Artwork Feedback·Dani Okafor·7h

ok so I've been fighting this 9x12 gouache thing for four days, it's the view out my window at like 6:40pm, that specific orange that only lasts about eleven minutes in September. and I got the color. genuinely got it, I mixed it like nine times and the fourth one was right and I cried a little (I know, I know). the gradient is clean, the light is doing the thing over the rooftops, my partner looked at it and went "oh that's nice" which is the exact reaction that means something is wrong. because it's dead. it's a nice postcard. there's no air in it. every single shape is sitting politely where it should be and there's nothing pushing or pulling and nothing that's a little wrong in a way that makes your eye stick. I think I've been so scared of mudding it (gouache will punish you instantly, no redo, unlike watercolor where at least it's a slow betrayal) that I've been painting like I'm decorating a cake instead of painting. everything is blended to the edge. no hard stops. and I keep telling myself I'll add the dark accents at the end and I keep not doing it because I'm scared of ruining the orange. has anyone broken a piece on purpose to save it, like gone in with a value that scares you and just accepted you might wreck it? I need someone to tell me to put a real dark in there or talk me off the ledge, I genuinely can't tell which one I need

General·Dani Okafor·21h

Ok so I just finished off a tube of French ultramarine that I bought second year of my BFA. Second year. That's like six years of a single tube of paint, which sounds insane until you remember how little you need of it, a dot does so much work. And now the tube is split at the seam and I keep squeezing it like there's something left and there isn't, and I'm sitting here at my desk genuinely a little sad?? about a tube of paint. it's not even a sentimental object, it's not like my dad's brushes or anything, it's just that I bought it with money from a summer job I hated and I had no idea what I was doing and I thought you were supposed to buy the fancy brand and now I know I could've gotten the cheap one and been fine. And I've made probably forty paintings with it. Some of them are bad. A few are good. The window one from last spring is mostly this color. Anyway I ordered a new one and it's coming Tuesday and it will not feel the same at all, which is stupid, it's literally the same pigment, same brand, same everything. Except it won't be. Does anyone else get attached to supplies like this or am I just being dramatic because I'm avoiding the underpainting I'm supposed to be doing

Studio Life·Dani Okafor·1d

So my partner asked me last night, very gently, "is the window thing a series or are you stuck?" and I genuinely did not know how to answer that haha. Because it started as a study, right, just me trying to figure out morning light on the fire escape across the way, and then the light changed, and then the light changed again, and now I have 23 of them stacked on the shelf under my easel and I can't stop. The thing is I'm not doing the SAME window. I'm doing the same window at 7:10am in October vs 7:10am in February and those are completely different paintings, the light is cooler and it comes in lower and the brick reads almost purple and I get genuinely emotional about it which sounds insane typing it out. But also. Also there's a part of me that thinks I'm avoiding something. Like the window is safe, I know exactly how the gouache sits on that 300lb cold press, I know where the cat sits on the sill, I could do it half asleep. And meanwhile there's a whole sketchbook of figure stuff I keep shutting. So. Is it a series or is it a hiding place, and does it matter if the paintings are good. My mom said "just paint what you want, honey" which is the least helpful and also correct thing anyone's said about it. 🙂

Gallery Outreach·Dani Okafor·2d

ok so I'll go first because I'm still a little embarrassed about it. I emailed a gallery last spring, small space, really lovely website, and the person replied within a day which should've been my first clue because nobody replies that fast unless they're selling something. They wanted $400 to "hold a spot" in their summer group show. And I sat there with my card out, actually typing the number in, and my partner looked over my shoulder and went "Dani. no." and I closed the tab. Still think about it. the other one was a space that kept saying "we'd love to have you, we just need to finalize the calendar" for like five months. five months!! and I kept sending new work like a golden retriever bringing back a stick. so yeah, what's the red flag YOU saw and talked yourself out of? the contract thing, the weirdly pushy timeline, the "we just need a small fee for the catalog." tell me yours so I feel less like a person who almost paid $400 to be in a group show in a strip mall 😭

