventually combined this knowledge with classic studio work, but his pure plein air paintings have a unique freshness and vigor of color, brushwork, and movement.  Instead of oils, I use colored pencils to create art en plein air, but I'm able to enjoy nearly the same experience as Renoir and the impressionists and I am completely enamored with the technique. 

Renoir painted many people in his lifetime: in scenes of crowds, in landscapes and portraits; people dancing, relaxing, interacting. Although en plein air artists typically painted mere landscapes, Renoir often added people to his work, which gave the scenes greater interest and animated them with narrative. His large paintings of groups of people swirl with emotion, color, and gesture. I can easily come up with stories for each couple and clique conversing over a meal or dancing or looking out on a river and smoking. Many of Renoir's paintings of people were commissioned portraits but also included family, his children's nanny, and friends. Not only do his portraits capture the sitter's personality and mood; the depiction of clothes, rooms and buildings give a historical context that is educational in its own right. Like Renoir, I have a lifelong interest in drawing people; I am consistently curious about how to recreate a likeness, a pose, a complexion, an idiosyncrasy. 

Renoir defined many of his subjects not with contrast of light and dark, but with contrast of warm and cool colors. Often, the light source is unclear or its effects are secondary to the pure colors of the subject. Everything is ethereal, feathery, almost blurry. Instead of using graduated shading from dark to light to delineate form, Renoir uses the difference in color temperature of one form or surface against another to describe them. The viewer understands exactly what is occurring in these paintings, but if they were to take a black and white photo of them, they would be uncommonly boring. The placement of a sage green against a cherry red is where the magic occurs. Taking a step back, the painting coalesces in real time as the eye merges the loose brushstrokes and categorizes the colors into warms and cools: where cool colors recede into the background and warm colors advance. A portrait wondrously emerges from a flat, amorphous field of color. I have a great love for high contrast art, but after taking a color theory class and researching Renoir's work, I am slowly being seduced by the possibilities of color.

There has been a lot of talk about AI generated art among artists lately. Because I'm always about twenty years behind technology and have clung tightly to my sketchbook and pencils over the years, I first ignored the debate while assuming these new apps/programs would destroy artist's jobs and degrade future art into overly derivative repetitious crap made by amateur, prosaic hacks. But then I thought I should research it a bit and try one of the apps and have an informed opinion instead of a reflexive reaction to them.

According to some articles, one of the benefits of AI generated art apps is to assist the artist in quickly generating fresh ideas for current or future art projects. I chose craiyon from a list of the top apps to see if I agreed. There was a simple screen where I typed in my phrases and ideas. The app took a couple minutes to generate six images with different visual interpretations of my text, which was "a woman in a long white dress with arms that become tree branches." The results were bizarre. (see above screenshots) It looked like a sloppy photo bash of trees and women in dresses: certainly nothing artistically threatening. But it was also very intriguing and immediately caused me to try again with more specific text about the subject and look of the final images. When I directed it to create something in the style of a distinct artistic medium or style, the characters were still warped and oddly sutured together, but I appreciated and was inspired by some of the palettes, compositions, and poses it chose. My creativity mentally kicked in to correct the flaws in the details while combining the app's images in novel iterations that pleased me and were closer to my original vision. After using it a few times, I agree that it is a useful conceptual tool for the artist. 

My other thought about the apps, was that as AI learns how to make artistic images that could potentially compete with human artwork, this should drive the artist not to despair or anger or cynicism, but rather to evolve, grow, and except the challenge to go further into creation and further into the next new way of sharing their vision with the world: using this tool to catapult them further on into imagining impossibilities.

Let these apps be a stepping stool to reach the next level of personal artistic growth.