Over the last month I’ve had some chronic pain stuff, relationship navigating, seasonal allergies kicking in, and early planning stages for a show I’m co-curating that will open at the end of this year. I’m learning more and more how to follow my flow, allow my personal life to blend with my art practice as needed, and ignore the programming I received to separate productivity from everyday life happenings. I am one person, and I affect my art entirely.
I just wrote a blog post with life and art practice updates. I’d love it if you read it and signed up to get my monthly newsletters. I know there’s folks out there who follow my art that I’ve never gotten to interact with, so if that’s you, I’d love to hear from you. Slides:
1. “Goat Skull with Ladybugs”, oil on panel, 8”x6”.
2. Oil on canvas works in progress.
3. My artwork hung in the @base.camp.studios “Modern American Masculinity” show.
4. First plein air of the season in the Washington Park Arboretum. I forgot my white tube of paint. 🤦♂️
5. Cold plunge during the one snowy day we got this year in mid-March.
6. It’s SPRING.
7. The best roach.
#alainaarts #artpracticeupdate #skullpainting #pleinair #modernamericanmasculinity
"Real men eat meat", or so they say. Red meat, specifically, has been associated with the "red-blooded American male" masculinity stereotype, providing a stark example of societal gender dynamics. Men grill, not cook. Men treat their business associates to dinners where they order their steaks bloody to prove their power within the animal kingdom.
I am a woman who prefers people with squishy vulnerabilities and doesn't eat red meat. I use this lens to paint the beautiful proteins and marbling, inviting viewers to honor or be disgusted by the sacrifices present in each piece of meat.
These four pieces of mine will be in @base.camp.studios 2 show “Modern American Masculinity”, opening Friday April 10th 6-9 during the @belltownartwalk . I am excited to see how this group show collaboratively re-envisions masculinity in this day and age.
#alainaarts #basecampstudios2 #modernamericanmasculinity #redmeat #meatpainting
I have finished several more paintings in the vein of meat/body. I feel like I have, for the first time in this phase of my career, a portfolio of works that I feel comfortable labeling a cohesive series. Since this recent “Electric Meat” phase of painting has felt like a break-through, I think it’s time to define and document for myself what exactly that can mean for me: 1. I have accomplished a longer-term goal to a personally-satisfying extent, and the results of this accomplishment have informed and shifted the trajectory of my explorations. OR 2. I have discovered something unexpected within my practice that taps a rich creative vein. Both meanings acknowledge the need for that “creative lightning bolt” to strike.
Check out my latest blog post for lots more on this topic. Slides:
1. “Templum Carnis”, 18”x14”, 2026, oil on canvas.
2. “Cheese Moth”, 7”x5”, 2026, oil on panel-mounted canvas.
3. “Spill”, 7”x5”, 2026, oil on panel-mounted canvas.
4. Recently-finished pieces hung together.
5. Sketchbook page of meat done in pen and acrylic.
#alainaarts #oilpaint #meatbody #electricmeat #meatpainting
On a good day, I am able to see this beautiful life I’ve built for myself as evidence of a strong person who used a combination of luck, support from loved ones, overcoming challenges, and emotional work to get me here - to a place where I am genuinely happy with who I am. On a bad day, however, I believe in my weakness. Especially while dealing with chronic pain or the feeling of helplessness surrounding world events.
I have an obsession with being “capable”. I want to know how to do things: use tools, lift heavy objects, excel at recreational fitness, serve my community, solve problems, and create impactful art. I have been chasing this feeling of capability so hard with few systems in place to benchmark my accomplishments and celebrate my wins.
Above is a bit from my most recent blog post. You know where to find the rest of it. Slides:
1. "“Butter Fly”, 7”x5”, oil on panel-mounted canvas, 2026.
2. “Meat Sit”, 5”x7”, oil on panel-mounted canvas, 2026.
3. “Washington Beef”, 12”x12”, oil on canvas, 2026.
#alainaarts #oilpaint #figurepainting #foodart #meatart
I am narrowing in on my favorite ways of making things. Experimental needn’t be the enemy of consistency, and the more methods, colors, styles, and concepts I find that interest me, the more ability I have to execute my ideas. My tests of the Zorn color palette (ivory black, titanium white, cadmium red, and yellow ochre) prompted the first two slides: “Beef Chuck” and “Knee Meat”, both oil on panel-mounted canvas. Plus the third slide, which is a figure study on panel. “Face Meat” is the fourth slide, done in acrylic on canvas. As you can tell, fascination with figure and meat has dominated my practice lately.
