Man, Instagram, it’s a love hate situation but lately it’s got me feeling super down so I deleted the app for the first time in NINE years. When I first got IG my biggest passion was vegan cooking. I had a food blog called ‘What do you Eat Then?’ as I was also gluten free/sugar free etc etc (all the things). It was fun sharing food pics and connecting with fellow food enthusiasts on Instagram back when it was all a bit more chilled out. By 2015 I graduated with an advanced diploma in illustration and graphic design and was mainly using the gram to share drawings. By that point everybody and their grandmas were on there and the influencer phenomenon was starting to boom, algorithms got weird and the competition for likes and follows started to feel like a virtual popularity contest no one signed up for. Most of the time I can appreciate Instagram for what it is and what it does for me and not get sucked into the mindless scrolling, comparisons and desperation for the love hearts, most of the time. I think my downfall this time was setting up a seperate account for my paintings. On my illustration account I’m used to getting a very modest 30-60 likes on a post, a few comments, the odd share and a commission or job offer every now and then. Nothing compared to some illustrators out there nailing the game, but it worked for me. When I started the painting account I would post a painting I was super hyped about and be excited to share and get barely any action, at all, which to be honest, made me feel frustrated, sad and worthless. I was also looking at heaps of other painters accounts, people who were doing similar level work to mine and absolutely killing it in terms of likes, comments, follows, selling paintings in a few minutes of posting etc. this added another layer of jealousy and I suppose resentment to my ever growing list of negative feelings. And of course, I know it’s silly, I know I can’t measure my worth in likes, my talent in follows, my future career success in Instagram sales, but it’s still hard to deal with these feelings that crop up no matter how much you tell yourself it doesn’t matter. It got to the point where I was staring at a blank canvas and couldn’t decide what I should paint because I found myself stressing out about what colour palette would get the most likes and feeling pressured to stick to a certain style because accounts with a concise style do the best and then just feeling super sad because I had forgotten the true essence of what art is in an attempt to play the Instagram game. Art is freedom and I felt hemmed into the ‘what’s trendy on Instagram box’, and that my friends, is a sad place to be indeed. So for the first time in nearly a decade I’m taking a much needed break and I’m looking forward to the extra time in my day and to be free of the pressures to keep up with it all for a little while. Below are paintings I’ve done in the last two months. I had let my painting practice slide and was just focusing on illustration. It seems hard for me to focus on both at the same time for some reason…anyhoo. It’s good to be back at it, likes or not ;)

One of my most recent paintings which I’m really happy with. I started with a base layer of acrylic and built it up with a mixture of oils, pastel, pencil and more acrylic. (Hint: oil over acrylic yes, acrylic over oil, no)

a fun colour and texture study in my watercolour sketchbook. I love doing these mindless art brain dumps using lots of different mediums and seeing what happens. (And Maizey and Darcy)

These were my first foray back into oil paints in over a decade and I had so much fun playing with the depth of colour and the lushness of the oil texture. They are pretty far removed from my normal style and I’m not totally in love with them, so still trying to decide if I want to experiment more with this kind of thing or not. I started with an abstract acrylic base which you can see below…

I loved them at this stage so it was a bit sad to paint over them with the oils. I feel like the colour scheme was working quite well and might revisit. .

These were both works on paper which were primed with gesso for texture first before watercolour, acrylic, pastels and pencil. The one on the left was inspired by autumn in Vancouver and the longing to be back there, if only to stand amongst the fall colours for a moment. The one on the right is inspired by the stunning colours of the Brunswick river at high tide on a sunny day.

This was another piece inspired by colours of North Vancouver, Canada. Oil on canvas.

And finally some colours I’ve been inspired by lately…

I’ve been meaning to get back into blogging for ages but never found the time because of Instagram stealing it so I already feel like I’ve made a huge accomplishment today and feel more calm and happy without the omnipresent distraction of instagram. Usually when I update my website or write a blog post, while the photo is loading I'll ‘quickly’ open Instagram only to realise I’m half an hour down some rabbit hole which makes it hard to actually get anything done!
Perhaps no one will look at this but it feels so much less of a focus then with Instagram, and for my own personal development it’s so good to recap, revisit and ponder the work I’ve been doing. And for anyone that did take the time, thank you :)

Instagram burnout & new paintings

Colour & Emotions

Custom portrait illustrations