Taylor’s Website - https://humbyart.com/
What's your primary medium?
Watercolors and acrylic ink.
What made you choose that?
I painted with acrylic paints my whole life and then I stopped painting when I traveled and lived in Australia for a bit and then back to New Zealand and then to America eventually. So I stopped painting for a while and then one of my artist friends introduced me to inks and I experimented with those for a bit and then from there I jumped over to watercolors and I just really liked how they blended and all of the colors kind of came together to create sort of a galaxy effect which I kind of fell in love with.
What made you want to go for the galaxy effect?
I've always been interested in space. Some of my favorite classes have been physics. One of my favorite classes at Boise State was stars and cosmology that I took my freshman semester and experimenting with those inks seeing how they came together and how they replicated that space feel it just got my brain thinking how can I experiment more with this medium and incorporate something that I love.
So what made you think to do time-lapses?
I've always been interested in media production. I went to school for media production, I did a degree in media arts and I wanted to somehow blend my love for production with my painting. So one day I took out my phone I taped it to a little tripod that I had actually got a slab of wood and attached that to the tripod and then taped my phone to that wood so it was directly overhead my painting and then I just did a time-lapse on my phone and from there I experimented with a new camera I bought and then since then I've just been filming basically all my paintings.
How has the reception been for you online?
I was nervous at first because I was just posting them to my personal social media accounts and I'm the type of person that overthinks everything so I was worried that my friends and family would get annoyed so that's when I created the Humby Art accounts on Instagram and Facebook and all the other social medias out there. At first there wasn't really much of a reaction because it was kind of still just my friends following but eventually once I began posting these time-lapses that's when my engagement really picked up and I started getting a really positive response and growing a following online.
What's it been like going to school while keeping up with your art and post schedule for your social media?
That was really tricky because when I created these social media accounts to post my art I wasn't doing it to create what I have now I was just doing it because I didn't want to annoy my friends. And then once that kind of blew up I kind of felt pressure to keep my engagement up and keep growing my following but obviously studying full-time and then working as well it's kind of hard because I would have had to post every second day and I did for a very long time. I grew my following a lot but eventually I did get a little burnt out and this last semester my final semester of school I kind of stepped back and took a break for a little bit. It was hard to balance the two but I'm glad I did because it's given me what I have now but definitely I'm happy to be graduated and be able to focus on my art more and see where it goes from here.
What motivates you to keep creating?
That's kind of a tricky one right now because these past two years what’s motivated me has been seeing my following grow and seeing the reaction strangers have had to my art, seeing people be inspired by my art and wanting to recreate it. That's kind of what's made me keep going even though it's been so difficult with balancing everything in my life. Now that I have graduated I'm kind of trying to find some inspiration because that's what's driven me and I really don't want that to be driving me any more because I want to do art for me and not for strangers online if that makes sense. So I'm trying to find a balance between being able to grow my following still but in a way that makes me feel fulfilled and happy.
How do you handle any negativity you get online?
I find it pretty funny. I don't get that much negativity and to be fair I don't really read a lot of the comments, but it's always just a good laugh when I get a crazy comment. Like someone very recently on one of my Facebook videos posted like I'm never gonna get into the Tate because I need to spend more time painting and I can't create masterpieces if I paint in one minute. Which was kind of funny because obviously it's a sped up time-lapse and it wasn't a minute so those are the kind of comments that I get. They're just funny like they don't hurt at all because it's just it makes no sense. But even if there are really mean comments I just kind of brush them off because you can't please everyone.
Where do you find your inspiration?
