We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kenyada West. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kenyada below.
Kenyada, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
I keep my creativity alive by traveling to different places and taking pictures with my phone and/or one of my digital cameras. Sometimes, I sit and watch videos on YouTube that are uploaded by different artists and I get my motivation to keep going to try and reach that level of creativity that they are on, because there are some things that I know how to do and some things with Art that I am still learning, so watching YouTube videos helps with that and I am the type of person that never wants to stop learning new things with Art. We all learn something new every single day!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I love to draw and paint! It’s my livelihood, it’s not just a hobby for me, it’s deeper than that. I’ve been into Art since I was 9 years old. What I feel is the most exciting part about drawing/painting is when people come to me asking to bring their ideas to life on paper/canvas, it’s kinda like having a special power or something lol. It’s a very time consuming job to do, when drawing, but I love it. Whenever I start a drawing or painting and I just have an outline done, I take a step back and just stare at the outline for a few minutes like “Oh boy! Here we go!” Lol. Like I stated though, it’s very time consuming but once you finish the project and if it’s a requested piece from someone and they love it, that just makes you want to start another project, just to make the next person love that one too. I love the cycle of how that works!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three most important things that are still impactful in my journey of being an artist, are Time, Patience and Consistency. My advice to the ones that are just starting their Art journey, these three things are very important when it comes to Art. Honestly, they’re really important when it comes to anything that you’re trying to be successful with. With Time, Patience and Consistency, you have to balance all three at the same time. The time that you use to start and finish a project is what gets you going. You have to be patient when working with Art and taking your time to work through that project. It can be frustrating at times and may make you want to quit the project and never look at it again, but, you should never give up. It’s okay to ball that piece of paper up and throw it away sometimes, if you can’t fix what mistake you made that is, but never give up because you made one mistake, just try again. That’s where consistency comes into play! When you find yourself starting over, trying to correct the project that you’ve messed up on, or starting another project after finishing that one, that’s what being consistent is, constantly working day in and day out to get better at what you do and to keep the flow of your talent active. Always keep the mind flowing with ideas also, try to be original and try not to duplicate what someone else has already created. When an idea comes to your mind, write it down or get started on drawing/painting it before you end up forgetting about it. These three things will take you a long way with your Art journey, so remember, Time, Patience and Consistency is key!
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
Over the past year, I finally came out of my shell of being a shy artist and started to expand with my Art by entering drawing contests, doing commission work and even had a drawing of mine featured in an exhibit during Black History Month. I also started a drawing of well-known Tennessee musician, Jelly Roll and posted the progress of that drawing on my Instagram, Facebook and TikTok and people were going crazy over that drawing, tagging Jelly Roll and his wife in the posts and I’m just sitting there thinking to myself like “It’s just the outline people!” lol, but I accept all of support, whether I’m finished with a project or not. Hopefully one day it gets around to him though. Last year, I drew a picture of Tennessee Titans defensive player, Jeffery Simmons, one of my favorite players by the way. He saw it on my Facebook and shared the post on his Facebook. That really made me feel as though I should draw sports and celebrity pictures more. I’m starting to improve on my details when drawing, moving more into Hyper Realism Art, so that should be a plus with drawing athletes and celebrities now, but yeah, I’d have to say that is where I’ve improved more over the past year, by advertising my work more and showcasing my work in museums and Art shows. I’m looking into doing a lot of different things by the end of 2023 and being more consistent with it all in 2024 and so on. I never want to stop growing with new talents. I’m always willing to learn new things.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/kenwesttheartist
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/artworkbykenyada
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/kentheartist89
- Other: www.tiktok.com/@kenwesttheartist
Image Credits
Ken West the Artist
