Teju Abiola
@tejuabiolaart
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painter + illustrator • senior artist @ hallmark • winsor & newton demo artist • ub studio art mfa candidate • she/her
Buffalo, NY
Joined July 2011
The glasses on this one make me so sick to my stomach. How dare you John.
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Um do people really not know that you can have stretch marks simply from growing, as in aging and being bigger than a newborn child.
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One of the things that made it hard to recognize ADHD and Autism in myself is that so much of the criteria focuses on how others view you, and not enough on how you experience being yourself.
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A little known secret about art is that you don’t *need* to know how to draw most things. You just need to know how to figure out how to draw something when you need to draw it. You just need to be curious and responsible enough to look shit up.
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HBO Max worse than Netflix cuz at least Netflix keeps their shit up.
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The thing i see being missed with all the character examples is that they are all still very *disabled* with situations where without their exceptional abilities or tools, you can see their struggles instead of just making them superhuman.
meanwhile we've got avatar, where there's characters whose disabilities actually make them stronger and more unique than all other benders
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You don’t have to flip your work.
Sprigatito's artwork is driving me insane. Always. Flip. Your work.
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When people call ADHD a superpower or say ‘it’s not a disability, just a different way of processing information’ I cannot relate. It’s so disabling to me. I’m always operating in spite of it. I’d honestly rather not have it 😬 I’d like some peace.
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Illustrators getting ready to play the 5hr YouTube video that allows them to work.
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I’m sure a lot of people are sick of the Try Guys thing rn but like I’m not interested because of the cheating scandal. It’s the business mess and implications that have me seated.
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Is the vagina called the pussy because like a cat it is self-cleaning.
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Can I make part of my career just painting self-portraits of myself like Rembrandt 👁👄👁
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So much of getting better at art is curiosity and stubbornness lmao. ‘I wanna draw people well, how do I learn that?’ ‘I wanna draw roses, how do roses work?’ ‘Why does my painting look so dull? How do xyz artists get vibrancy?’.
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The one thing I wish digital art was more capable of is this, since the reason carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive strain injuries are so common is cuz we hold styluses the same way for hours and hours
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For legal reasons I am NOT saying that if you google the phrase 'Books on drawing lessons.' in Russian you'll find a website with PDFs to an assortment of drawing books that you could download at your own discretion 👀.
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Toph in the air? Toph in the sand? Toph in water? Metal before she developed metal bending in duress? She cannot read.
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The ADHD urge to go to bed at 8:00 or 2:00. AM or PM? Yes.
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This can help, but it’s actually misleading because of the very thing it’s trying to explain. Perceived color adjusts with environment. You should color based on the whole relationship between all the colors of the piece.
quick tip for those who struggle with their skin tones getting too light or just off when placed in a background: dont color on a white bg Set your bg to a mid grey. It'll help you not white wash characters. I drew this first on white and it got lighter just by changing the bg
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Coming to the realization that I need to accept that I am a person who spends a lot of money and time on the idea of things I’ll never be able to follow through. It’s not a waste, it served its hype when I needed it. I don’t need to feel guilty about it.
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This advice is misleading because it’s subjective and situational. Object surface material, desired chroma, lighting conditions, medium, style, etc. the tone on the shadow and light in the good are the same and equal saturation, so it’s really a gradient, not shading or lighting.
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People really out here thinking being a good artist = being a good person. Being skilled in one area = some supreme knowledge. Nope. Lots of peeps favorite artists are dinguses.
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It’s not actually the thing to only point out how they are better or geniuses and fetishize their disabilities. It’s a blend of because of and in spite of, and they are amazing! But they are disabled. They are still limited in certain typical ways. Even if they’re exceptional.
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Hey guys, I want to start an art confidence chain! QRT with a piece you love and a confident declaration of your skill. No self-deprecation! I’ll go first:. I’m Teju, and I am a great painter who has a good understanding of color and pigment 😊
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We talk a lot about masking, and altering how we present ourselves to assimilate, but for me, a lot of my traits were and are ignored, tolerated, and internal. You can’t mask what you don’t know to hide.
