Jessica Smith | Blog

A couple of paintings from my ebook I made a few years back, called The Red Hummingbird. It’s a story about a young girl who makes a new friend, and they go on a journey together :)  Even now when I look at them again, I still feel the same emotions as when I first created them. Has so much fun with there. 

Progress steps of one of my paintings I made for this summer. Most of my paintings I start with using a photo as a base, to get something down onto the canvas (the photos I used is a couple that I photographed when I traveled to Hong Kong, and I merged them together). It helps with setting a colour palette for the painting. 

A summery painting, cuz I’m feeling the heat and wish I could go outside and do plein air painting. 

A painting I created a few years ago, for a book I made on my website sharing about my art journey. I didn't mentioned this back then, but the two kids in this painting are actually my brother and sister :) I wanted to create something based off of childhood memories.

New portfolio piece - swordgirl continues on her adventure. 

There's been people in the past I've had to distance myself from because of how toxic I realised they were, and to protect myself, I created boundaries or had no choice but to cut ties. When this happens, you would ponder if you did the right or wrong thing, but usually in the end, it comes to a point where you have to end something because you have no choice. And it's usually really heartbreaking. Most people get this when it happens. But sometimes people will refuse to let go and will continue to use every means possible to try get in contact with you, to the point of making you feel guilty for things you haven't done, or making you feel like you owe them something because they helped you, or gaslighting - when their only goal is just to spark some sort of reaction from you, then they've "won". They just want to shove down your throat that they were right and you were wrong, no apology, no forgiveness, no remorse. They want to continue fighting, just to say "hah!" to your face.

No one deserves that kind of treatment. No one.

To those that might be dealing with people like this, you're not alone. Protect yourself. Never let anyone make you feel less of a person. The past is in the past, all the good things happened and they were great. But the now is now. And if now, you chose to be in a new space, others should respect that and understand not to overstep your boundaries. Surround yourself with the people you love and who you know respect you. 

Some speedpaints from yesterday’s warmup before work. 

Recently, I’ve been feeling a bit down with my art. The stress of my living situation for the last couple of months had a mental and creative strain on me.  I was in a very bad space before. After settling after moving though, it was hard to get back into the swing of things because I still felt scarred. But then, I went to a Ghibli exhibition the other night , and it was just the kick I needed. I felt so inspired! So I tried channeling some of that energy into these.