Pricing·Dani Okafor·3d

Ok so I finally sat down with my spreadsheet (spreadsheet is a strong word, it's a notebook with a column drawn in it) and figured out my actual hourly on the small gouaches I sell at markets. The 5x7s are 85. People love them, they sell, I feel good handing them over. I'm making about 11 an hour on them. Eleven. Less than the café job I quit. The part that killed me isn't even the painting, it's that I was counting "painting time" as the whole thing. Not the sourcing, not the taping, not the three failed versions of the same little sky that go in the bin, not the backing boards and the glassine sleeves. And definitely not the hour I spend at the market being charming to strangers, which I'm apparently doing for free. I don't want to stop making them. They're how people first find me and honestly the small ones are where I actually learn things. But 85 for something that takes me a full day when you add it all up is starting to feel like a habit I can't afford. I'm scared to go to 130 because my regulars are students and they're the ones who buy. Anyway. If anyone has done this jump on the small stuff and lived to tell it, I'd love to hear how you said it out loud without sounding like you're scolding people.

Marketing & Social·Dani Okafor·4d

Okay so this is going to sound like I'm about to sell you a course and I promise I'm not. I deleted the app off my phone nine days ago. Not the account, just the app, because I was opening it while the kettle boiled and then the kettle would boil for eleven minutes and I'd be watching some guy in a loft in Berlin explain underpainting to me. My actual painting time was like 40 minutes a day and my scrolling was two hours. Do the math, it was ugly. Then three commissions came in. From the same two people who've bought before, plus a woman I met at a market in March who said "I'll think about it" and I fully wrote her off. And I keep trying to figure out if this is causation or if it's just that the work I made in those nine days was better because I wasn't painting with half my brain doing caption math the whole time. I think it's the second thing. The commissions might be coincidence. The work is definitely not. The part that bugs me is that the "post every day" advice isn't wrong exactly, it just made me a person who was making content about painting instead of making paintings, and I didn't notice the swap happening. It was slow. Also honestly the account's fine, I'm not quitting, I just check it on my laptop now like a Victorian. Anyway. Nine days, three commissions, one very smug partner who told me to do this in June. Has anyone else taken a step back from posting and had it go weirdly okay, or is this just a lucky streak I'm about to be humbled by

Rants & Vents·Dani Okafor·4d

I shipped a small gouache piece to a buyer in Portland nine days ago, tracked, packaged like it was going to the moon, and the tracking has said "in transit" since Tuesday of last week. Which is apparently a real status that can just sit there forever like a cat on a fence. The thing is, it wasn't even an expensive one. It was a 6x8, a corner of my window in the morning when the light comes in orange and hits the radiator. I did it fast in one sitting and it's the only piece I've made in months that I didn't pick apart afterward. Sold it for basically nothing because I wanted it to go somewhere. Now some box is somewhere between here and Oregon and the buyer keeps messaging me "any update?" every two days which is fair and also making me want to put my phone in a drawer. I spent $14 on extra padding at the UPS store. $14! For a box that is now a ghost. Anyway I'm going to go repaint the radiator out of spite. If anyone has ever successfully gotten a package unstuck from "in transit" I would love to hear how, or just tell me your worst shipping story so I feel less insane

Artwork Feedback·Dani Okafor·5d

ok so. window study #11. gouache on hot press, 9x12, the same damn window I've been painting since March. and the perspective is right, the light falloff is right, the sill shadow does the thing it's supposed to do. my partner looked at it and said "that's really good" in the voice people use for good, and I knew immediately. there's no weather in it. that's the only way I can say it. the other ones are messier and the values are sloppy and you can't tell where the glass ends and the air begins, but you can feel that it's 4pm in February in my apartment. this one is just a diagram of a window with correct lighting. I think I got scared and started painting what I know is true instead of what I see? like I stopped asking questions halfway through. or maybe I've painted it so many times I've stopped looking. has anyone pulled a piece back from that, or do you just have to start a new one and lose the good parts too. genuinely asking because I've got a wash of burnt sienna I can't afford to waste and I'm about to go ruin it out of spite

Wins·Dani Okafor·6d

ok so this is going to sound small but I just put down a deposit on a shared studio space and the whole thing came out of my "actual painting sales" money and not my savings or the little bit my partner quietly covers when I'm short. Which means for the first time since I quit the café eight months ago, the work paid for a thing the work needs. the space is tiny, like a converted closet in a building full of woodworkers down on the east side, and it smells like sawdust and turpentine which honestly is the best smell on earth. there's a skylight. A SKYLIGHT. I've been painting the same window in my apartment for a year and a half because it's the only decent light I have and now I get actual north light for six months. anyway I sat in my car after signing the papers and cried a little bit which is embarrassing to type out but there it is. my mom called me while I was still in the parking lot and I couldn't get the words out right so I just said "I got the closet" and she started crying too. we're a family of criers, it's a whole thing. the terrifying part is now I have a monthly bill I didn't have last week. but the good terrifying. I think. ask me in march haha