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#drawingwhileblack HEYO!. I’m Teju 😊 I’m a painter and illustrator who loves watercolor and gouache, but use a variety of media! Portraiture and color are my bag, and I’m about to delve deep into studying anatomy 😜 I love sweaters and supporting my friends 💕
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Another reminder that police killing anyone like that is wrong. Whether they are innocent or ‘guilty’ of a crime. Our justice system is whack but they are not judges or juries. No one should decide who lives or dies, but definitely not the fucking COPS.
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Sketch of an old pic to dust off the cobwebs. Ya girl is rusty
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I’ve heard so many people the past couple days say that Toph basically isn’t disabled and that’s absurd, and s sad thing to say if you actually like her character. She is who she is because she’s blind.
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//MESS. 🙃
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Like not from weight gain or loss in a fluctuation sense or pregnancy. Just growing…like….
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#artvsartist2021 Not me having no concept of time anymore cuz I forgot these were all this year
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You can just help children. If they aren’t at the stage of development yet, you can just help them.
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Here’s what we’re NOT gonna do: let impostor syndrome mess us up. I’m Teju, and I am a good freaking painter who is good with color and using a brush. I’m not an impostor. #artpostor
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Artists: if people can understand the concept of preordering a console, a deposit on a hotel room, or a no-show appointment penalty, they can pay in advance on their commission. Especially for those of you doing sub $100 coms.
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I don’t know what other people think about me unless they tell or show me. But a lot of people don’t actually know autism or adhd when they see it. Especially in Black women.
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I’ve always been very internal. I’m also hyperexpressive and verbal, although as a child shyness and insecurity made be more quiet and seemingly aloof. But I wasn’t really masking; I was uncomfortable and confused.
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Very sinister how we gotta see the death of digital archives and info at the same time generated ai bullshit and misinfo is flooding everything by force. It’s sick.
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This is SO funny because many many artists I know are poor, disabled, with little access to resources and education. So tell me you know nothing about art without telling me you know *nothing* about art.
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Artists can’t be normal. You have to be at least a bit of a weirdo.
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It’s not like a rule or anything! Plus, sometimes it doesn’t even matter. If it’s not gonna be flipped in it’s function, what does it matter.
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Yes, she was a bad ass master who could achieve all this cool shit and save herself and her friends, but she was also vulnerable.
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Too many people don’t realize that a person can apologize earnestly and change permanently and grow forever but it will not ever erase the harm they did and those harmed never ever have to forgive them.
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You cheated anyway which would’ve been one thing if you cheated with a rando but again you cheated with a coworker in a company you own knowing how visible you are. White man audacity. But like what was the business plan.
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You also misunderstand that her friends love her for *all* of it too.
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Graphic design is NOT Illustration.Concept Art is NOT Illustration
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I don’t want people who don’t *want* to draw marginalized folks to draw them actually.
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It’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! So AAPI folks drop your art and links below and everyone else retweet :).
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Like you have this network of people you’ve worked with for years in a very public facing job where you are the product and you’ve made your family and your relationship the product on purpose, and then you act messy in public caught in 4K with a coworker when your.
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I always have found it hard to relate to some accounts of other ND people talking about masking and changing the way they do things, because for a long time I wasn’t even cognizant of ‘strange’ things I do. I wasn’t aware of the things that made me atypical.
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What is an lil art thing you learned "too late" that changed the game for you?.
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I almost busted out crying laughing. This is not the flex you think it is.
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I don’t want to talk about AI. I don’t want to read people talking about AI. I don’t want this to be the current ‘art twitter discourse’ I don’t want to have an opinion. But it’s just fucking annoying. Cuz it’s not AI. It’s techbros and coders. It’s product. It’s capital.
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Clearly I’m the only one who periodically binges apartment tour vids cuz this is fancy and palatial compared to some NYC human rights violation apartments I’ve seen peeps show 💀.
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I know this is real and people be working on it but my brain believes that this movie is fake.
This Summer, meet the residents of Element City. Watch the new trailer for Disney and Pixar’s #Elemental and see the movie in 3D, only in theaters June 16!
