I used to do art

Back in the old, old days – like school days, even – I was kinda known for being the ‘artistic’ type. I played piano, wrote my feelings, joined drama clubs and was constantly – always – in the art room.

Painting was probably the most visible expression of my inner artist and even though I left murals at a few of my schools and won the senior art award, I wasn’t ever, technically ‘good’ at it. At least I didn’t think so. . .and I can tell you why.

Art is hard. It’s a lot of work. You got a concept in mind? It’s not going to appear on paper – not exactly how you see or feel it – without a ton of work, a lot of iteration, scribbling and evaluating and tweaking and adusting and sometimes starting all over again. I never took the time to do all that.

Instead, I would have an inkling of an idea, then I’d chuck a lot of paint at the canvas, maneuver a bunch of shapes that I kinda liked in colours that spoke to me, and – voila! Hang it on the wall, I’m done.

Yes. I was a very lazy painter.

It’s been a hundred years since those days and suddenly find myself with powerful motivation to pull out my paint brushes again. The short story is: while I’m working on my software programming skills, I’m looking for a more ‘passive’ side hustle to help keep the bills paid while I’m focussed on code (and can’t accept as many active writing contracts).

The longer story is this: I run 3 websites all about Samoan language and culture, which has long been a passion of mine. I don’t post very regularly on any of those sites right now, but they still bring in a lot of traffic. I feel like I need to offer my audience on these sites a little more. So many of my website visitors don’t have a lot of real world access to knowledge about being Samoan. I want to give them products that can help incorporate more of our language and culture in their every day lives.

And I want those products to be beautiful.

So yes. . .time to ressurect my inner artist, but this time, I’m making art for other people, not just for my own gratuitous escape. This is a whole different thing, and I’m a little bit scared.

Also, I need to make this art digitally accessible. Oi.

Anyway, I did a little scribbling a few days ago, just to stretch some of my dormant picture-making muscles. The teuila – the red ginger – is Samoa’s national flower, so tried to figure out how to draw it.

Then I went to Adobe Illustrator (which I’m still learning) and. . .well I thought I was going to somehow trace these drawings onto the screen, but I ended up just freehanding another representation of a teuila. And then I played around with making a teuila leaf, and then I thought, what if this was teuila-themed repeatable pattern?

It took a while to figure out how to do that on Illustrator, but I came up with this:

Cute, right? I know.

But not very useful for any products I have in mind right now. . .and also, not really what I would have once considered my ‘style’.

So I kept working at it, at this. . .thing. My driving thought was, ‘Would I be proud to carry something (whatever) with this pattern on it in public? Would I love it?’ . . . because until I get some other people to critique my stuff, I’ve only got my own opinion to work with.

My style tends to be darker, less feminine but still (what I think is) pretty. After a lot of tweaking and adding patterns and adjusting and learning how to do stuff on Illustrator, I finally came up with something I really do love, even if no one else does:

I mean. . . .

It’s more monochrome. It’s distressed. It’s a little bit messy. It’s all the things I am!

Yes, I know I’m supposed to be making art for other people, but until I figure out what they want, my own style is the only place I can really start from.

But don’t worry. I’m grown and conscientious (still budding) artist now.

I’m ready to do the work.

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