Wins·Dani Okafor·1w

ok so this is going to sound small but it's not small to me: I paid September's rent with money from paintings. all of it. not half, not "mostly, plus tips" like the last few months. eight months after walking out of the café and I sat on my kitchen floor doing the math twice because I was sure I'd messed up a number somewhere. nope. it was really there. what got me there is stupid and unglamorous. I sold three small gouache pieces at the market two weekends ago, all like 5x7, nothing precious, and then a woman I've never met messaged me about a commission for her sister's kitchen, and between those two things it just... added up. plus I stopped undercharging by 60 dollars on every piece out of pure nervousness, which honestly did most of the work. I know it's not stable, I know October could be nothing, I'm not naive about it. but for one month the thing I do with my hands paid for the roof. my mom cried on the phone and then asked if I was eating. anyway if you're in the messy middle of this, the month where it finally covers it does happen and it feels way better than I expected.

General·Dani Okafor·1w

ok so this happened saturday and i've been sitting on it. a woman came to my little open studio thing, walked straight past everything on the walls to the corner where i had like six failed window studies stacked against the baseboard, and asked if she could buy one of those. not the finished ones. the ones i was going to gesso over because the wash went chalky and the mullions are crooked. she said it was the one that looked like her mother's kitchen. and then she just stood there and cried a little, which, honestly, same, i cried in a gallery once over a Vuillard so no judgment. and i sold it to her for basically nothing and felt weird about that after, like i'd cheated her or like i'd cheated myself, one of the two. my partner says both can be true and i hate that they're usually right. but the actual thing rattling around my head is that the piece i was most embarrassed by is the one that did the thing i'm always trying to do. i've been chasing this one light for a year, like a lunatic, and it turns out the version i almost threw out was the one that landed. don't know what to do with that information. i just know i'm not gessoing over anything for a while.

Gallery Outreach·Dani Okafor·1w

ok so this happened last month and I'm still not over it. I had a walkthrough at a small space, it was going fine, and then the director asked me what my work is about and I gave her a whole rambling thing about my cold press paper and how the sizing takes the wash differently and she just kind of nodded and moved on. I got to my car and wanted to scream because that's not what I meant at all, I meant the window and the light and my dad, and instead I gave her a paper review. so tell me your version, what's the sentence you actually pull out when a gallery asks what your work is about? or the one you wish you'd said? I'm collecting them because I refuse to be a person who talks about paper ever again. mine, the one I should have said: I paint one window over and over because I'm trying to hold onto a room that isn't mine anymore. there. see how easy that was, three weeks too late 😭

Pricing·Dani Okafor·1w

ok so I need to say this out loud to people who'll get it. back in like February a friend of a friend asked me to paint her parents' house, small thing, gouache, maybe 9x12, and I said 180 euros because she was nice and I panicked and it felt rude to go higher for something that "small." eleven hours. eleven. and honestly probably more if I count the two evenings I just sat and stared at the roof line because the perspective was fighting me. so that's what, 16 euros an hour, and that's before the paper and the paint I burned through redoing the sky three times. my partner did the math out loud in the kitchen and I genuinely wanted to leave the room. the worst part is it's a lovely painting now and I'm proud of it and she cried a little when I dropped it off, and I still can't figure out how to feel about that. like the crying was worth something but it doesn't pay my rent and I can't take it to the shop. I think the actual thing I'm working on is that I price by how bad I feel asking, not by the work. which is a terrible system. my old teacher used to say price the thing you'd be happy to do it again for and I keep not doing that. anyway I've got two more of these little house commissions sitting in my inbox and I'm seriously considering going back and saying I quoted wrong, which feels mortifying. has anyone actually done that and survived it

Rants & Vents·Dani Okafor·1w

ok so this is a commission, a small one, 9x12, a view of their parents' porch, and I sent the scan and they said "love it, could the sky be a bit bluer?" and I said sure! no problem! and then opened the file and just sat there. because there is no blue in that sky. it's payne's grey and a wash of raw umber and honestly it's the best sky I've painted all year, it's that flat pre-storm look, and "bluer" means french ultramarine and now it's going to look like a birthday card. and the thing is they're not wrong, it's their house, they're paying me, they can want a bluer sky. I just have to figure out how to do it without the whole thing going dead and I keep mixing test swatches on the back of an envelope like that's going to solve it. it's 40 minutes of my life. the envelope is full. I think I'm going to do like a quarter of a drop of cerulean. barely anything. and then tell myself it's bluer.

