Short answer: Yes, I pay taxes on everything I earn… such is life. I keep track of expenses vs. income all year, and have more knowledgable people assist me with the actual tax paperwork.

Long answer that is still short because someone already explained this better than I could: Read this very helpful Taxes for Freelancers guide by illustrator Kali Ciesemier!

Oh my gosh! That’s totally absurd that you haven’t received your shirt yet. That’s definitely not normal - I would open a help ticket with Threadless ASAP! I’m sure they’ll send the shirt out right away, or at worst give you a full refund (plus some store credit for your trouble maybe.)

However, I’m going to take this opportunity to state once and for all (since I occasionally get messages like this) that I personally have absolutely nothing to do with orders made on any website except alicexz.com. I have nothing to do with Threadless or Society6 products, so even if you bought something with my design on it, it’s not coming directly from me - I don’t know where your order is, I don’t know how long it will take to ship, I don’t know when a product will be restocked. These companies keep the majority of the profits from my art BECAUSE they do all the work involved with customer service, distribution, shipping, etc. so that I, the artist, don’t have to. So just letting ya’ll know that while I don’t mind if you send me a polite message inquiring about your order, there’s not much point in doing so because I can’t do anything but be indignant on your behalf and advise you to contact the company directly.

Sorry and hope you guys understand! Thank you to all of you who bother to purchase my prints and products - I really appreciate your support. :)

Here’s the thing, which might be surprising… I never let myself “commit” a ton of time to an artwork unless I can already see the end result in my head. When I commit a long time to a painting, it means that there’s already a certain way I imagine the piece to look and only x amount of hours put into it will achieve what I want. If you have really good, well-thought-out vision and plenty of references and/or research to back it up, the hours of rendering work should come naturally.

Remember - time spent doesn’t automatically equate to great art. The danger of spending too much time on something is getting too attached to an idea, making you blind to any flaws; a poor initial composition is still just going to end up a well-rendered but poorly composed piece, and you won’t be able to start clean because you’ll think “I’ve spent too long on this to let it go.” Further, it’s much, much harder to take criticism on something you pour too many hours into.

I am in no way saying that being dedicated can’t lead to great results. Plenty of artists create only very involved and time-consuming pieces, and it’s amazingly admirable of them. But if that’s just not your thing right now, you shouldn’t feel bad about it! If you’re like me (short attention span!), mentally telling yourself “I have to spend a million hours on this piece! It’s gotta be BIG!” is a sure way to get discouraged and impatient unless you are incredibly enthusiastic about the idea. Don’t feel like you have to spend a ton of time in order to post it on your artblog. Listen to people’s feedback, look at inspirational work, and collect reference photos. Sketches, studies, and idle doodles are just as important, if not more important, than an artist’s “big pieces.” Each one will nurture your skills and make you more confident for the next piece, until one day you’ll have spent double, triple the time you normally spend and you won’t have even noticed!

For everyone who asked about that silly doodle!!! HERE IT IS free shipping until tonight too…!

Yes, it’s fine with me, because it’s for personal use. I put my art online for people to enjoy and it doesn’t matter to me whether they enjoy it on a computer screen or somehow make themselves a physical copy. The reason people buy prints of my art at all is because obviously the quality would much, much better than a print out from a web resolution JPG. But there’s no way I could or would stop people from printing my art for non-commercial use. So go ahead! Print them out and eat them for all I care.

And thanks for your support. The Roar of Our Stars might be available as an open-edition poster in the future but I’m still working things out with the company that’ll be doing it.

Of course! I’m okay with any sharing for the sake of sharing or non-commercial use of any of my artworks. That’s what I put them online for! Go crazy.

I also don’t care if you print out my drawings to decorate your room or whatever (another anon asked about this); I understand not everyone can afford prints and sometimes I don’t sell prints of whatever crappy doodle (like the ecards) so yes again, any personal usage of my art is fine.

It’s only when people deliberately don’t credit me and go out of their way to photoshop out my signature that makes me very sad. :( It seems to happen a lot with those ecards in particular which is why I put some snarky watermarks on my latest ones.

Hey guys, you never, ever have to ask me for permission for personal usage of my artwork - like saving them to your computer or phone, whether just to keep, or to make an avatar out, or to set as your wallpaper, or even printing out to decorate your room - I don’t mind, it’s nice and flattering and it’s what I’m here for. Any non-profit usage of my art is fine.

I also get a lot of people asking if they can copy/imitate my art for learning purposes, like as color studies or brush studies, I don’t know. I’m okay with this too, as long as your intentions are purely educational.

Y’know, I’m just going to answer another common inquiry while I’m here. Yes, you can use my art as a tattoo design (it’s very flattering that you’d want to, please think it through though, lol. And send me a picture when you’re done!)

Really, the only thing that ISN’T okay is claiming you created my artwork when you clearly didn’t, and/or selling it for your own profit. That’s just silly.

01. I’ve been doing art all my life, but only started digital painting maybe two to three years ago.
02. I graduated last summer from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), which is the “best” art college in the US, but I didn’t enjoy it all that much. Still, I suppose it was a good experience to have gone through in the end, and the diploma is quite satisfying to have!
03. I don’t know if I’m “naturally gifted”… D: practice is very important too!
04. I do do art for a living, but my job is more commercial design related, and digital painting so far is just a hobby. I hope some day to have a job that’s purely painting!

The key to painting quickly and “easily” is to not really worry about the end result and to always imagine the big picture. A big stumbling block for people who first starting out painting is to zero-in on one section of the piece (for example, the eyes in a portrait, which are fun to draw), when you should really always be looking at the WHOLE piece. It took me awhile to figure this out too! I’ve learned to always start with a quick sketch(es), then block in big sections of color and shading without worrying about details initially. Think of painting as slowly bringing a photo into focus - once you have the general idea down, the details just follow naturally.

I hope that helped somewhat!