He knows it too
fine artist ✧ freelance illustrator ✧ audhd goblin ✧ advocating for artists ✧ they/them baddie ✧ trans rights are human rights ✧ on a quest to see every color ✧ 🚫AI ✧ linktr.ee/kelly_mckernan
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He knows it too
Thanks! They smell like blueberries and are iridescent!
Many people ask me, “Hey Kelly, how did you develop your sense of fashion?” I never know how to answer, because I just dress for the dopamine. But thanks to yesterday’s breaking news, I can finally confirm after all this time that it’s simply… Tylenol.
So fluffy!
The loafiest
Large tolype moth!
Booped!
He’s a sweet lump of love! His younger days he was pretty rambunctious
Thank you!
✨
My Mochi boy!
It’s in a very new building made for artists and creatives and the management is accommodating us on rent and lease needs. It’s a few minutes from my house too! I can’t believe this worked out. I’m so excited to turn this space into something amazing with my bff/studio mate! Thanks for any help!
Ty!
Yay! A new studio space has been found and it’s perfect! I’m able to move in now but need to come up with my part of the security deposit fast! Can y’all help me out and boost my shop and ko-fi? I’d be so grateful if I can secure this spot asap! www.kellymckernan.com/shop ko-fi.com/kellymckernan
Autism isn’t a disease to be cured or even eradicated. It’s a neurotype that results in many of the most beautiful and creative brains to have existed. Autists need systemic support to thrive in a world built for allistics, not the blame and shame that make our lives harder than they need to be.
Happy autumn! Here’s a watercolor self portrait from 2013.
𝔴𝔢𝔩𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔯𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔢
joining the war on autism on the side of autism
"why am I always do stressed out" "why can't I stop getting mad on socials lol" "how come I'm drawing so much slower than the last few years" "why can't I sleep"
In a world full of people tearing things down, keep on creating, friends. 🩵
Conservatives love to darkly say stuff like “you aren’t prepared for what’s next, we’re not going to be moderate anymore, you have no idea what you’ve unleashed” and then cry like babies when you call them fascists
I’m glad to read this! I’m doing my best to support my kiddo but done days are SO hard.
Oh 100% it’s absolutely mind boggling to me. I feel that trauma in my bones still.
hehehe
Kinda fun that I painted this self portrait in 2020.
💜💜💜
Hell yeah. I dropped all sense of identity and only picked back up the ones that felt authentic to me, and gender wasn’t in there, haha.
So, I’m thinking I’m not the only one whose brain was broken by pandemic? We emerged around 2022 as a self aware, burnt out, depressed, AuDHD & trans/non-binary, w/ CPTSD from being undiagnosed all this time? Bc I’m meeting so many of y’all & it makes me feel less alone. I’m so glad you exist. 🫶🏻
Yup, without neurodiversity, we would not have evolved as a species.
I love my brain, even more now that I understand that I’ve been on “hard mode” my entire life and have created beauty in spite of that. I wouldn’t want a cure even if there were one! Want I want is support and acceptance for myself and my child so we can thrive.
Correlation ≠ causation. This rhetoric is dangerous and encourages eugenics. Autistic kids exist because autistic adults have children and pass the neurotype down. Many mothers of autistic children don’t even know they’re on the spectrum until their kids get diagnosed, and that includes me!
Autism isn’t a disease to be cured or even eradicated. It’s a neurotype that results in many of the most beautiful and creative brains to have existed. Autists need systemic support to thrive in a world built for allistics, not the blame and shame that make our lives harder than they need to be.
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
Man, I do kinda want to believe in the rapture if it means a lot of aspirationally heavenward bigots will just vanish suddenly
What a great fucking metaphor they didn't mean to employ
New York Comic Con prep is underway! I’ve got so much planned and I’m determined to make it my most successful yet. I’m still looking to share my hotel accommodations to make my expenses lighter. I’m in walking distance to Javits! HMU if you’re looking. 🙏🏻
Last call to enter my giveaway for this print set!
I drew porn for fun now I'm drawing it for fun and spite
She’s sitting in the windowsill and watching me and/or a bug?
I’m sad to not be in my studio, but at least at home I can have my void baby watching me work.
Ok but I am actively looking for fairy rings ALL the time
Cue “Creep” by Radiohead
I regret wasting $40 on entering.
Like, this is literally his 4th most recent post. How someone can be a skilled photorealistic painter and prompt this fucking nonsense is insane to me. Unless he actually holds his palette like that.
I really wish BB would actually vet the artists they post. This guy is a skilled painter copying AI reference. It took me about .12 seconds to figure that out. It’s soooo discouraging when an account with 1m followers shares this brainless content over legitimate artists who are more deserving.
The way some speak to me is so familiar I worry I’ve actually met them before, so I panic thinking I’ve forgotten them and feel horrible. I read almost everything but hardly have time to respond everyone sending me things to watch. 🥲 I just don’t want anybody to resent me for not responding. 💜
Some of my Instagram followers message me waaaay too much. I can barely keep up with the reels and memes sent to me by my IRL friends as it is. If I’m not responding, please check your parasocial attachmen? With love, I just don’t have the mental capacity to open every message, let alone respond. 🙏🏻
I was going to do another art market today but I decided to stay home and paint. I don’t think my psyche can take a 3rd weekend of bad sales when I could be making stuff. I’m hoping to FINALLY get this kpop demon hunters watercolor done soon!
