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AJ 🌠

@ajnapkin

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I don’t know what I don’t know

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I’m working on making monotypes from home, without a press, so they’re coming out in ways that are okay and entirely up to them, and as a result of how I may or may not be applying enough pressure. It’s so free. Im interested in pulling from the forms that come up from printing rather than what I’m putting down. Also I love hashtags and will be using them more #monotype #oilpaint #workonpaper wow at that skin texture from where I had thick paint and pulled it up. I wonder how extreme that can get. I’ll thicken it up much more next time #exciting oh and i was listening to this song on my drives today and yesterday. 👍🏼👍🏼 #chickencaesarwrap by @ajnapkin

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19 hours ago

A related oil pastel drawing. I don’t have much to add this time. It was nice to draw with yellow. And I enjoy the peeking colors in this. I don’t go for yellow or green often unless it’s a Naples Yellow or muted greens. Is that even REALLY true? I don’t know. It’s hard to give a solid answer because I like keeping an open mind, and I can change often. I really love colors with white in them, not talking necessarily about pastels, though. Okay bye by @ajnapkin

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2 days ago

Every time I can’t draw I look at Norman Bluhm’s paintings and draw from them and I think, this is so Obviously a Bluhm copy. And it’s really not obvious (to anyone but me)(nor is it derivative) This drawing is based on Studies in Blue, White, and Gray. You can google it. A lot of sketching I do (well, just sometimes) is trying to emulate what he accomplishes especially in the large and more spiritual paintings from his later years (80s, 90s, and 70s) are mathematically designed and dedicated to a someone or something. Or devoted to, is what I mean. It’s religious practice or spiritual devotion. Probably all painting is, but anyways, I don’t actually know, because I haven’t found information on what it meant to him. (after typing this out last week I have found some interviews i have to give a listen to. maybe I’ll know some more soon. Hoping so) His paintings are like grasping with the enormity of it all, which I do think mythology helps do— telling stories to give sense to it all. His paintings relate to mythology, at least that’s what I know from his painting titles, like Romulus and Remus. Or Ode to Apollo, a painting that I could always and do stare at. beautiful color choices, forms, and framing inside of the painting. I always wonder what formula he used to put these together. What was all the mythology to him? What will matter that much to me? I like the idea of math, and what it creates and can help plan. But it’s not so natural to me, which is a shame because I enjoy engineering and building so much, which use… math… to achieve certain outcomes. I want to know what he was thinking when he planned out his sketches and transformed them into paintings with the spacing planned out and the shapes and forms placed and repeating so beautifully. Where do his forms even come from… honestly, there is not enough to read on his website. I’ve never wanted to talk to someone, more. I’ll have to email his estate. I wonder what his family knows. Artists can be so quiet. I feel so grateful to know about him. I always feel grateful to Stephen for showing me this guy. Somehow everything has changed in coming across these paintings.
Is this too long of a read? Hahaha by @ajnapkin

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3 days ago

I really love this drawing and its colors. I really was not thinking at all (awesome) (was playing) and I was surrounded by water, pools, and ocean all at once in sep/oct. I don’t feel excited, really, but I feel sort of motivated to make this into a larger painting, and I wonder how it will transform and what it will mean to me since it’s been so long since its birth. I was cleaning my eyebrow piercing tonight before bed and wondering why we celebrate our birthday without celebrating the fact that someone birthed us—kind of weird. I guess everyone does that differently, and I’m not well-versed in everyone’s practices. Maybe some people do acknowledge it, and maybe not. It’s cool we hold ourselves together for another year, and it's cool to celebrate ourselves on the day we were born, but even regardless of what relationship someone has to their mother, I guess it’s just wild to give birth, so it should be acknowledged or thought about. I have a coworker who thinks it’s punk and awesome (and a number of other words that i don’t remember atm) to give birth and i never thought of it that way. I just have not wanted to be pregnant ever. She wants to give birth one day and I think that is great. Goodnight everyone🐵 by @ajnapkin

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7 months ago

from September/october 2025.
while sat in a bit of discomfort. In Lebanon
Just found this in my pile of drawings that have finally made their way back and now my art from this year is covering my walls. Feels funkyy by @ajnapkin

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10 months ago

Haven’t been playing video games but I’m missing video games. Not true cz im playing tft everyday, but i want Zelda. I have Zelda. This kind of reminds me of video games and also the sky and religion and fear. Explaining abstract work to my family and neighbors in Lebanon has been funny. Well their responses have been. I showed my drawings to my cousin today and he thought they were scary. I also find my drawings scary in an omniscient and terrifying (Jesus/christianity) kind of way (I’m not always drawing from religious imagery, though, sometimes yes. I think my childhood has instilled different religious imagery and eternal fear into my subconscious) I’m not really religious, more so spiritual. It’s new being in my mom’s hometown where everyone is religious and it’s a huuuuge part of the culture and connectivity to one another. At least that’s what I’m noticing or feeling right now as I’m getting to know the people my age who would’ve been my peers and likely my friends if I grew up here too. Feels bits of lots of feelings when I think about all that. I type out these pseudo diary entries as Instagram captions and usually save it to the drafts. Eh but whatever by @ajnapkin

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a year ago

I can’t wait to keep working on this (in November…😩) #carandache by @ajnapkin

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a year ago

2 am for me, idk what time it is for you. Drawing from Juuuune? This feels like a big painting. Goodnight by @ajnapkin

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a year ago

the last judgement by @ajnapkin

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a year ago

oh my gaw i painted yesterday. Definitely will be painting over that tomorrow. by @ajnapkin

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a year ago

My friends helping with installing thesis🥲😵‍💫❤️❤️❤️❤️ great great friends 💘 by @ajnapkin

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2 years ago

man i always get sentimental prematurely. At least to some. Hoping for more art on the beach and hoping to stay around nice people always💘 I’ll post the silly watercolors once i find that sketchbook by @ajnapkin

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2 years ago