Please check out the full blog post I wrote on this topic of putting together a toolkit including technical skill, materials, connection, and motivation. It gets real nerdy.
#alainaarts #zorncolorpalette #oilpaint
I’ve titled the first three in this new series “Butcher Box”, because I referenced some images from @beastandcleaver in their creation. The fourth is called “Moonflow” after the book by @bitterkarella that I listened to while painting it. What an unhinged and awesome novel.
Lately I have been doing my best to wrap gentle arms around each far-flung activity within the spectrum of my art interests and nudge them towards each other in conversation. In effort to synthesize my investigations and tell a more accurate story of my current interests, I have documented my latest pieces and reworked my website a bit. In my opinion it doesn’t yet tell the cohesive story I will strive for when seeking gallery representation, but I am happy with its in-between state. Plus, it means my portfolio is up to date for submission with applications to upcoming residencies and grants.
#meatpainting #skullpainting #acrylicpaint #meatart #landscape
I have been doing just about one figure study a day for a month now, which has been a fantastic exercise and a great way to ground me in painting even when I don’t have the time or desire to spend a full day in my studio. Here’s a bunch of them done in a variety of media: oil, acrylic, watercolor, pencil, and pen.
Signing up to get my newsletter (link in bio) is the best way to see what I’ve been working on lately, and I’m pretty proud of my writing. In my November blog post I wrote about what it was like to run the nonprofit Living Artists Collective for 4 years. The December post that just went out a couple days ago is about learning what it means to rest with the seasons while maintaining an active artistic practice.
I do my best to share once a month or so here, but I’ve found that it’s very hard for me to stay on top of my mental health when I devote hours to crafting social media content. With the minimal engagement I get, it very quickly leads to disappointment and lack of motivation. I don’t yet have a solution for how to build up internet support for my work, but since beginning this newsletter journey I’ve been learning slowly that maybe it doesn’t matter so much. The next right thing will come in time. Most important now is coming up with ideas and making work.
#alainaarts #figurestudy #figurepainting #figuredrawing #drawingfromlife #acrylicpaint #watercolorpaint #oilpaint #studiopractice #artistnewsletter
I’m so excited to share these photos (@allinadayswork_photo ) taken during our @walkdontrun_sea performance of Dissolve in September. I love movement so much, and the static reality of how visual art is displayed often doesn’t allow for the raw expression available to an emotive live performance. @estherloopstrastudio and I spent the first 30 minutes painting and drawing on the fabric covering the backdrop, couch, and dancers @niaaminam and @allyalliot themselves. As the dancers moved we covered fresh spots, mingling new marks with pre-painted elements. I really enjoyed taking inventory of the space around each of our bodies, drawing a charcoal line around a dancer’s head as they lay on a pillow, then covering the spot where they were moments before in a stroke of fresh paint.
Esther and I exited once our 30 minutes elapsed, and the dancers transitioned into movement choreographed by @alanaorogersdance . They swept throughout the set and piled all over each other, creating a domestic scene of two people dependent upon one another and trying to make it work in difficult times. I found my own life experiences reflected starkly in the ups and downs: one minute shifting to dodge bids for attention, the next having goofy pillow fights and pinning each other to the couch.
Even though I knew it was coming, I began crying when they started to tear down the backdrop and fabric covering the cushions around them. They exhausted themselves ripping it into tiny swatches, and it broke my heart a bit (in a cathartic way) to see our “precious” visual art treated as such. Like its destruction was a tool for the couple to reach the next stage of their relationship. It made me think of how long people will live together in a relationship that’s actively crumbling down around them, the thought of losing each other a much more painful reality to face than accepting how miserable they make each other.
Or maybe I’m projecting. But I think good art is what you need it to be.
I pulled ^this^ from my latest blog post, where you can also find a link to the full performance video (Tony Granito).
#alainaarts #performanceart #livepainting #dance #collaboration #walkdont
The experiences I’ve had in the last several months have informed my latest fascinations with the human body, meat, and our physical environments. My sketchbook is god lately, and I haven’t touched my oil paints in over a month. It’s weird what a short chunk of time can do to my art practice, and I am cautiously excited about this current iteration. I have been painting almost every day, outside plein air or hunched over my desk scribbling, letting feelings, images, and words filter through me.
Check out my newest blog post for way more updates. I will post some more here soon as I couldn’t find a way to fit everything I’ve been up to into one Instagram post! Slides:
1. Denver steak in my sketchbook, the acrylic palette I used.
2. Flash butterflies, painted referencing a swatch of fabric and some photos I took at the Woodland Park Zoo.
3. Cake acrylic painting with some drawn skulls. Original cake I photographed was made by Claire.
4. “Butter-fly”.
