I painted on my face on purpose for this

Hey look, this is the new thing I was telling you about

Feb 03, 2023

photo of dave's fat head with a 5 painted on his forehead — Originally created for THIS video that also dropped today

Did you hear about the Chinese spy balloon hovering over Montana? The government wants to shoot it down, but the military doesn’t think that’s safe (yet). I think China just wants to get early footage of the next season of Yellowstone.

The Finds

Speaking of China, the idea of TikTok is much less fun when someone’s thumb is on the scale.
As simple as Shantell Martin’s work is, her perfectly executed website is anything but simple.
Marcin Nagraba takes better photos of his mom than you.
Kittl is like Canva except cooler and with lots of cash.
Pavel Ripley gives me major sketchbook Envy

image of a poster design by dave conrey titled closer than you think

I’ve dropped a few new items into the shop recently, and this is the first new art poster for the year with a promise for many more. It’s Closer Than You Think.

Derivatives

Did you know that Tumblr is becoming popular again? I used to love Tumblr until it got overrun by porn bots. Then Yahoo bought it and with a heavy hand, banned any account with even marginally elicit content (life drawing studies not excluded).

I decided to jump back into my old Tumblr account and this time I’m mostly sharing the pages from my art journal. Working in the journal has been a welcome source of creative expression this year and it’s raised my awareness for others doing creative sketchbook and journal work, which is how I found Pavel from the links above.

Working in the journal has me thinking a lot about the derivatives of my art and how I’m working in my own personal ecosystem. Almost everything I create is either the source of new art and products or a derivative of other works.

When walking around my city, I’m always on the lookout for photo opportunities of interesting textures and shapes. Those images will end up in my digital work at some point. That image could also end up in a digital collection of images that I sell to people to use in their own work.

Because I wanted to use those images in my physical work, I started taking those images and putting them into printed books I call Rad Scrap so I can have high-quality printed versions that are available for others to buy on Amazon (only 1 version is available now, but a new one is coming soon).

Some of those pages from Rad Scrap have also found their way into my art journal, which will also become a new derivative. I was recently invited to participate in a local art event that combines art and zines, and I’ll be turning many if not all of the pages from the journal into a zine for that event.

Some of those journal pages have inspired new products, like the poster print above, or the pages themselves will become something else in the shop.

And because I’m on this free art kick, some of the work I create will end up back in the neighborhood to give back to the city that provided the original inspiration.

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This is what I’m leaning into now—make the things, share the things, and the shared things inspire new things to be made. And if I’m lucky, these things will inspire and assist you in making your things.

I used to get so caught up in making sure that the individual things were distinct and needed their own space. I assumed that people wouldn’t see the obvious connectivity between all these elements I juggled. I recognize now that was a ludicrous thought, that all these things work in concert together, and they should all be available in one place.

All that to say, I’ll be adding a crapload of new things to my shop in the coming months, so get ready for that.

And there you go—welcome to the new format of The Hungry Artist. Let me know what your thoughts are on this new approach.

You can also share your thoughts by hitting the comment section, which I’m encouraging you to do because it makes me smile to hear from you (and the engagement helps the Substack algorithm recommend me to others like you).

Thanks for your time and I’ll see you next time.

Until then, go make something cool.

Cheers,

Dave

Extra

You didn’t know you needed a hamster in a tube until now.

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