Welcome to Faustian Follies!

For those who love all things dark & dreamy...

Hello folks!! I’m so happy to have you, thank you for being here! I am so excited to share deep dives into my inspirations, creative process & new art with you here, through this newsletter platform🖤

Why I’m starting this newsletter now:
I’ve been posting my artwork on Instagram since 2015, and working full time as an artist since 2017. I long for the days when Instagram was a haven of creativity, community and an overall fun place to be, overflowing with inspiration! The vibes were immaculate!✨
…But times have changed, and I’ve grown to feel increasingly suffocated by the ever-changing algorithm, and the unrelenting push for short-form content💀

Art is innately slow. Art is about the process, the gathering of inspiration, the experimentation of different techniques, and the failures. The final completed work is such a small part of the whole creative journey you embark upon with a piece. Instagram pushes for perfection and slick finished pieces only. The algorithm doesn’t want to see your mess, it wants a refined final product. And it wants you to pump it out as fast as possible.

Well, folks, after years and years of trying to keep up with the Instagram rat race, I’m getting tired. I will remain on Instagram, as it was my artwork’s first home, but I long for slower content. For a deeper connection with my audience, and for a space to share more of the behind the scenes work that goes into the creation of a final piece.
I want to show you the dreamy inspirations and early rough sketches that are just the beginning wisp of an idea. I want to show you the mess that is the creative process. And I want to spend more quality time with you, that doesn’t involve endless scrolling and overstimulation.
The best part is that here, there is no algorithm, baby! It’s just me & you & ART!

What you can expect:
To start out, I am aiming to send a couple emails a month. Some specific things I’d like to share with you here are:
- sketchbook tours
- collections of things that have been inspiring me that month, like; other art, books, films, nature, or oddities I have thrifted lately
- studio tours, and any little makeovers/renos I have coming up & more about my 1885 home, Rosebud Cottage
- musings on art & life
- lots of behind the scenes photos of what I’m currently up to!
- & of course, new art too!🖤

Why I chose Substack?
Something I particularly love about hosting this newsletter through Substack, is that you can leave comments! I love talking to you guys so much, and I am so happy to have this feature!

Substack is also a blog! Meaning you can always go view all of my past newsletters over on my archive. Personally, I love that I will always have these posts to look back on… like my own little online art diary scrapbook.
There are also options for me to add video or podcasts to these newsletters, and I like that I have those options for potential mediums to try in the future.


Ok, I know this was very info heavy!😅 But I just wanted to get all of that out of the way so you know what’s what! I am a very visual person (obvs), and this will typically be a place where I share a lot of visuals with you, mixed in with the writing!
So, here’s some eye candy for ya! A look at some sketches from when I was creating the visual branding for Faustian Follies:

The landing page logo - to draw you in!…

It all started with this doodle I did in the front of my agenda last year. The name “Faustian Follies” came to my head and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it… but I knew what I wanted it to look like!

When I started really seriously working on this, I redrew the “Faustian Follies” lettering as a logo with some fun framing. I thought theatre curtains were suiting for the theme, and also gave me a good excuse to add in some bows, hehe.

I created this digitally, in Procreate, and many iterations later, I had the final piece!

The Logo Gal…

She started out as this quick little sketch. I knew I wanted ears/horns to give a devilish vibe (because, ‘Faust’), but I also wanted her to be glamorous and sweet!

I originally wanted to add my typical florals/stars/moons around her! I love this one so much!! But the logo format is sooooo tiny, it ended up not reading well.. so I had to simplify her to just a head.

She also went through a TON of slight tweaks. I know it looks like nothing had changed from one version to the next, but I swear it did, and I swear the changes made a difference!😂 Overall, I love her.

The header…

I wanted to add a personal touch to my Substack page and emails, so I hand lettered my own header as well.

You’d think this one would be fairly straightforward, but it ended up going through the most iterations!

I settled on this simple one for my Substack header.

And this more elaborate one for my email header!

Thank you so much for reading, and subscribing! My hope for this newsletter is that it will be a place where you can take a breath, grab a cup of tea (& a treat, hehe) and have a look through my latest daydreams - maybe they can inspire some of your own🤍

I promise, it’s going to be a grand old time!✨🎀

xxx
Olivia

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* Paid VS Unpaid Subscriptions: You will receive the same posts whether you chose a paid or unpaid subscription. I’ve decided to add the option of a paid subscription for anyone who feels they would like to support me further, and has the means to do so🖤 Paid or unpaid, thank you for being here. I am so very grateful for your support!