I always wanted to be a cartoonist growing up so I've always loved drawing cartoons and before I even painted anything I was drawing when I was growing up. I don't think I ever even touched acrylic paints until I was maybe like 16. So with my watercolors I just thought would be cool to start incorporating cartoon drawings and they're some of my favorite pieces of work that I create but they're just kind of fun and for me I can't really sell them or anything because they’re copyrighted obviously but I get a real kick out of looking up an image and then going and drawing it freehand and then once I'm done like looking at the two and seeing how similar they are and it just makes me feel really proud. I don't know, I honestly don't know what inspired the diamonds because I've done a lot of diamonds. I think it was when I first started out I was doing a lot of landscape pieces and I wanted to find a way that was interesting and unique to kind of distinguish myself from all the other watercolor artists online. So I thought maybe if I incorporated some shapes it would make it a little bit more interesting and that's actually the first video that really blew up and started my following. It was a diamond painting of a night sky with trees all along the side, and from there I just really like the way it looked I honestly can't remember how I started doing it but since then no matter what I'm painting I'd say about like 50 percent of the time I just kind of incorporate a shape into it because I like the clean look of when I post to have the watercolor paper around and writing utensil or a pen or a paintbrush along the side.
How do you get the clean sharp lines on your paintings?
So that was something again that was kind of unintentional. I was just at Fred Meyer and I saw some masking tape and I thought why not experiment with that since I've been trying to do all these shapes. So it's literally just scotch masking tape and I just draw out my diamonds or any of my shapes or anything that I want masked and then I lay down the tape and it just stops the paint from bleeding and creates those really sharp lines.
So that leaf, is it done with masking tape too?
No. That's just me focusing really hard.
Do you have a job outside of art?
I just graduated so right now I'm on the job front looking for a job but the whole time that I've been doing this I've been studying full-time, I've been working at the Arbiter as a digital content manager, so I've been out taking photos and videos for all of their stories. Then on top of that until about like four months ago since 2015 I've also been a cake decorator at Ben & Jerry's. So this became my main source of income I would say, but for my whole time in college I was working a lot so it wasn't my only source.
So are you able to make enough to live off your art?
Not right now because with this last semester of me taking a step back my engagement has gone down. I'm already making plans to put a lot more time into my art and get my engagement back up so I can start selling more art and working with more brands and get to a point again where it will be my main source of income. But I am a really team oriented person and working with people who inspire me and push me to grow, so this type of work for now even if it was something that was sustainable I still want to look for a job where I'm working with people because this is really isolating.
What does it mean for you to create art?
It just makes me really really proud when I can get a blank piece of paper, tape it down and then within half-an-hour create a scene. Whether that's a night sky or any type of landscape or some type of cartoon with a cosmic influence. It just makes me really proud that I can do that. It just makes me happy. I don't know why, ever since I was a kid I can't explain it, just drawing and painting makes me happy.
Do you think you’ll ever stop creating art?
No. I don't think so. It's something that I can and have stepped away from for a few years and I know if that happens again like I'll just as easily be able to step back into.
Can you describe your process?
When I'm going about my day I usually come up with ideas that I want to paint and I write them down on my phone in the Notes app. Then when I sit down to paint usually, in my prime every second day, I want to be throwing content out there. So I paint usually every second day. I'll sit down sometimes I have a really good idea that's been on my mind that I just immediately go for, but if I don't really have anything that I'm excited or already know that I want to paint I'll open up my Notes app and go through all of my ideas that I’ve written down and usually that works I'll just find something and get excited about that and then I'll sit down and paint it. Painting usually takes me anywhere from half an hour to an hour and a half I'd say. But that's mainly because of all my other time restrictions with school and work so now that I've graduated I'm hoping that I'll be able to spend a lot more time on paintings because before I've had to fit it in so I usually paint on a really small scale that allows me to paint in 30 minutes to an hour and a half. Once I'm done painting I go ahead and, like I mentioned I film all of my paintings at the same time, so I'll take the memory card out and sit down almost immediately and edit up that video and then once that's done I have a specific time I like to post. And then that's kind of it. Sometimes I'll post the artwork that I've done up for sale on Etsy sometimes it's a commissioned piece, but sometimes it's just for me.
Have you looked at any of the Boise Artist opportunities available?
I've dabbled a little bit, I had an exhibition at JUMP. My art was shown at Goldie's cafe for a good year. But again with school I just got so busy, so now that I'm a little bit more free I'm definitely excited to look at all the exciting art opportunities there are in Boise.