If you’ve ever wondered how I paint with watercolor, you can see my art painting videos on YouTube. In these soothing ASMR painting videos, I share my timelapses of a painting being created, how to use watercolor in actual speed, and various watercolor techniques as part of my paintings on this website.
This playlist will be updated every Tuesday morning with a new video. Subscribe here so you don’t miss them.
I also share the art materials I use in the description of every video so you can pick up the brush and paint with me. Or if you’ve just always wondered how I create my paintings, you can sit back and watch and enjoy. If you enjoy the videos, please click the thumbs up button to let me know that you enjoy them.
Do you know why most hummingbird feeders have red syrup? It’s because that’s cranberry vodka. Do not fill your hummingbird feeder with cranvodka. Hummingbird-feeding should only be handled by professionals. You know who you are.
I’ve spent my childhood and adolescence with TV noise in the background because, I was told, it was too quiet. The problem is, it wasn’t just ambient background noise to me. I paid attention to it. If someone was home, the TV had to always be on, which taught me that I should always be watching TV. Since striking out on my own at 19, I gave myself the gift of this “too quiet” but for me, it’s “perfect.” I won’t focus on the past too much, because I can’t change the past like a TV channel, but I can shut it off. Here’s why:
I grew up watching a lot of American TV, learning English, and was raised by sitcom families like The Brady Bunch, Family Matters, Full House, I Dream of Jeanie, I Love Lucy, Bewitched, Happy Days, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Taxi, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World, The Wonder Years, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Two And A Half Men. That’s just a few off the top of my head. A lot of those were a part of Nick At Nite and TGIF on ABC. Oh, and I was raised by MTV music videos, but hear me out: first thing in the morning and immediately after school, because TRL on MTV.
All of this every day, usually 1-2 hours in the morning and then 4-5 hours in the evening. I’VE BEEN PREPARING MY ENTIRE LIFE FOR: nothing.
I’m not upset. I’m just disappointed.
I remember none of my training because now, all that TV is a blur. I don’t remember much detail about what I watched. I couldn’t recap a single episode for you (I could probably rap some of Eminem’s The Real Slim Shady for you, though, please.)
But all of those shows and music videos weren’t a waste of time, because they have been ingrained and programmed into me subconsciously. When I think of them, they feel like ghosts of the images replaying in my head, whose unfinished business is to support and encourage me, to make up for the support and encouragement I needed but didn’t have. Since being on my own, if I watch TV, I’m watching TV intentionally. I pay attention, from start to finish, until the credits end, because I read the names, like I did as a kid.
My real art desk.
And like a totally well-developed adult, I continue to develop healthy boundaries, standards, and practices based on these fantasies, idealisms, and images that are not real but were written by real people, whose names I’ve read in the end-credits – people who believed in their ideals so much that they created and worked on these shows, and had so many viewers, like me, love them.
I’ve never had the TV on while I paint. If I haven’t been painting, instead of TV noise, I’ve been talking to myself, a lot. Like, entire conversations, out loud. Talking to yourself requires that you are there with your thoughts and that you pay attention to yourself. You are your own TV.
My last year’s resolution was to take more selfies and I failed miserably. To take a selfie, you need a certain flick-of-the-wrist to turn your hand with your phone at your face and take a photo, and also to remember to do that, and I don’t have that. But at least I have a cramp in my hand and a headache.
I might as well learn to play the guitar – this would take just as much effort, but make the world a better place. Instead of learning a whole new instrument, I’d like to use the flick-of-the-wrist I already have and write. I’ve decided that my 2024 resolution is to share more of my stories.
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The rollercoaster of life is taking us through a series of holidays again and there’s a lot of apples. I’ve been loving Honeycrisp apples, in particular, and painted “Can’tdle.” It’s a juxtaposition of candles and apples, and apple candles.
Just don’t go too far into the core because the apple seeds can be poisonous. Can’tdle is how an apple can be angry for having its fruit eaten but not the seeds from which it can be reproduced. Something to chew on…
This painting was brought to you by a series of carefully-placed boops.
