Here’s a 5 minute video of me painting part of the Fire Dancer painting. I’m planning another livestream for Sunday at 10am PST. Let me know if you enjoy this and make sure to mark your calendars!
Tag: video
Shh… This is only for you.
The first order of business is to tell about the winner for contest. My mother ended up the winner. Aren’t parents wonderful? She chose this painting as her favorite and the one she wanted as the free art print. She said in her post that this one reminded her of all the times I sat by the window to watch the rain. It’s true I do love watching the rain, and I love a good thunderstorm. So I hope you enjoy your print Mommy! I love you!

I have one more thing to share with you. You may have heard of the Patreon page I created, but I thought I’d give you a little tour so you know what you’d be getting.
If you’re not familiar with Patreon, the basic premise is that you give a certain amount (the lowest one is just $2!!!) each month, and for that contribution, you can get different rewards such as reference photos, photos of my layering process, 10% off any store item, monthly postcards with a new artwork of mine, full length painting videos, and wallpapers of my artwork that fit a standard computer screen. You can choose the level you want and how much you pay. So go check it out and comment below once you’ve done that!
I’m also close to being done with my current art series. Who’s excited for that? I know I am. If you have thoughts on the pieces I’ve completed so far, leave that in the comments too. I love hearing from you!
Hopefully you have a wonderful day and I’ll talk to you later!
Deleting Old Blog Posts, Videos, Etc.
I know many of you, especially those of you who have been creating content for a long time, have some not not so wonderful old content that you’d like to get rid of. However, it may not be in you best interest. Unless you’ve done a change in direction, that content is probably helpful. Here’s why.
- You may be deleting content that shows up well in search. We all create content for people to find us. So why delete something that helps you with that goal?
- People who follow you may actually like the volume of content that they can lost in. When you have a large amount of content, this helps people to get to know you, and become familiar with you, which helps with your ultimate goal: getting your product into their hands.
- Your crappy stuff is inspirational. Yes, the person who wants to blog or make videos, can look at your earlier stuff and say, “oh, if they started out that way, I can do it.” Doesn’t that make you feel a little better?
Now, I’m not saying you absolutely shouldn’t delete ANYTHING. If there’s something that’s just too horrible than fine, but maybe just reorganizing your website so that all the new shiny stuff is front and center.
Have any of you had experience deleting old content? Was it helpful or not? Leave a comment below.
Other Topics That Might Interest You:
https://shalevbasya.wordpress.com/2016/03/10/what-to-say-when-your-art-isnt-real/
https://shalevbasya.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/thoughts-on-beginning-artist-books/
https://shalevbasya.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/want-to-improve-your-work/
https://shalevbasya.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/multiple-art-incomes-2/
https://shalevbasya.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/donating-art-to-charity/
Piano Rose
This paper was much easier to work on. I was able to get much more layers with this paper. I think I need to get a board that I can tape my work down to though. I actually found that I liked using the blocks right on the paper more that I did on my other pieces. I think having the stiffer brushes helped. I was able to get rid of the grit normally left over. They are a soft synthetic, but they’re still stiffer than my natural hair watercolor brushes.
Since I play the piano I enjoyed painting this piece. I actually love the black keys in this painting, which is funny since they’re not really perfect, but for some reason, they’re my favorite part of this painting.
This piece is now available here and the full slowed down version of the video is available here.

Other Paintings You Might Enjoy:
Layered Twist with Tails
This one is a little more complicated than the last one I did, but I still think it’s easy enough. Of course I’m comfortable tying scarves and have lots of practice. I like to have something hanging down, but I don’t like it to be super long. So this one is nice, and these scarves are sparkly!
Don’t forget to send pictures if you try it out! You can also tweet them to me at @shalevbasya.
Other Scarf Tying Videos:
Sleepy Kitty
I finished up this one this morning. I may be a little slow on things for a while right now because of all the Jewish holidays, but I’ll get out what I can. I wanted to do another mixed coffee and tea painting. I think I need a heavier weight paper. Hopefully once I figure out which paper I like from the samples Blick sent me, I can get some 300 lbs paper. Maybe that will work better for my initial washes. The 140 seems to work fine for watercolor, but not so much for doing washes in coffee and tea.
This one is now available here, and the full length video is available on my Patreon page.

Other Paintings You Might Enjoy:
Rosh Hashana
Well, I’m still figuring out the inktense. I’m not sure I like my current paper for the inktense. Luckily I have some papers to test out from Blick. I thew in some gold and silver leafing just for fun. I’ll be busy with Rosh Hashana for a while. Those of you celebrating Rosh Hashana, Chag Sameach! This painting is now available here.

Other Paintings You Might Enjoy:
Girl With the Pearl Earring
People often reference this movie when they see my scarves. I finally found a video that shows how to do it. I hate how it looks and feels on me, but maybe you’ll enjoy it. Since I don’t like it on me, I didn’t do a video of it, but here’s the video I watched to learn how to do it. Hope you enjoy it!
Other Scarf Videos:
Kippahs In the Kitchen
I don’t have a full painting for you since unfortunately I knocked my rinse water all over my painting. Such sadness. However I did have some video before it got ruined. So I thought I’d share a part of the video in real time so that you can see how slow my painting process is at certain points. Such is the nature of detailed painting.
Other Paintings You Might Enjoy: