birthday art

So I made BB a couple of art pieces for his birthday. First, I made a birthday card with a smiling cupcake and strawberries and blueberries. As a companion piece, I drew his New Blue House, except the house and garage are cupcakes, accompanied by ice cream cones in the backyard and a blueberry car.

HGR was like “Nice art, but he’s three years old. He’s not going to care.” I figure he’ll probably care for at least several seconds before moving on to whatever new toys Grandma and Grandpa got him. I admit the gift is somewhat performative. He already has a million billion toys (positive, affectionate) and I’m sure he’ll get plenty more this weekend, but I didn’t want to show up empty-handed, so handmade art it is.

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I recently saw a LMA video where Sarah said she wanted to combat the popular perception that art is only worthwhile if it has Societal Meaning. That surprised me. Do people really say/think that? Not in my corner of the internet, anyway. When I think of the quintessential artist, I think of this: There’s a high schooler in LD chat named Rebel who’s obsessed with the Cookie Run gacha and draws fanart of all his favs. “Artist” is too broad a category to have a single Platonic ideal, but “anime fanartist” is definitely a core archetype.

That’s how I got my start. But I’ve drifted considerably over time. I frequently doodle people, but looking at my 2026 folder of “good”/”complete” pieces, there’s not a single person to be found. Lots of trees and flowers. Lots of creatures and houses, sometimes realistic, more often not.

(to be continued)