“Laurel” in Unreal & Non-representational Art Contest

March 21, 2024

“We are pleased to announce that your artwork has won an award in our 3rd Unreal & Non-representational Art Contest Art Contest! Your creativity stood out among the hundreds of entries we received, and we are delighted to confer upon you this well-deserved recognition.” I won the award for Abstract Octopus #06. Listed here: https://www.gallery4percent.com/juried-art-contest-13

Why Octopuses?

February 15, 2024

My fascination with octopuses began in my final year of college while working on my BFA project—a children’s book about animals. I’ve always been passionate about animals and their emotions, and it bothered me to see them treated as emotionless objects. So, I wanted to create a book to teach children early on, catch them…

Overall Honorable Mention – Wild Heart Gallery

February 7, 2024

I won my first award in many years, Overall Honorable Mention from Wild Heart Gallery for my Portrait of Charlie.

Who are the accurate police?

January 12, 2024

Let’s go way back, all the way back to seventh grade. We had an assignment in art class to choose an image, draw a grid and blow it up. I chose “The Little Mermaid” and I nailed it! I got so much attention, I decided right then and there, I wanted to be an artist.…

Dog Portraits: Colorful vs Normal

December 27, 2023

Hello everyone! In the last newsletter I mentioned leaning in to the styles and subject matter that I enjoy, as suggested by Miriam Schulman in Artprenuer. When I thought about the artwork that I’ve created in the past, what came to mind were animals, colorful bright palettes, and line drawings.   I did the Animal…

Why so much art all of a sudden?

November 21, 2023

Some friends asked recently what made me get back into art. When broached with a question like this I can’t help but want to give the train of events and thoughts that lead to the outcome. Here’s the sequence that brought us to this moment… I was in a networking meeting for my business, Smack…

It’s Even Better in Person

September 26, 2023

“It’s even better in person!” How often have those words been spoken about art? Has there ever been a piece you adored when you saw it in a book, magazine, or movie? And finally one day you visited a museum and saw it in real life, you were rendered speechless, except for those five words:…

Why I Suddenly Had to Make Some San Francisco Art

August 30, 2023

I have a lot of strong opinions about decor and how exactly things should be arranged. In my office / art studio I have three stunning prints of San Francisco. They’re each a distinct style and all have a blue/red/yellow color palette. Now, here’s where my slight obsession with perfectionism comes into play. I’m not…

Black Queen

September 6, 2017

Playing around #drawing #queen #sketchbook #sketching A post shared by Nicole Hanusek (@nhanusek) on Sep 2, 2017 at 5:12pm PDT

No.202 Octo-bear!

October 2, 2016

#inktober #inktober2016 #dailydoodle #doodle #sketch #drawing #art #artwork #illustration #creative

A Unique Baby Shower Gift

October 3, 2015

Last year I volunteered to plan my sister-in-law’s baby shower. In addition to all the regular stuff you might do for a baby shower I wanted to have a cool group activity that would also double as a unique baby shower gift. Here’s what I came up with: When I invited everyone to the shower…

365 Days of Doodles

February 9, 2015

My daily doodle project, attempting do 365 days of doodles. The project is interactive and the subjects are provided by friends and family on Facebook. If you’d like to make a suggestion, you can do so in the comments of this blog post. If you want a copy of any sketch, you can get it…