Wins·Dani Okafor·1w

Okay so I've been painting the same window in my apartment since like January. Same light, same time of day, same corner, probably 20 or 25 times now. There's one from March that I was SO attached to, and I never liked it, I just couldn't get myself to touch it. Kept it taped to the wall above my desk this whole time like a threat. Today I took it down and washed a wet cool grey straight across the whole top third. Just demolished the thing. The light coming through was too soft in it, I made the whole window look like a rental ad. It's better now, the afternoon hits it harder. And I'm sitting here weirdly emotional about it?? Which is insane because it's a piece of paper I own. But that's eight months of full-time work talking I guess. I keep waiting to feel like a Real Artist and instead I just feel like someone who finally stopped protecting a bad wash. Anyway, if you have a piece you keep "not finishing" because you know what it actually needs is a big scary irreversible move, this is your sign. Or don't, I'm not your mom.

Studio Life·Dani Okafor·1w

So I'm three hours into a wash on the big window piece (the 22x30 Arches, cold press, which I have decided is both my best friend and my enemy) and I've already ruined it once and restarted. So that's a grand total of maybe five hours of "work" and I have basically nothing to show for it and I'm trying really hard to be okay with that. Here's the thing nobody tells you when you go full time. I thought going pro meant I'd suddenly be able to sit down and produce for eight hours straight like a functioning adult. Instead I sit down, do forty minutes of real painting, then get up and reorganize my brushes and make tea and stare at the same corner of the paper for twenty minutes because I'm scared to put the next stroke down. The actual painting is maybe three hours of a seven hour day if I'm honest. The rest is dread and tea. But the dread is kind of where the painting happens?? Like, this morning I caught myself looking at the window light on the sill, that flat 11am grey we get here, and I stopped mid-panic because oh. That's the color. That's the grey I've been mixing wrong for two weeks. And I only noticed it because I'd been sitting there avoiding the paper for half an hour. So maybe the eight hours IS happening, it's just not the eight hours I thought it would be. My old painting teacher used to say the looking is the work and I always rolled my eyes at that and now I'm paying for it haha Anyway the wash is drying and I'm going to walk to get coffee and then probably ruin it again. Would love to know if anyone else here is secretly working a three hour day and pretending it's eight, because the guilt is real 😭

General·Dani Okafor·1w

ok so this is embarrassing but I sold a piece today and I'm pretty sure I undersold it by a lot. my mom's friend saw my window painting on facebook (the one I've done like six times now, the light comes through the blinds at this one angle around 4pm and I keep chasing it) and she messaged me asking if it was for sale. and I said yes without thinking and she asked how much and I literally typed "$40" and hit send before my brain caught up. it's 11x14 on 300lb cold press, that's like a whole sheet, and I sat with that wash for two hours waiting to see if the blue would do the thing. the thing is I know it's wrong, I'm full time now, I quit the café in March and I have rent, but the second someone actually wants to PAY me for the thing I make my whole body is like "oh no it's not that good, take whatever, just be nice about it." I did it at my first market too, sold a little gouache study for $15 because the guy went "oh nice" and I got nervous. my partner says I should make a price list and just send it and not type in the moment. which is smart. but also the moment is where I live apparently haha. idk, does anyone else have a number they're weirdly afraid to say out loud? bc I'll say the price of a coffee without flinching but the second it's my own work I turn into a golden retriever.

