Jessica Backup

I’ve started painting! I went to a painting activity with Alicia and a few others a couple of weeks ago, where we painted outside (which was wonderful, by the way). Painting things from life (or pictures) involves too much anxiety for me, so I just experimented with patterns and shapes.  Here’s the result! I really like it! Alicia said it had some kind of Tove Jansson-vibe to it which might be the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. Anyway, I’ve been completely obsessed with painting since then, and the only reason I haven’t created like a million paintings is that I’ve been very sick! 🙁  The first few paintings I created went along the same lines as the first one, and I really loved it. The last one is even made with our old watercolour crayons which was pretty difficult.  And then I started using salt to create cool textures! And then I inverted the process, painting more outside the shapes I wanted, for Monthly Makers this month, and I really l...

Ok so this past month has basically been me a) being sick b) painting. Because I’ve become obsessed with painting with watercolours! It’s SO MUCH FUN and calming and a lot more relaxing for the eyes than digitally creating. Anyway, it feels like ~a new era~, which is fitting since the theme for this months Monthly Makers is “Something I’ve never tried before”. I think this might be one of my favourite themes we’ve ever had! Such a fun concept! (Ironically the picture above isn’t really made with classic watercolours but watercolour crayons we’ve had all my life but anyway.)  At first I was just going to make the whole concept of abstract watercolours as my creation for this month, but I felt like I would EXPLODE if I weren’t allowed to tell anyone about it until today, so I just threw that out the window and decided I’d come up with something else for Monthly Makers this month.   Consequently I spent some time trying to co...

Adobe have issued a contest! They’ve recently digitized Edvard Munch’s actual brushes (!!!) so that anyone can use them to paint in Photoshop and Sketch! So cool.  So they’re challenging people to paint something using these brushes, and I’ve made something for it! I actually started by checking out the other creations that were uploaded under the tag on Behance, which wasn’t a very good idea as I instantly got insecure about what to create myself. But I gathered some courage and decided I wouldn’t be affected by all the Scream-like images that others had created and make it in my own way! I thought I’d talk you through the process today!  So I thought we’d start with looking at the finished result! Here it is! I’ve used the brushes to create the stars and some structures, and the main Scream-like thing about this is the general composition. Here’s what I’ve written in my submission on Behance: I decided I wanted to...

Howdy partner! A few exciting things have happened when it comes to my art recently, and I thought I’d share a little bit about it with you! The most exciting thing to me (probs) is that Tumblr has selected me for Tumblr Radar. Tumblr Radar is a little box to the right of everyone’s dashboard where selected and creative posts are featured, selected by the staff! I got an e-mail earlier this morning telling me that I was featured, and I’m so happy! I’ve also recently hit 4k followers on Tumblr. I love Tumblr so much. <3 Another great thing is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt tweeted my “Storm” (due to it being on Hitrecord) and @joeyfixit replied that “this is what a Jackson Pollock looks like on Gallifrey”. BEST COMPLIMENT EVER. Like okay Jackson Pollock isn’t my fave artist exactly but that in combination with Gallifrey (a planet in the Doctor Who-universe) is EXCELLENT. Aahh it made me so happy!! Okay I felt like there were more th...

A few months ago I was part of an exhibition in Rome arranged by Manifesto delle Visoni Parallele, and soon after the exhibition they contacted me again to tell me that the exhibtion had been such a success that it would start a tour in Italy!!! The first stop was Pomezia Light Festival, which took place a few weeks ago, and I thought we’d take a look at a few pictures from the exhibition. I wasn’t there myself though so these pictures are courtesy of Manifesto delle Visoni Parallele and photographer Matteo Cefaloni. It looks like it was a REALLY COOL exhibition. They hade video installations on old TVs and light installations around the place.  There were art by the other artists and it was all really cool.  And then my art was hanging with a little sign and everything. SO COOL. The next stop is Periferica Festival, 14-16 July! If anyone goes to it I would love to hear from you!!

This post is sponsored by Creativ Company. For the Monthly Makers theme that was “Paint/Colour” I experimented with creating abstract art using acrylic paints diluted with water. (You can check that out here!)  Since then I’ve wanted to try it again, but it requires quite a lot of room and an area that’s safe for splashings of paint, which means I just haven’t done it in a while. But I finally got the opportunity to start again and have spend a few months playing with this technique! I used our dining room this time, and to make it paint safe I purchased a gigantic wax-cloth to protect the table. And it worked! So that’s a pro tip from me. This is an amazing activity to do together with friends (I have since I started working with these tried it out with both my sister and Mikaela and they both found it a lot of fun – which it is!) and I thought I’d give you some advice about how to do it yourselves! Here’s what you’ll need: ac...