Friendly reminder that I’ve got this new print set available of fan art I’ve made of Guillermo Del Toro’s films! ✨ www.kellymckernan.com/shop I’m also doing a giveaway over on my Instagram of an embellished set: ✨ www.instagram.com/reel/DOrSRnm... Just for fun, what’s your fave GDT film?
Really wish people learned to deal with the weird little thoughts in their heads and built trust that the things their brain conjures up and chooses to respond to does not reflect their morality. Your actions do. That's all this puritanical shit is. People scared of their own thoughts and feelings.
Right now I’m really into some new music releases from ANIMA!, Labrinth, and DJO. 💜
The upcoming proposed rules surrounding NSFW art are bad and the Bsky mod team should feel bad. Fellow artists: Remember that even if you don't make NSFW art, rules like these eventually come back to bite us all, especially if we make works about queerness.
Let the dead die you fuckin vultures
I can’t help it. The grackles are still here, and need to be photographed 🤣 The male Common Grackles usually take every opportunity to display, especially in the spring! But it’s Fall, and this male was displaying a lot! Apparently, he knows what he looks like🤣 #Birds #photography #wildlife 🪶
Vision and Biology of Seeing is a pretty good book and answers a lot of questions like this. I'm reading it again on my camping trip this weekend.
Take that money you’re saving every month on cancelling Spotify, Disney+, HBO, etc., & (after buying a @pbs.org Passport, natch) & go to a used book/media store and buy all the movies you watch on repeat (you know you only watch, like, 10 movies) on dvd/bluray. Bonus: no $ goes to fascist media cos
Some of y'all are clowns (affectionate) but wow some of you are clowns (derogatory).
Magnets vs stickers… do you have a preference?
I've seen some reactions from struggling artists along the lines of 'I give up' and I feel your pain—but please do not. Most people don't want to live in a world where artists are automated away, art production is captured by AI firms. Most people hate this idea. Organize. Build solidarity. Fight.
hey you need to unlearn the idea that another artist celebrating their success is a commentary on your internalized perception of personal failure
As you cancel streaming services, here is a casual reminder that only 16% of Americans read for pleasure anymore, and your local library has hundreds or thousands of books you haven't read. They would love to see you stop by and renew your library card.
bork! bork!
Almost caught up on orders!
I am but a simple crepuscular bitch that loves a siesta
I’ll miss Disney+, but not as much as I miss democracy. Later, haters.
YUP it’s especially tough in nashville! Everything’s for musicians - the visual artists get ignored lol
I’ve found a suitable space in east Nashville that would work well in the time being but I’d need to find 1-2 more artists to share it with to be affordable. If you’re one of the artists impacted by the closure of 100 Taylor, hmu and maybe we can work together to pivot to a temporary space?
I’m being a big whiney baby about my studio space being shut down. I’ve been so excited to create there because working from home isn’t good for my mental health, and I felt like I finally had a good balance! I doubt if anyone can do anything to get the fire Marshall to clear 100 Taylor sooner. 🫠
They’re all too damn expensive anyway!
Donezo.
Reactions like this to brians story show why it's valuable to keep talking about. As artists we are living the situation and assume others are aware, but the truth is most people do not know
Here’s some neat moths to help take the edge off.
Here’s more info! www.inaturalist.org/taxa/347264-...
Oh no, they’re harmless and so cute! Just lil guys!
They’re actually fairies, did you know??
There are so few too!
These are some moths I’ve personally hung out with (and subsequently painted a few!)
Yes, my camera roll is filled with moths. I love them so much. 🫠
Do we want more? Of course we do.
Here’s some neat moths to help take the edge off.
Not yet, but I’m not surprised this is happening. So distasteful.
Fair!
How about a painted self portrait?
If you’re in Nashville and know of a temporary space that can serve as a studio (that is VERY affordable) please reach out. I’m pivoting to working from home but space is extremely limited and mentally, it’s not good for me to work in the same space I live in and share with my kid. 🙏🏻
Morale is very low today. I have never had such a difficult time making art. I *want* to work! My art studio is my respite from it all and I at least had that to make returning to art full time possible after losing my teaching job a month ago. Now it’s shut down for 4-6 weeks (likely more)? I just-
Hey cuties, I’m doing a giveaway over at my IG for an embellished set of prints! They’re of three of my paintings inspired by my favorite films by Guillermo Del Toro. Head over there if you want to enter! www.instagram.com/kelly_mckernan
Freelance illustration gigs drying up. Ad agencies using Midjourney instead of hiring human artists. Costume design turned over to AI wholesale. Good work vanishing. These are the stories of working visual artists, who describe losing jobs, wages, and hope as their clients and bosses embrace AI.
*deep breath* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!
🙏🏻 thank you
Something to do with the sprinkler system. Thankfully rent is abated but I’m not hopeful I’ll be back in there in 4 weeks
Evergreen.
Yeah I’m able to go back to grab things but no one is allowed to stay to work ☹️
I just learned the building my art studio is in will be shut down for the next 4-6 weeks by the Fire Marshall. Real great timing as I lost my day job a few weeks ago and decided to pivot back to art full time. Which I could do thanks to having a workspace! I wish I could just catch a break, y’all.
If you’d prefer to bypass the giveaway, you can go purchase this new set in 2 sizes and 2 editions here: www.kellymckernan.com/shop/4put1oy...
Hey cuties, I’m doing a giveaway over at my IG for an embellished set of prints! They’re of three of my paintings inspired by my favorite films by Guillermo Del Toro. Head over there if you want to enter! www.instagram.com/kelly_mckernan
