Hi, I'm AB!

Hi, I'm AB! I am an artist, who mainly focuses painting portraits, and illustrator. I am currently based in New York and have dreams of traveling. In this blog post I will share who I am as an artist and person.

How I became an artist.

Like many other artists I start to draw and paint as a child. I loved drawing characters from my favorite cartoons and movies.

I became interested in taking painting more seriously because of children's books. My home was filled with books for all ages and I loved reading the children's books because of how detailed the illustrations were. I would study each illustration in a book for hours to look at each detail while imagining living in the world the illustrator had made.

What solidified my interest in painting was visiting different art musea and studying the works of Renaissance artists. I was amazed on how artwork that was made centuries ago can still have an influence on culture today.

Why I mainly paint portraits.

When I became serious about being an artist and began to study how to paint and draw one of the fundamental lessons that I learned was to know how to draw from observation. I carried a sketchbook with me and began to draw what I observed in my surrounding. I then began practicing how to paint still lifes. Although I enjoyed painting the objects in these still lifes I became bored and started to draw and paint people.

I would draw and paint several of my family members and still do so till this day. My family and friends of the family become amazed at how I was able to capture the likeness of people. When I first started making portraits there was still much I had to learn so details in these portraits would be off but it became clear that I just needed practice.

As I became better and developed a workflow I grew more confident as an artist. Since painting or drawing a portrait is complex I feel accomplished each time I finish a portrait. You can view two of my portraits in this Instagram post.

Why I mainly paint animals now.

My love of painting and drawing animals come from the same reason why I became serious about making art - my love for children's books. One of my favorite children's books or stories to read were Aesop fables.

Aseop fables is a collection of stories that teaches lessons and most of them featured personified animal characters. I loved the beautiful illustrations of these animal characters and the environments that they lived in.

Besides children's books I began to have a respect for animals through documentaries and shows. As a child I loved watching Animal Planet and was amazed by how cunning, skilled, and equipped animals are.

During the pandemic I was still painting portraits of people and posting them to my Instagram. I started to receive DMs asking for pet portraits and although these DMs were scams and I ignored them I did begin to paint animal portraits and fell in love with doing it. You can see some of my pet portraits here.

Not only do I love painting animals from my love for them I also loved doing it for another reason. I enjoyed that my animal art was free from being politicized, unless I choose for it to be. There is a lot of racial tension and there is a gender war between men and women in our world. An artwork of a person can box in that art piece depending on the race or gender of the human subject. A painting of a person can be seen as political or painting of a woman might cause viewers to assume that it is feminist art. Although I do feel it is important for artists to express what is going on in the world through their art I also feel that artists should be able to make art that is just for fun and aesthetic. Painting animals gives me the freedom to do just that.

The main reason I show my art and making a business off of it.

This year I started an Instagram and TikTok account for my art and registered my own art business because I no longer want to hide the gifts that GOD has given me.

Outside of my family, and friends, and a few gallery shows, I was not very proactive in getting my art out into the world. This was because I felt too discouraged from caring about what others think about my art.

Then the pandemic came and it gave me a lot of time for self reflection. I began to realize that I was doing both myself and GOD a disservice and made a promise to myself to not only show my art globally but to be able to make a living off of it.

Conclusion

I am proud of what I accomplished this year as an artist. I made art accounts on social media, started my own business, and developed my own work flow. I am looking forward to what more there is to come.