Though I have had lots of fun doing digital illustrations - as well as hand drawn ones (plus all the 3D art projects with crafty things from the dollar store) - today's is special because it's one of the very last 'artsy' things I'm making for this blog.
So rather, I did a video. Today's (July 7's) #Kawaii365 project is a notebook, covered in cute stickers and with a cute illustrated story inside. The story is a short description of my day today.
And only about half of this notebook is filled in. There's a reason for that - I want you to find it around the City of Red Deer, and when you do, fill it in with your own story and then share that one on a video on your social media.
In a way, this is like a really cool connection - a mind meld if you will - between you & me. And it's all the connections I've made with other humans along the way that have made this such a great project to dive right into!
Since starting this project last July (2016), I've connected with the author of the inspirational book, Noah Scalin (thank you for your blog feature!). I've connected with Greg Stafford, the man in charge of this city's public art projects and events, which led to being one of a few select artists in October's Alberta Culture Days/Chalk Art Festival. While there, I met many of the city's influential artists like Mike Villasana. I joined the facebook group for Red Deer artists and met Joe Larsen, who runs the central AB branch of Art Battle International. He personally invited me to paint there in March, which was awesome! Thank you so much.
I have had the honor of personally working with Gin Le of 'Paper Cuties' (long distance of course), and since joining Fiverr I've been able to work with others in the Kawaii community by doing illustrations, freelance writing and advertisements.
Many of the fun little kawaii art projects get left in random places around the city, and one of the first connections that came from this was with my friend Amr "Alex" Moustafa. He sent a sincerely warm email about finding one of the cross-stitch ones I made, and then it blossomed from there. He makes movies and short films here in the city. You can see his work here.
After some of the awesome Feature Fridays I've done, I've had the pleasure of connecting with other YouTubers and Etsy shop owners, such as Piper Dollface (thank you again for the free Hello Kitty squishie keychain!) and Cassandra from Frosted So Sweet - your kawaii jewelry and charms are amazing ^_^
Most recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with Todd Vaughn from the Red Deer Express for an interview to finish off this year-long project. I sincerely hope the story of a shy girl like me, reaching out and trying new things every day, meeting new people and sharing little 'gifts' with Red Deerians, can inspire other budding artists to expand.
In addition to human connections, this project has also motivated me to expand as an artist overall. I completely gave my LinkedIn account a makeover, jazzed up my Fiverr page (and deviantArt), joined Freelancer, added a whole slew of new kawaii items in my Etsy shop, including fridge magnets, coloring sheets, and astrology wall décor. I joined both RedBubble and Zazzle and am also finding success with those.
So as you can see, it's completely worth it to try new things and meet new people. Thank you so much. XOXO Daryl
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