Tag: artist

Nikki Page, the artist

About Me, Adopted, Adoption, Bookworms, Family, Gratitude, Life, My Thoughts, Thank You!

Just a little blurb on me:

Born and raised in Northern California, Nikki Page is a self-taught artist who believes in celebrating all the little things in life and spreading magic wherever she goes. Adopted at birth, “Page” is for her biological mother who loved unconditionally and so selflessly; she gets the blame for Nikki’s overactive imagination and quirkiness. “Nikki” is for the family who raised her, nicknamed her “Picky-Nikki”, and indulged her overactive imagination, creativity, and curiosity with unlimited books, comics, music, and play! Nikki Page continues living a blessed life with a wonderful, loving husband, two purrfect furbabies, a fun, rewarding job, and lots and lots of books in Chico, California.

Flowers

About Me, art, Flowers, Life, My Thoughts, Nature, painting

Rose Petal Painting Trial 2

Why specifically flowers? Because they are enchanting all on their own. They are simple, colorful, soft, delicate, and strong all at the same time. Components that separately amount to nothing extraordinary but together create a masterpiece, a perfect combination that only nature could put together.

Flowers are stunning and perfect regardless of their imperfections. One torn petal doesn’t cause the whole flower to wilt and die, no, the flower continues to strive and grow. No imperfection will deter it from being a beautiful flower, it remains true to itself.

It is because of this that I love working with flowers. I want to embrace the idea that even with imperfections, I am still worthy. Yes, like the flower I want to continue to grow and strive to be better, to be the best “me” I can be but even at this moment, I am good enough.

Be Authentic. Be Unique. Be You.

As always, thank you for reading. I would love to hear from you so feel free to contact me or comment below. And if you would like to support this blog and/or my paintings please become my patron.

What Does it Mean?!

About Me, art, Mental Health, My Thoughts, painting

Glitter Trial 2My artwork is colorful, random, glittery, loud, sparkly, quirky, and all around playful, very much like myself. With my favorite artists being Lisa Frank, Betsey Johnson, Amy Brown, and Josephine Wall, I’m hoping my art is just as fun as theirs. But what does it mean? Why am I spending all this time painting, throwing colors around, tearing petals off flowers, getting glitter literally everywhere?

I have several reasons, I’ll explore one of them for now…

First off, reality check: the world is a shitty place; life is not a bouquet of flowers, as I’m sure you know. There is so, so, so much suffering on this planet; there wouldn’t ever be enough time or space available to write down all the things that break my heart. From animal abuse, infanticide, shoot shootings, rape, starvation, human trafficking, homicide, global warming, war, torture, pollution, extinction, there is just so much ugly and bad here. All these things cross my mind frequently but thankfully not constantly, I don’t think I could survive that. But with all these bad and ugly things, there is just as much hope, love, and beauty.

I truly believe that everything has balance. As much love and joy a child brings to their parents, they also bring an equal amount of stress and heartache. With me having bipolar disorder, my ups and downs will always be equal to each other, just on the opposite spectrum. And with the world, there is an equal amount of good to the bad.

Ultimately, I want to bring more good and beauty to the world with my paintings. It is a small contribution in the scheme of things but I hope it inspires others to also create something with love, even if it lasts only for 1 second, that second matters. Perhaps one day all these little lights will add up and the good in this world will outweigh the bad…

Be Authentic. Be Unique. Be You.

As always, thank you for reading. I would love to hear from you so feel free to contact me or comment below. And if you would like to support this blog and/or my paintings please become my patron.

The Dream…

About Me, art, My Thoughts, painting

Watercolor Petal Painting Trial 3So if you have been following along, totally okay if you haven’t, I’ve mentioned “the dream” a few times… And no, I’m not talking about a dream as in a goal, like “I dream of becoming a Hollywood star”, no I’m talking about the weird BS that your brain puts together. Yeah, that weird crap that Freud claimed was your subconscious telling you very important secret things about yourself and your “true” feelings.

Well, yeah, my strange, hidden self has informed me that I am a painter. And no, not like “I paint as a hobby in my spare time.” Nope my dreams have been about me being a professional artist, being able to pay bills and have a career with paint and my imagination. The reason why this like makes no sense to me and why I’m totally weirded out by it is that up until now, I haven’t painted since like forever, probably sometime in middle school.

Regardless, these dreams have been persistent for the last few months. I wake up in the middle of the night from a dream about a different painting technique or concept and cannot go back to sleep for the life of me. Instead I lay there and play the dream over in my head. I think about different ways I can execute the idea, various mediums I could use, how particular elements can be changed to evolve it. Kinda annoying really… I literally feel compelled to get up and paint in the middle of the night. Mind you, I have a day job that starts at 7am so painting at 3am isn’t the best idea since I work with the public and I get cranky without enough sleep.

I have noticed that I sleep better when I have painted during the day so obviously the only thing to do is to paint and see where it takes me! At the very least, I will be back to sleeping during the night. 🙂

Be Authentic. Be Unique. Be You.

As always, thank you for reading. I would love to hear from you so feel free to contact me or comment below. And if you would like to support this blog and/or my paintings please become my patron.

The Artsy Kid

About Me, art, Crafts, painting

I’ve always been an artsy kid, always considered myself to be very creative and imaginative. I remember my art teachers wanting me to spend my lunch breaks in their rooms to continue making more art. I would be given an idea and I would run with it, taking a simple assignment and making it into something original and unique. We were told to draw a city skyline, everyone drew houses and skyscrapers; I had globes, triangular and hovering buildings: a city on an alien planet.

Throughout junior high and high school I drew a lot, mostly my favorite comic book characters (Jean Grey/Phoenix, Sailor Moon, Rogue, Lady Death). I knew I wasn’t the best and so I tried my hand at designing beautiful and unique dresses but I refused to learn to sew (sewing machines are terrifying!). So I slowly gave up my dreams of being a comic book artist and realized that if I believed the sewing machine was gonna eat me, I probably wouldn’t make it as a fashion designer either. Giving up on these, I threw myself into being a teenager, working part-time, studying, hanging out with friends, partying, and dating. The only artistic outlet I used then was in my ceramics class and again, I had creative, original, and unique ideas that I was able to execute well.

Fast forward to college and I was doing nothing artistic! I took no art classes in college and I mostly stuck to books and video games in my free-time when I wasn’t studying. Looking back, I’m surprised I survived without doing arts and crafts, I find them so essential now that without a creative outlet I feel… empty? Yes, empty would be the best word to describe it. It is like a form of depression like I’m missing a part of myself.

Thankfully since graduating college, I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to art again, specifically crafts. I began making cards for coworkers for every holiday, big and small and eventually increased to making the cards for family members as well. I taught myself to sew (by hand, I’m still afraid of the sewing machine) and have made Christmas stockings and little hand-sewn creations. I learned needle felting and have stabbed myself so many times making little critters! Also, I have been trying to teach myself crochet but I swear yarn doesn’t like me, I just end up playing with it with my cats. But give me play-doh and I will make you a zoo of animals! Give me materials and a theme and I can make something different and uniquely Nikki.

Regardless of my history with my arts and crafts, painting has not been something I have done a lot of. And yet, I plan on becoming an accomplished painter.

So how did all this painting madness begin? With a dream…

Be Authentic. Be Unique. Be You.

As always, thank you for reading. I would love to hear from you so feel free to contact me or comment below. And if you would like to support this blog and/or my paintings please become my patron.