MY ARTISTIC JOURNEY (SO FAR)

Not too long ago, I made the conscious decision to devote myself to my art.

That was December of last year, we are now closing in on the last few days of February and things have been nothing short of crazy. Last month, I decided to have a little giveaway on Twitter where anyone can join as long as they retweeted the tweet. Then I would choose the winner within two days and make them a portrait of themselves using either colored pencils, oil pastels, charcoal pencil or watercolor. Initially, I expected to have twenty or twenty five people join the giveaway, and that number was me being a little generous with the amount of retweets that I expected to have. I was wrong.

Maybe the stars aligned that night, maybe I just got lucky. But the post reached over 1.4k retweets, which for me, who has only ever known of getting five or six retweets (at best) of the stuff I've been temperamentally doing for years, was something. Since then, I've been fortunate enough to meet so many talented and inspiring individuals who are doing just the same thing that I am, creating, creating, creating. 

I have a small following for my work now, a lot more than I did before all of this happened. These days, trips to the post office come more often than not. And to that, I say thank you. Thank you for spreading my art, supporting me and my work that I put so so many of the hours I used to just spend dreaming until the sun returned on. Thank you.

A few other things:

Last month, I've started an art collective where the only goal is to spread the work of the other creatives that I've had the privilege of creating alongside with. It is called The Naked Collective and it is a place concentrated with the work of others in order to give them, at the very least, well deserved exposure and recognition for their work. I am also in the process of figuring out a podcast for said collective, so stay tuned for that.

In addition, I've also entered my Floral Anatomy Series for this juried art show here in Dallas. I found out soon if I got accepted, so fingers crossed. If I get in, my work will be displayed at the art show here in downtown Dallas and that's pretty cool.

Anyway, I feel like things haven't been the same ever since, on top of all the commissions, projects and schoolwork that I have, sleep or just free time in general is now a little hard to come by - and I woudn't have it any other way. 

Much love,
Francis.