Gallery Outreach·Dani Okafor·1w

Mine: I got a reply to a cold email last spring (I do walk in first usually but this one was 4 hours away so email it was) and the woman was so lovely, wanted to set up a studio visit, and then two emails later casually mentions there's a $75 "curatorial review fee" to be considered. Haha nope. I googled them after and their last "show" was a group thing in a hotel conference room. I'm not precious about paying for things that are actually worth it (open call fees, sure, whatever, I get it) but a fee to be considered for representation? that's the tell for me. that and places whose whole instagram is reposted artwork with no wall shots anywhere. okay your turn, what's the thing that made you back out? or the thing you ignored and regretted. I want the ones that seemed fine at the time, those are the scary ones 🙂

Studio Life·Dani Okafor·1w

Ok so I'm painting the window again (the one in my apartment, the north-facing one, I've done it maybe nine times now and my partner has stopped asking why) and I've been fighting dry patches all week because I keep getting distracted and letting the paper dry unevenly. Anyway. I saw this tiny spray bottle at the pharmacy for like four dollars, the kind people decant perfume into, and now I just mist the paper before every wash and honestly the difference is absurd for the money. Mist, wait a beat, then lay the color in. That's it. The annoying thing is I know this is a thing people have been doing forever, like it's in every book, but I never did it because I thought I needed the fancy mister and the fancy paper and the whole setup. Turns out no. Four dollars. Also my desk is currently a disaster. Six dried-out pans I keep saying I'll re-wet, a mug from yesterday's tea, three color tests of the exact same grey-blue, and one mechanical pencil I've had since undergrad that I will genuinely grieve when it dies. What's the cheapest thing in your kit that ended up mattering way more than it should

Studio Life·Dani Okafor·1w

okay so the deal lately is i don't actually start painting until like 11pm and then i'm up until 2 and i keep telling my partner i'll fix it and i don't. the thing is, my apartment faces a light well, so between like 1 and 4 in the afternoon there's this stripe of sun that hits the windowsill and the wall behind it and it is genuinely the most beautiful thing in my life, and i've painted it maybe nine times, and i CANNOT paint it during the actual stripe because i'm too busy watching it and panicking about wasting it. so i paint it at night from memory and from bad phone photos and honestly? the night ones are better. they're looser. i'm not trying to get the exact angle of the shadow, i'm trying to get the feeling of having seen it, which is a different job and apparently my brain can only do it when it's dark out and everyone's asleep. the problem is my hands shake by 1am from no food and i've ruined two decent washes this week, and my mom keeps calling me at 8am for our normal chat and i keep answering like a zombie and she can hear it. anyway i'm not gonna change it. 😭 i've started eating dinner at 10:30 like a weirdo and keeping a glass of water on the floor next to the palette because i kept dipping my brush in my tea. the tea thing happened three times. three. if you're a night painter, what do you eat and when, because i think i'm running on vibes and half a banana at this point

Wins·Dani Okafor·2w

Small thing but I've been chasing this stupid window in my apartment since like March and today it actually did what I wanted. For anyone new: it's the west-facing one over the fire escape, the light comes in around 4pm and turns everything this gross beautiful orange and I've done it over and over trying to get the shadows to stop looking like mud. Gouache on hot press, 9x12, so there's basically no room to hide. I've been glazing the sill wrong this whole time, laying it too wet and letting it bloom, and this morning I just... didn't. Left it alone. Painted the shape once and walked away from it. Which for me is a huge deal because my whole problem is I keep going back in. Sitting here looking at it and it's not perfect but the chair leg is actually IN the light now instead of sitting on top of it, if that makes sense?? My partner came home and said "oh that's the good one" and I almost cried at the sink lol. Eight months of no café paycheck and THIS is what I'm celebrating, a chair leg. Anyway nobody in my family really gets why this is a big deal so I'm telling all of you instead.

Pricing·Dani Okafor·2w

ok so this is the thing that's been eating me all week and I need to say it somewhere. My cousin asked if I'd do a watercolor for her save-the-dates. Not a print, an ORIGINAL, one painting, and then she'd scan it and print however many she wanted. I said 40 dollars. Because she's family, because I panic-quote family, because I've been doing that since I was 19 and did my uncle's anniversary piece for a bottle of wine. It took me nine hours. TWO full evenings of layering washes so the olive branches didn't go muddy, plus the gouache accents on the lettering, plus two rounds of "can you make the green less green." Nine hours. Forty dollars. That's a bit under four and a half an hour, which, cool, great. And THEN. She posted it on facebook and told everyone her cousin does commissions "super cheap." And now my aunt is asking for one, and a friend of hers is asking for one, and I can feel the whole thing calcifying into my actual reputation. Like I've made myself into the discount. I set a number and now the number is me. The worst part is I can't even be mad at her, she was being sweet about it. I'm mad at myself. I have a real rate now, 38 an hour for commissions with a deposit up front, and I completely ignored it the second someone in my family asked. My partner says I need a flat number I say out loud instead of "oh whatever's fair" and I know they're right and I hate it. Anyway I'm painting the same window again this week because it doesn't ask me for a discount. Has anyone actually fixed this or do you just outlive it.

