“Art is an individual's way of recording or expressing an experience or emotion in a visual way.”
In this generation, people have used social media as an outlet to be able to express themselves. One of these ways of expression include the arts.
Jose Silva (senior, graphic design) has his own art account on Instagram, which he started up in February of this year. Jose mentioned how art is more accessible to everyone and is able to be portrayed so easily, because of how easy and cost effective it is to start an art account. However, I found it interesting that he mentioned that because it is so accessible, he feels like online platforms tend to get very saturated due to the fact that everyone is posting their work.
Jose uses his instagram profile to post some of his work for his friends and family to see. He mentioned his page being a bit inactive.
“Since I post my art pieces in a series of three, I am stuck on what to post for my third and final post of this particular set.”
For Instagram, which is the platform that Jose uses, the algorithm likes it when you post constantly; mostly because it helps increase your visibility. He realizes that it isn't the best idea to wait this long for him to post his third art piece, especially if he wants to grow his page. However, he mentioned that the quality of his art is paramount to him.
“I like to focus on the quality of my art. I would much rather wait to have the perfect art piece for my third post to finish my set, and then continue to my next medium.”
The pro to having an art page is to be able to share your work with friends and family. The downside is the difficulty of generating a living off of it. Jose feels like many people use their art accounts as a side hustle or a hobby, and they don't expect to make a living off of their work.
As I checked out Jose's page, I noticed how delicate yet intricate each art piece was. I could see that he had uniquely crafted his page to make it appealing, modern, and colorful.
“I like to play around with different mediums, though my go-to is always watercolor and pen and paper, but I do like to do acrylic, acrylic markers, and oil paints!”
When Jose first started off his art page, he reached out to a few of his favorite art pages (that were small enough to give him a response back) and asked them for tips on starting off an art page. He found that their general advice was to stay within a niche. For example, a lot of artists would post in a cohesive manner and their art all seemed to match a similar style. This posed a problem for Jose because he likes to bounce between different styles, and having to limit himself to one style is hard.
“This is why I post in a series of three, whether it be of the same/similar style or medium. This provides some cohesion but gives me the liberty to post a watercolor today and an acrylic painting the following week.”
Jose’s platform helps incorporate more diverse perspectives in today's art world. With this in mind, after he graduates he hopes to develop a specific style that is unique to him, and market his work as merchandise.
“Ideally, I would like to build my own creative brand with merchandise and potentially work on designing and branding for another brand.”
If you want to be inspired, go check out and support his art page on IG @jsilv_draws.
Sharing good vibes :)
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.