This new painting has been in the works for most of August and because I recorded the painting process, the painting took longer to complete. It’s September now and I’ll never shut up about it.
I have a weird habit of trying new things, so of course, I signed up for TikTok. But now I regret that I didn’t do this sooner because it’s fun making mini-movies about my art. Here’s how I created the “Remains” painting – a story in 3 videos. Sound up.
To create this painting, I first enlarged the 6×9 sketch I drew in my sketchbook a while ago. Then I transferred it to 11×14 inch size watercolor paper using a lightbox. Then, I taped the drawing to a wood panel and attached the panel to an easel. While preparing to paint, I specifically used this ambient, serene music in my video to help calm my nerves.
I painted this in watercolor and ink vertically while standing up. Painting vertically with watercolor is challenging. Painting vertically with permanent ink is challenging insane. Why did I do this standing up, knowing fully well that watercolor and ink are watery mediums that drip down and not up?
Yup, it must be my weird habit of trying new things, again. And because I’m already good at watercolor and ink horizontally, and now vertically. After adding some black acrylic paint and more watercolor, the work is complete and referred to in all my future conversations indefinitely, such as: “Per my last ‘Remains’ painting…”. So keep my new skill in mind the next time a disaster strikes.
Click the above thumbnails to see the closeups of the painting.
A couple weeks ago, I attended an OK Go live show at Lincoln Hall here in Chicago. Basically, it was awesome. I bought the ticket back in May and later, the show was sold-out. The venue was tiny for a now popular band that originated in Chicago. The maximum capacity of Lincoln Hall is 507. It was a very intimate setting and I managed to get to the front. One of my favorite things about the band is their creativity. I love their videos and the way they interact with their fans.
This photo is of the audience at Lincoln Hall, which was taken by the lead singer, Damian Kulash. Can you find me in the crowd? Hint: I’m the screaming brunette in the center, behind the two dudes by the mic.
Can you tell that the show was very colorful? The band sounded amazing, too. Their new album, Hungry Ghosts, is coming out in October. At the last song of the set, the band invited some of the audience to climb up on stage to dance.
Here’s the photo I took while I was up there. It captured my perspective of that moment EXACTLY: trippy lights, confetti, jumping & screaming fellow fans, and the back of Damian Kulash’s head.
Long story short, I sorta immediately got inspired and the result was this illustrarticle.
I had a show of my own coming up that weekend, Chicago’s Bucktown Arts Fest (my upcoming post), so I was pressed for time to finish. Still, I managed to get everything done.
My goal with this illustrarticle was to make OK Go laugh. Upon posting the illustrarticle last week, I tagged each of them in the IllustrArticles Instagram post, hoping they’d see the illustration and where to read the article. And, it sorta worked.
The above is how the sketch started off. I doodled it on the side of my sketchbook pretty quickly last week. It’s loosely modeled after California Street in San Francisco.
During my trip to SF back in March, I hopped on to a street car on California Street and held onto the side while riding down. The street cars don’t go very fast and stop constantly, but it seems strange to me that people are allowed and encouraged to just cling on to a pole and stand on the side while riding. So if you’re standing, there is no protection between you and the passing cars. Your only safety is your hopefully strong grip.
Things got a little intense as I was finishing the illustration. One paint brush was injured during the making of this illustrarticle. I must have leaned a little too hard on my new paint brush while inking and nearly dozing off at 1 a.m., a few hours after getting home from my job.
This blog here is more of a behind-the-scenes thing, in case it helps anyone. But my main focus is IllustrArticles. I’m pushing myself to take more in-progress photos.
In the past few years, I’ve been pushed by several people to try teaching art that I actually started to consider it, but then my thoughts were like, “Uh. What?” and “Uh. Thank you! Here, buy some of my artwork, instead! :D”
I was lucky that I had good teachers in high school. Teaching takes a lot of planning, dedication, and patience. Yeah, I couldn’t be a teacher. Or maybe I just don’t want to teach…? I don’t know – not even thinking about it!