Gallery Outreach·Dani Okafor·2w

I need to hear actual stories because I'm stuck in the worst loop: I write a nice short email, attach three images, hit send, and then refresh my inbox like a maniac for six days. so for the people who've actually gotten in somewhere, how did it happen? cold email? walked in with a portfolio? open call? someone's cousin? mine: I got one real reply ever, from a small space two towns over, and honestly I think it was because I mentioned I'd seen their last show in person and said one specific thing about a piece I liked. that's it. that's my whole strategy so far, and it's not exactly a strategy. did any of you get in WITHOUT a connection? because I keep hearing "just know someone" and it's making me want to scream into a pillow. tell me your first yes, I need hope 🥲

Marketing & Social·Dani Okafor·2w

ok so this happened tuesday and I'm still weirdly annoyed about it. There's this watercolorist I've followed since like 2019, I have her book, I've basically studied her washes. She reposted one of my gouache pieces to her story. I sat there refreshing like a maniac. 40 new followers in two days, which is more than I usually get in a month, and I was SO sure this was it, this was the breakthrough, I'd finally have to figure out how to do a mailing list properly. Two people emailed me. One of them asked if I could paint a portrait of their dog for $60 because "it's just a small one." The other was a company asking if I'd do a free piece in exchange for exposure. Meanwhile the thing that's actually kept me fed since I quit the café is a 3-person email list (ok slight exaggeration, it's 91 people) where I send a photo of whatever's on the easel and a paragraph about how it's going, and I sell something almost every time. It's ugly and unglamorous and I keep trying to make it prettier than it needs to be. I think I've been chasing the wrong number this whole time and I don't totally know how to stop. Followers feel like a scoreboard. They're not. Anyway if you have a mailing list, what actually goes in it? Because mine is basically a group text at this point and I'm not sure if that's the secret or if I'm just getting lucky with 91 very patient people.

Pricing·Dani Okafor·2w

So I took a commission last month, a gouache portrait of this woman's dog, small, maybe 5x7, and I quoted her 320 and I felt SO confident about it in the message. Sent it, she said yes immediately, and I was like ok cool I'm a professional. Then it took me eleven days. Not eleven days of work, obviously, but eleven days of the thing sitting on my desk while I redid the left ear four times because the fur kept going muddy, which is a gouache problem I created for myself by underpainting too warm. Plus two full sessions just on the background because she wanted "the same green as her sofa" and I had one blurry phone photo of the sofa. And the framing, which I did myself because I'm cheap, and I chipped the corner and had to start the frame over. My partner asked, very gently, like genuinely curious, "so what's that work out to an hour" and I literally said "oh I don't really think about it that way" and went to go water a plant that does not need water. I do think about it that way. I think about it constantly. I've just decided that the number I'd get if I actually divided it is a number I'm not ready to see yet, and there's something kind of insane about that, right? Like I'll happily tell a stranger 320 with my whole chest but I won't do one division problem in my own kitchen. Anyway she loves it, she sent me a photo of it on the wall next to the actual dog, and I'm not saying I regret the price. I'm saying I quoted the version of me who paints fast and it got done by the version of me who repaints an ear four times. Still working out which one of those people should be setting prices.

Studio Life·Dani Okafor·2w

Okay so the tape. Not a fresh roll, the same four strips I've been reusing since like March, stuck to the edge of my glass palette so they don't lose their tack. My partner watched me peel one off this morning, press it back down, and just said "we have a whole drawer of that." We do. I know we do. The thing is these four strips have the exact right amount of stick left. New tape rips the paper when I lift it, old tape gives up halfway through a big wet wash and the whole sheet buckles and I have to sit there watching it curl like it's personally disappointed in me. So I keep them. They've got paint on them now, a reddish smear from that cadmium I use way too much of, and one corner is folded over from the day I was rushing to get the light on the window before it moved. I don't think this is a cute habit, I think it's probably a small problem and I'm telling on myself. But every time I go to grab a fresh strip I do the little satisfaction check first, tap the paper, and the used ones always win. Anyone else hoarding a supply that's technically garbage because the replacement behaves wrong? I need to know I'm not the only one with a tape problem, or honestly, I need someone to tell me to just use the new roll.

