Pastel Pasta August 2026 Issue

04

a Dillicious Newsletter August 2026

Vol. 04

CONTENTS 02

NOT TALENTED, BUT PATIENT

04

FEATURED PAINTING OF THE MONTH

06

PORTRAITS AND SKETCHBOOKS

08

BAD ART GALLERY

10

THINGS MAY GET WEIRD

02

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S

uch talent. So very talented. Can you imagine having so much god-forsaken talent??

I get these compliments a lot when I present my art - mostly from my parents, sometimes from aunts and old teachers [facebook], occasionally by my friends or the stray passer-byer at an art market [being nice]. It’s a lovely compliment and I take it and I receive it. I do actually like my art or I wouldn’t be doing this. I hear such a compliment and I believe it in it’s sincerity, but at the same time I know the whole truth. I think it, silently, as I say my thank yous and how sweets to the giver. I think about how I’ve seen more than they have, about how I know more than they do. And the secret slimy silent truth I’ll be thinking is that I am not all that talented.

I’m working on it! I’m building muscle memory and sharpening skills and synthesising some kind of artistic voice and expression. It is in progress, but what I have here is not what I would call talent. I’d say the real practical gift at hand is patience to survive the process. I think good art is almost entirely about patience. It takes time and repetition and practice for a lesson to stick, for you not just to do, but to understand.

You have to make it through the ugly phase over and over again. You have to allow yourself to learn and be bad and get better… all too slowly.

details; messing up and wiping the canvas clean of the good and the bad to try again to get it exactly right. It’s so true what the people say when they say you have to trust the dang process. You have to push through some serious ugly and hope to come out the other side beautiful. It’s not for the soft-stomached.

I, world-famously, am learning as I go. This means I’m missing some pretty critical know-how on getting things right the first time. It means when I’m painting, I don’t know what I’m doing more than half of the time. The trick is I’m willing to stick it out until I’ve come to an agreement with myself and the piece. I’ll push and pull until we’ve taken this as far as it can go and I’m ready to apply what I’ve learned into the next one.

If I’m being honest (and I always am), I don’t yet make the kind of art I want to make. I don’t even actually know what that looks like just yet, but I know I’m getting closer.

I’m feeling steadfast in where I’m at and I’m pretty excited about the slow and painful process of getting there. Greatness will come with time and that is really cool to me.

And aside from the years it of getting good, simply making the good art is a slow goddamned motherfucking process too! Setting the foundation, building up layers and working in the fine

JULY 2026

03

Dan’s Fan City 8x10 inches, oil on canvas I pass this apparent ceiling fan shop very often - just like this, vibrant and standoutish against the black sky. There is something so charming about the simplicity of the name and the inventory, visible through the glass storefront. I bought tiny little brushes for getting into all of the intricate details and got to try a new-to-me technique of glazing (adding thin transparent layers of paint over a thoroughly dried piece).

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05

Drawing people I

’ve avoided it long enough, but it’s high time for me to learn to paint people. I paint cats and dogs and lizards and tires, but people are too easy to not get right. It can be literally offensive and embarrassing.

There’s also this legend among artists (so I’ve heard) that once a painter paints their love; captures their essence, they lose them.

So I’ve that to worry about as well (I think I’m good for now).

Quick review of my art education goes like this: self-taught, no schooling, rocky foundation with a life-long interest. When it comes to drawing people, I have no fundamentals drilled into me. I never learned the loomis

& Filling a sketchbook 06

PASTEL PASTA

method or the asaro method [or the skralpho or the dooby-do-do method] of accurately measuring out the proportions of a face. I’m attempting to learn now. Light and dark? That I can work with.

That is what I’m working with. It clicks a little easier for me.

One of the great things about actually trying to properly learn to draw is that I’m rapidly filling my sketchbook. That’s been a goal of mine for a while! Fill a sketchbook. I love a clean slate and I’m always tempted to prematurely move on to a fresh new sketchbook to start my new life as a perfect artist, but “studying” is killing that habit.

This is the very first spread in my sketchbook. It’s soft pastel and I like my use of blue and yellow for the light and cast shadow of the fabric. I wish the rest of the book looked this!

This is the last spread in my sketchbook... it’s a soft pastel of a hot french model that I’m deeply enammered with and, instead, it’s giving Jesus fell for the third time.

JULY 2026

07

Bad Art Gallery

Guys, I’ll be honest - this isn’t even the worst of it. This is the bad art I’m willing to share at this time. Being afraid of bad art can be crippling to your progress and so I like to highlight my bad art from the month to recontexturalize my fails as content I get to share, but I am only so brave...

My drawing skills are lacking, so I’m giving that realm some special attention lately. We’ve got Labubu, Tamino, hot french model and Soda - all from my sketchbook.

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JULY 2026

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10

PASTEL PASTA

JULY 2026

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“Aw, man. That’s it?”

More next month!