Anyway.
Here’s an illustrarticle I’ve recently finished:
It’s for a story about a dog I heard barking in the distance as I tried for fall asleep one night. A lot of dogs bark in my neighborhood. Basically, I don’t live in the Rogers Park neighborhood. I live in Rogers BARK.
After I wrote the story, the illustration started with this little sketch:
Then, it turned into an outlined final sketch:
And then, a finished painting:
Ta-da! Those little hearts were originally sketched out as dog skulls & cross bones. But right before inking the illustration, I realized that’s not the direction I wanted it to go. You can read the illustrarticle here: “Why Dogs Bark At Night”
An illustrarticle is it’s not quite a comic, not quite a blog. It’s an illustration with an article. Can’t have one without the other. Thought I should clarify that. New IllustrArticles are posted whenever important stuff happens. And sometimes, Thursdays.
Step 1
Before starting the illustration, I wrote the story “The #1 Secret Ingredient For Baking Delicious Cookies“. These are my initial notes in my tiny moleskine sketchbook that goes everywhere I go. After these notes, I write the complete story on my laptop. Then I edit, edit, edit.
Step 2
I sketched some thumbnails of what the illustration might look like. Since the #1 Secret Ingredient is amazing, the illustration had to be, too. So I chose the last thumbnail and added circles that would later be painted as a bokeh background. Bokeh is a photography term. I love photography and it’s in my background. So naturally, it influences my illustration work.
Step 3
The thumbnail was then redrawn with more detail, on a larger piece of plain paper. This is the sheet that is sandwiched between my lightbox and a sheet of watercolor paper. I turn on the lightbox and start to lightly trace the main lines on the watercolor paper, with watercolor. It’s all freehand-permanent-no-going-back from here so it has to be perfect. I’ve had to redraw and repaint entire illustrations before, if they didn’t turn out like I’d imagined.
Step 4
And when I started working on the final piece, I started thinking of even more ideas to play with. No more lightbox from this step, forward. So, then this goat made an appearance. And a car. The planet Saturn. A shoe. You know, all those things you’d normally find in a delicious cookie.
Step 5
Color! Here, started to color the smoke/steam and the new cookie ingredients. I usually do a few color tests on separate sheets of paper to determine which colors will work with the illustration.
Step 6
Here, I inked the hand and the cookie. And after I painted the background and some bokeh, I decided that the smoke/steam needs to be toned down. Since the story is not “The #1 Secret Ingredient For Making Amazing Smoke,” I painted over most of it.
Step 7
Then, I painted the steam/smoke with a few highlights using acrylic. Now the focus is more on the cookie/bokeh/awesomeness instead of the smoke.
Step 8
Illustration is complete! Yes, total completion deserves its own step. You can see the color layers I added to the smoke, through which some bokeh can still be seen.
Step 9
I was just kidding about total completion. This work process isn’t complete without this step: Put your Kooky where your mouth is!
The story is not far from how I bake cookies… I don’t usually attempt cooking fancy stuff, and stay in the pre-mixed items safe zone. So, one of the recipes I like to do is from the back of Betty Crocker’s Sugar Cookie Mix.
You could use another brand, I guess. But I’ve only tried Betty Crocker’s. I thought it would be good to add white chocolate chips and dried cranberries into the dry mix because I’m adventurous like that. Add 1 cup of each of those, and then add the 1 egg and 1 stick of softened butter that that sugar cookie mix asks for. Mix everything together to make the batter.
Then, after I bake the cookies like a crazy person, I let them cool for a just a couple minutes. Stick them into a ziplock bag or airtight container right after that, so that the steam stops escaping the cookies. That keeps the cookies soft.
I’ve made these White Chocolate & Cranberry kookies for my friends and coworkers a couple times, and they keep asking for more because “these cookies taste like cheesecake.” Since I don’t want to quit illustration to become a cookie-mix baker, I’ve written my recipe here because with practice, anyone can make these into their own recipe.
Now go out there and make some of your own kookies, you daredevil, you 8)
