It’s the new year, cats*! Since the end of December is a holiday I decided to postpone my website update until now. But here’s what’s been going on since I shared my schedule:
Weekly Posts
I recently created a publishing schedule for myself, and so far so good. With the exception of this past Monday (New Year’s Eve) I have posted all the promised content to their designated venues! Yay me! But it’s still early in the process, so things may change if I find this schedule unsustainable. I’ll reassess with my January update.
Instagram Aesthetic
If you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed that every few days or weeks I change up the organization of my posts. I’m trying out different patterns to make my page more visually appealing. I ended the month alternating between art/photo posts and plain text posts. I found that a tad boring but want to keep incorporating writing, so my plan for now is alternating between art/photo posts and decorative text posts. We shall see how this looks in a few days.
Also, I have started including image descriptions in my Instagram captions and alt text, as well as closed captions on my InstStories with the app Clipomatic. I am doing this to make my page more accessible to anyone that sees it and may have visual or auditory impairments. I encourage all of you to do the same!
I am putting myself to the task of writing a haiku every other day this year! There’re a few reasons for this. One, I want to include more writing on Instagram and these are the perfect length for that. Two, I want to challenge myself to write more and haikus are easiest to churn out as a bare minimum for writing. And three, they’re super fun to create!
For those that don’t know, haikus are three lined poems with a 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable count respectively for the three lines. Being so short, they tend to try and convey a specific image that can allude to something else. Haikus often showcase natural observations.
I’ve always had fun coming up with potent imagery in such a confined format. So get ready for some fun haikus this year!
I didn’t announce this right away, but I have adjusted some of my prices in my shop. I found the jump between my Pop Art pieces and Digital Drawings too dramatic, so I lowered the starting price of the latter.
For those of you that have been wondering, the reason my Pop Art pieces are more affordable is because they’re a bit quicker to produce. As I’m provided with a reference photo I am able to sketch the image easily over the photo before going in with my line work. When creating a Digital Drawing I don’t expect many references and am creating an entirely new image, thus making for a longer sketching and drawing process. Also, using solid color blocks instead of blending makes for quicker coloring with my Pop Art than with my coloring/shading of a digital drawing or the detailed strokes of a digital painting.
Regardless of what style you choose, I put in a lot of love and effort into each of my pieces to ensure that you receive the best product possible!
I have 7 Coffee Beans! Wow! I am so honored that you guys love my work and want to support me financially! These awesome folx* are getting access to some cool content, too! So far they’ve watched two exclusive time-lapses, seen first looks at works in progress, accessed two printable coloring sheets, and read some poetry excerpts and exciting news! I will be announcing this news to everyone else very soon, so keep a look out for that!
But yes! Being at 7 Beans means that we are only 3 Beans away from my next give away which is going to be a FREE Pop Art Portrait! So share share share!
And those are my end of December updates! Keep a look out for some Visuals posts coming soon (before my January update). For now, that’s all, folx!
Love always,
Alyssa
Take Note:
*I recently read a post on the use of AAVE as a white person and realized that my habitual use of the word y’all may be a form of appropriation, so I am switching to another inclusive term, cats.
*I use folx instead of folks because it is an inclusive gender neutral term like Latinx instead of Latina/o. Yes, folks isn’t gendered. But the use of the x in certain words helps showcase inclusivity through my writing.
Alyssa's Media Villa 
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