5. Thinking about the meat/body connection.
6. Plein air in Piper’s Orchard late September.
7. Plein air at Kingfisher Natural Area last week.
8. Me and @hi.its.bre who got married at the end of September. Congrats, my sweet friend.
9. “The House in Green”, my piece in @telephone_community , the latest of which was launched recently. Check out their beautiful website to see the full thread my work is a part of. You can search my name… or just click around until you find me. 😁
#alainaarts #acrylicpainting #meatpainting #meatbody #denversteak #pleinair #paintoutside #cakepainting #sketchbook #butter #dragonfly #telephonegame #pipersorchard
I just returned from @cuttyhunk_artists residency in Massachusetts. What a whirlwind of a beautiful and challenging experience! The island was a plein air playground for us artists, and a great inspiration with its magical sunrises, perfect weather, and wide open views of the horizon. Despite lots of social anxiety I managed to be brave, and I had some truly wonderful conversations that led to amazing connections. Our cohort was made up entirely of painters, and it was a huge gift to be around people who think so much like me. Thank you to residency directors @tamalinsoleil and @mer_like , plus all the staff, visiting artists, and my fellow artists in residence. I learned so much from you all during this experience. It was such a gift. You can read more about my experience in my latest blog post.
See you Seattle area folks at @walkdontrun_sea tomorrow, September 20th. My piece with Alana, Esther, Nia, and Ally titled “Dissolve” is at the 2+U building plaza square from 1:30-2:45. Free tickets are available in the WDR bio. Slides:
1. Plein air painting on a Cuttyhunk Island beach.
2. Me and my fellow artists.
3. Sunrise from the Avalon Inn porch.
4. Meat paintings in acrylic I did while at Cuttyhunk.
5. Another meat painting with a squirrel skull.
6. Butter painting.
7. Outdoor studios at the Avalon.
8. Esther and me finishing prep for WDR.
9. Me.
#alainaarts #artistresidency #cuttyhunk #ciar #acrylicpainting #pleinair #pleinairpainting #walkdontrun #seattleartwalk #dissolve
My life lately has been busy busy busy. I am grateful that summer is swiftly wrapping up, and that I can see a slower autumn pace in the distance. But I have to get through September in order for that to kick in. This month I’m heading to Cuttyhunk Artist Residency in Massachusetts, performing in Walk Don’t Run @walkdontrun_sea on the 20th (tickets are free!) alongside @alanaorogersdance and @estherloopstrastudio , then heading to my good friend Breanna’s wedding in Arizona.
My latest blog post reflects on selflessness and selfishness, and how important it is to take my devotion to my artistic practice and creative flow seriously. Slides:
1. Watercolor sketches from my recent stay on Orcas Island.
2. Beach in Eastsound on Orcas Island.
3. Turtleback Mountain hike.
4. Coyote skull with tomatoes painted with acrylic.
5. August sketchbook entry.
6. Walk Don’t Run promo.
7. Testing for our WDR piece’s visuals.
8. Another sketchbook entry.
9. Hollyhock flowers painted with acrylic.
#alainaarts #newsletter #substack #watercolor #sketchbook #acrylicpainting #walkdontrun #orcasisland #skullpainting
I have been processing my life lately through poetry, journaling, and play. There are so many inspiring and lovely things happening, and I’m grateful that my art is a safe place to be free. It helps me grapple with impermanence, joy juxtaposed against bleak societal landscapes, and the perpetual feeling of “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. Because I can’t possibly be allowed this amount of happiness, right? Check out my latest blog post for a full update on my life and art.
Slides:
1. Yellow tulips piece in progress with paint palette.
2. Yellow tulips detail shot.
3. “The Other Shoe” poem, July 2025.
4. “Lucky Bones” poem, July 2025.
5. I made some new sketchbooks with different types of paper mixed in.
6. Playing on watercolor paper at Silver Springs Campground and on the Fremont Lookout hike at Mt Rainier.
7. Me returning to our campsite from painting by the White River.
8. Yev and me at the lookout.
9. Lore, Zoey, and me at the hot rat summer mosaic in Cal Anderson Park.
10. Birthday dinner at Sophon.
#alainaarts #newsletter #substack #tulips #oilpaint #tulippainting #fleurdelis #poetry #mtrainier #watercolor #sketchbook