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The way freelancers have to wait to get paid is so sinister cuz they be using the art you made already and making money and you ain’t even paid them yet 🤨.
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HBO Max said ‘Canceled!’ But also obliterated from existence 💀 oh boy oh brother nothing is safe.
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*Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh*
This book is flipping good, I like Seok Jeong-Hyun’s writing voice too. It feels very friendly and encouraging, while still being very knowledgeable. Much excite.
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This is my favorite joke to make around nonblack people.
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Wife is a featured and prominent part of both your collective brand with your colleagues but your personal brand to the point that architectural digest toured your home and you wrote a cookbook and you positioned yourself like that *on purpose* and.
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When a highly abstracted style decides to be inclusive but does it through racist caricature and tropes…if *everyone* is lipless in your style why do only Black people/‘foreigners’ have lips 🤨.
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Whenever people say this I’m like not only do you know nothing of craft you know nothing of materials cuz even with accessible art stores do you know how much oil ain’t and canvas that is?????.
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The only good art fundamental is to find what interests you. Because all the other stuff will come.
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As a demi/gray mess, I truly will not understand what people will do for an orgasm. It must’ve been life changing cuz your life just changed.
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It often doesn’t really matter if your work is not perfect 🤷🏾♀️ if it looks fine from one angle you’re good. Flipping is a checking tool but you can ignore it if you want.
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I don’t even get rice most places I eat out. I don’t like all varieties of rice. I don’t like rice in certain dishes. But rice is rice! Rice is rice!.
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Lol cuz really they are conflating the joy of painting (verb) with the experience of having a ‘painting’ (noun).
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‘What is going on?’ Is a thought and concept I have often. I often feel very clueless. It’s one of the reasons I really liked school. I like learning information and context.
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Ion know how people gonna take this but. why must we act like skin tones specifically dark skin tones are super hard to color????? They aren’t harder than coloring in general. like coloring can be hard but why. is /only/ skin tone hard for y’all?????.
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For a lot of my childhood, and to this day when going into new situations, my issue was not knowing how to act or what to do or what was going on. Not specifically that I didn’t know how to act like other people and wanted to act like myself, but that I didn’t know how PERIOD.
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What is the point of you? Any of you?.
As a nation we must ask: When in God’s name will we stand up to the gun lobby?. When in God’s name will we do what needs to be done?. I’m sick and tired of it. We have to act.
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How could I know that I needed to try and speak the same language as society when I didn’t even know I was speaking a different language or HOW to speak at all.
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It’s not like I had a way I wanted to do things. It’s not that I was uncomfortable with having to conform. It wasn’t that I was stressed having to perform NT-ness. I wasn’t hiding anything because I didn’t even know what was anything.
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Your business is your proximity and relationship too these other people! And they are all more charismatic and compelling than you. That’s wild. Couldn’t just keep riding coattails of personality. Ego is a bitch.
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Okay so I know there are multiple cuts but I’m thinking y’all just don’t realize it is pretty normal not to remember every frame or scene.
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You just got a new studio that your wife designed, but also an upcoming food network deal, and you are apparently the business brain and the company started in your old house, so your wife was obvi a huge part of that too but.
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After finessing watercolor and gouache, I’m going to get good at acrylics outta spite 😈 I hate them
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ME ME literally Meeee move out the way meee please doctors let me make an appointment I need medication MEEEEE
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I been sitting on the original sketch for like a year! From back when I’d just gotten my iPad, and before the panorama drove to to put my hair away in twists or the red hair or the round glasses or the scarves for reasons other than a dud hair day.
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Missing having twists rn even though I like the short cut 🙃
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Some stuff only looks good from one angle! Your own face probably isn’t symmetrical at all. Many things are wonky!.
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Let’s start blocking the art whitewashers immediately friends. Screenshot, don’t QRT, and block.
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I despise greige house flipper aesthetic so much like it’s dead vibes, dead air, no soul.
Every time original hardwood floors are replaced by gray plank vinyl a year is taken from my life
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