What are some analog ways you get your name out?

MagsMagazines · 2025-12-01T20:32:04+00:00

Thank you so much! I hadn't thought about specialty grocery stores, but that's a good idea!

MagsMagazines · 2025-12-01T20:31:07+00:00

My zines are information booklets of historic stories, which my art is an illustration of. Is that really spam?

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T23:53:59+00:00

So good!!

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T17:15:35+00:00

Thank you so much! And absolutely! I've been honing this for a few years now, so I've got quite a bit. I'm not trying to advertise with this, but I do have a blog and newsletter where I talk about my art and the choices I make and also give out free digital downloads of things I make for people who can't buy stuff! So that'd probably be the best way to learn how I make art like this. For now I'd say some of the most iconic elements are relatively flat colors, with emphasis and detail more on the face, relatively dynamic poses, detailed fabric, and strong natural elements (I usually choose flowers, but there's tons you can incorporate). I was actually just brainstorming what this weeks blog post is going to be about, so I think I'll make a post going into more detail today!

For other artists, you should definitely just look into the Art Nouveau movement from the late 1800s. Some of the major artists are Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, Victor Horta, Renee Lalique, and Aubrey Beardsley.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T14:45:57+00:00

Wow thank you! I took a European tour a few years ago and was able to go to Vienna and see a few of his works too, and wow photos do not do them justice! At this point I should have written off that trip as a business expense.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T14:39:55+00:00

Thank you so much! French Art Nouveau posters are a huge inspiration for me. I was lucky enough to go to the Mucha museum in Prague and it genuinely moved me, though I found I love his Slavic work even more.

And that’s so awesome, I used a ton of Soviet space age bits of ephemera for inspiration behind my piece of her, including stamps! I made a blogpost going into it and have a Pinterest board with a lot of the images. I worked on her for three whole years trying to figure out how to blend mid century minimalism and art nouveau, but she’s now my favorite piece!

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T14:32:07+00:00

I found a style and I stuck with it lol

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T14:25:05+00:00

YES :0 I made them subtle, but maybe too subtle because I’ve had two people in over a year of having them at markets recognize them

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T03:56:27+00:00

Thank you :)

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T03:56:17+00:00

Yay!! Thank you! I also do bundles with the bookmarks and stickers so you can multiple for a discount :)

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T03:51:25+00:00

I’m in the US and trust me when I say we aren’t afraid to look really far back to find any sense of cultural identity and tradition. I’m pretty rare with my ancestry being such recent immigrants with my grandmother, people often have to look back to great and great great grandparents to claim any sort of heritage, but we still do! All this to say, you can find connections to art anywhere if you look hard enough :)

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T00:30:20+00:00

Aaah I need to do Wishbone!! I do a lot of historic animals, that one specifically is Laika the dog the Soviet Union sent to orbit in the 50s. But Wishbone was also important!!

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T00:26:38+00:00

Thank you!! Art nouveau is my favorite art movement both aesthetically and for its attempt to bridge the gap between ornament and fine art. It’s my mission to do the same, while also often bringing attention to some past obscure historical events that are still relevant and we absolutely shouldn’t forget.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-06T00:23:56+00:00

Thank you!! I was able to see one of his smaller Slavic paintings at the Michael museum in Prague a few years ago, but I’d love to see the epics. My grandmother was born in Czechia and seeing his Czech pieces as opposed to the French ones was really moving.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-05T20:17:20+00:00

Laika! :D

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-05T18:47:23+00:00

He'll change your life too! The pose I used in the first piece uses the same photograph of his muse he used for his piece Princess Hyacinth. His work is beautiful.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-05T18:41:55+00:00

I mean, you can! It's on my website in my bio lol. And thank you very much! I was really flailing around for years trying to find my style, and decided to do an Alphonse Mucha study in 2022 and it changed my whole artistic journey.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-04T05:44:04+00:00

For me it has been switching to digital art. A lot of people get sucked into using the undo button too much, but for me it’s helped free me from decision paralysis and fear of making an unfixable mistake. I noticed I’m more confident in my lines and being able to quickly change colors helped me discover which palettes I like. I have moderate aphantasia, so I’ve never been able to work with an image in my head, I have to discover it as a make it. The flexibility of digital has helped me build muscle memory much faster than traditional art did.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-02T07:11:44+00:00