Gallery Outreach·Dani Okafor·2w

ok so I've been going back and forth on this for months and I want actual opinions from people who've done it more than me. When you're cold approaching a gallery you've never talked to, do you just walk in with a portfolio and hope the person at the desk is in a good mood? Or do you email first and wait three weeks for a reply that never comes? I did the walk-in thing once. Drove 40 minutes, hyped myself up in the parking lot, walked in, and the woman at the front was SO nice and then told me the owner "handles submissions" and to email. Which I did. Never heard back. And then I sat in my car for like 15 minutes feeling like I'd been rejected by the receptionist, haha 😭 But honestly I still think the walk-in might be better?? Because at least they've seen your face?? Or is that just me being naive and wasting gas money. Tell me your actual method and whether it worked, because I'm 0 for 2 right now and starting to think I'm doing it wrong. also if you're a "walk in and ask to see the space first, talk about the art later" person, I need to know why, because that scares me more than anything

Studio Life·Dani Okafor·2w

not a metaphor, an actual sneeze. full wet-in-wet sky, three hours in, going so well, and I sneezed and my hand jerked and there's a big wet blotch of cerulean off to the left where the sky should be clean. I just sat there holding the brush like an idiot. the thing about watercolor that nobody who calls it "soft" or "gentle" understands is that it does not forgive you. you can't paint over it. you can't scrape it back without destroying the paper. oil people get to change their mind. I get one shot and a sneeze can take it. it's less like painting and more like chess, you're always playing three moves ahead and one wrong thing and the whole wash is dead. anyway I'm not even mad about the sneeze, I'm mad that I knew better. I had a cold last week, I've been sneezing all morning, and I still set up a big graded wash instead of working on the little gouache studies I actually planned to do. I got greedy because the light through my window was doing something I've been chasing for like two months and I thought I could catch it before it moved. I did not catch it. I'm going to let it dry and see if it turns into anything. sometimes the accidents are the best part honestly, sometimes it's just trash and you start over. half the paper is still fine, I can crop it down to something small. does anyone else have a rule about not doing the risky thing when you're tired or sick or whatever? I keep making the same mistake and calling it instinct.

Gallery Outreach·Dani Okafor·2w

Okay so everyone talks about getting the yes and nobody talks about the part where they hand you the terms and you have to keep a straight face. I'll go first. Small place, second gallery that ever showed me, and I was so excited I would have signed anything. Then she says 40% and also "we'd like first look at everything you make for the next twelve months." I genuinely didn't know if that was normal. I said yes, went home, called my mom, cried a little, then emailed a friend who'd been showing for years and she was like "no. that's not normal. the first look thing especially." I went back and we renegotiated down and it was fine but oof, I felt so green. Now I want to know what yours looked like, because I think this is the thing that actually separates people who survive their first gallery from people who get chewed up: Was it a percentage? A deposit for the show? Framing costs? Exclusivity, a consignment split, a "we handle the pricing" line, a contract that was just a handshake, a contract that was fourteen pages? And the real question underneath it: did you push back, or did you sign? Because I signed first and negotiated second, and I'm still not sure if that was the mistake or just the cost of learning. Tell me I'm not the only one who had no idea what was normal.

Studio Life·Dani Okafor·2w

ok so the water heater in my building died on Tuesday and I'm painting with kettle water now and I swear it's changed my whole setup?? I have this tiny electric kettle that takes like four minutes to boil and I've started boiling it first thing when I walk in, before I even take my coat off, and then I just stand there waiting for it like an idiot and honestly those four minutes have turned into my actual warmup. I used to just run the tap room temp and go. Now I'm waiting and looking at the paper and thinking about the drawing before I even touch a brush and my first washes this week have been so much more decisive?? which is stupid, it should not take a dead water heater to make me slow down and think for three minutes. but also it's a real problem because the kettle only holds a liter and a half and I'm doing a big 22x30 sheet of the window (the one with the fire escape, I've painted it like nine times now) and I keep having to stop mid wash to go boil more and the paper starts drying at the edges and I get those hard lines I don't want and then I panic and try to lift them and gouge the surface. did that yesterday, tore a hole the size of a dime in the sky. almost cried. actually did a little. anyway. does anyone else have a setup that's held together by one stupid appliance? because I'm now weirdly attached to the kettle and considering buying a second one so I can have backup hot water and I need someone to tell me if that's insane or if this is just what studio life is