This week I had some time to sit down and look at my work from over the years. I’ve gone as far back as primary school; more to my horror and hopefully more of an interest to all of you. 😏 I think as artists we’re supposed to look at our past work to get a better understanding of the evolution of our skill and style, but sometimes going ‘back’ and I mean REALLY back, inevitably causes some cringing and need to hide sketchbooks…or maybe that’s just me. The most change you will probably see is around 2011 during my time in university, where all I did was abstract & modern art. There weren’t many options in terms of courses for me unfortunately, but looking at it positively it became clear to me very fast what I didn’t want to be doing.

Now for the really old pieces. Most of these are either in sketchbooks from elementary school (grades 4-5) or loose paper. The majority of them are anime/manga style as that was what I was really into at the time. Here are just a few of them.

I’ve had questions over the years of where to get started and how to go about improving your art, but I’ve never been completely comfortable giving advice on some things as I’m constantly learning and improving as well. However, one thing I can say now is that draw, draw some more, and keep drawing. If I stop producing art due to artist block or for any other reason (whether its sketches or finished paintings), I regret it immensely as I see the effects of it immediately in the new piece. One example that has stuck with me from a university presentation is to look at children’s drawings, and then asking an adult with no background knowledge in fine art to do the same. You will see that for the most part the two will be very similar. Just like anything else, that skill remains stagnant until we acquire the knowledge to improve our techniques which also includes years of practice. 🙂

Now that you’ve gotten a glimpse at where I come from in terms of my art, hopefully this will motivate all of you who are either beginning their art careers or picking it up as a hobby.

*On a side note, I’ve decided to open a Inprnt Shop for art prints along with my Society6 one. I’m curious as to which people prefer using, but for now I have them both up and running.