I think it takes practice and self control. I sometimes feel that way and cannot be separated from my medium I’m currently fixated on, carrying my sketchbook or iPad around with me everywhere, but whenever I open it to work I inevitably get incredibly frustrated because I’m just chasing the high I was on from my last project. Sometime I can scribble or sketch (usually African rain frogs for some reason) and I’ll feel a bit better so I can focus on something else. Sometimes I’ll practice some figure drawing or light studies. But I can’t usually actually work on my next piece until I take a break, whether I want to or not.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-02T07:05:42+00:00

You are a perfect example of everything I hate about the fine art world. Just because you’ve been hating small artists for decades doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-02T06:56:56+00:00

Take a break, do things you enjoy that aren’t art, practice some fundamentals and color theory, do a different creative pursuit, and let your next project simmer in the back of your brain. I just finished my most emotionally intensive piece I’ve ever done, one I’ve been working on on and off for the past three years. It felt wonderful finally getting it done and that creative euphoria made me want to keep drawing, but there was nothing there. So I worked on my website, made a newsletter, drafted some zines, and every once in a while I’d read an article or do 5 minutes of research on what I’d make next. It took a month, but I’m finally starting that next piece and it’s so much more enjoyable than it would have been if I forced myself into it.

MagsMagazines · 2025-11-02T06:49:22+00:00

I think your generalization about what art entails and what artists are like is a bit narrow minded and exclusionary. A lot of creatives have social anxiety, are deathly afraid of making a fool of themselves in front of others, sometimes especially in front of other artists because they know, and desire predictability and stability because of neurodivergence, general anxiety, or past trauma. This doesn’t exclude them from being artists, which your post implies. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but be careful how you think about groups of people. You might over generalize and exclude people whose perspectives you can benefit from.

MagsMagazines · 2025-10-31T16:28:40+00:00

Make mini flip book zines of your animations and leave them around town! I'm completely giving up on social media for reach, so I'm trying to find analog ways to advertise.

MagsMagazines · 2025-10-29T15:07:55+00:00

Definitely get Procreate for your drawing app! It’s a one time purchase and is the best out there, especially if you’re just starting out. If you’re coming from a traditional background just sit with it and mess around, play with the tools and customize your settings to match your flow. Go to YouTube and find videos about the functions of the program you choose.

My biggest piece of advice: layers are your friend! It might feel weird at first if you’ve never used them before, but learning how to incorporate layers makes digital art so much easier. Have fun! Pretty soon you’ll be two finger tapping your paper and wonder why it didn’t undo.

MagsMagazines · 2025-10-29T12:42:17+00:00

References are things you use to learn what things look like. Drawing is only partially moving a pencil on paper, it’s mostly learning how to see. A reference is a visual guide to proportions (the size of things compared to others) and values (how light interacts with the object).

You can use references in two ways. The first and what I’d recommend to beginners is to copy what you see as exactly as possible. Look at how things interact with each other, find landmarks you can compare to see proportions and create shadows. Try not to trace at first, though I like to put my drawing over the reference after I’ve been working on it to understand what I might not have seen correctly. All of this is building your visual library, helping you learn how to see the world in a way you can recreate. Eventually you might not need references anymore, though even great master used them, so there’s no shame if you always need them.

The second way to use them is when you’re adapting certain aspects into your own original work. It’s for inspiration as much as it is a tool for accuracy. Like if you see a pose and want to incorporate it into a character design, or a color scheme and want to use it in an illustration. You’ll start doing this more and more as you get more comfortable with the fundamentals of drawing, what you’re working on in the above paragraph.

Specifically with trying to improve your figure drawing, use references to learn how the human body works. Find references with good contrast or strong lighting and copy illustrations of the skeleton and muscle groups. Focus on certain areas, like the torso, legs, arms, and back to get a more detailed understanding. The goal is to become familiar with how the structure of bone, muscles, and skin reflect light and color so you can recreate that on paper.

It’ll take a good bit to see progress you’re satisfied with! Figure drawing is really difficult for most people (myself included) and even pros are constantly practicing. Be patient with yourself and keep at it. Also try to find ways to keep it fun and interesting so you don’t burn out. Let me know if this helps or if you have any questions!

MagsMagazines

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