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Lifetime of Learning
Bonnie Brooks • November 21, 2021
I have been very busy since I am now a full-time artist. I have learned more in the past 5 months than I did in all my college life. Learning should never stop! You can learn from anyone. As a teacher, I have learned from my 5 year old students. I spent hours, days, weeks and yes, months going though YouTube videos, reading, and listening to podcast. As the bible says in 1 Chronicles 4:10 Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me.”
We are to continue learning because we are to expand our borders, to grow and to reach others though the gifts the God has given us. God has given everyone a special gift and this gift should be realized and put into action. God blessed me with the gift of visual art. I am inspired by His creations, which compel me to paint them as artist images. I believe He gave architects and construction workers the gift of building these incredible structures and churches that I love to paint. He gave us beauty that is all around. He is the almighty creator. As you look at my art, I want you to see His creations.
As you can see in my art, I try to paint every detail I can, but I have learned how to get away from the detailed paintings and do abstract art. I am enjoying using fluid art methods because of their inherent unpredictable quality that limits the amount of my control. I have to work hand in hand with God, flowing wherever He intends for me to move, employing this technique to create stunning art pieces. I have even learned how to make original works of art into NFTs, listing them on the blockchain. (More on that in another post).
Conclusion
Do not ever limit yourself because God has so much for us to learn. Never underestimate your ability to learn as He will expands your abilities and your borders. He is doing amazing things in your life and you should embrace the journey. Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So, continue learning and growing in your craft and all aspects of life. The key to walking in your destiny is listening to God’s voice, sitting in God’s presence, and sensing how He’s directing you as you’re learning to either hear or see or move.
Tell me what have you been learning about?
What inspires you in God’s creations that are around you?
Blessings,
Bonnie
Celebrate Art this December
The first thing you will have to do is set up a crypto wallet. I want everyone to be safe in this world so I would strongly advise you to get a hard wallet first before setting up your Metamask or other soft wallet that you will use on the platforms. I use Ledger X which you have to verify with both wallets for the transactions to go through. For soft wallets I use Metamask for Ethereum/Polygon, Kukai for Tezos and Phantom wallet for Solana blockchains. A hard wallet is something you will have to purchase. I use Ledger Nano X which costs $149. There are other ones out there that you can use but this one is preferred. There is a Ledger S but it does not have all the crypto currencies available. Then you can set up the Metamask through that. I have friends that did not do this and are now trying to hook up their current Metamasks to it and having a hard time. Think of a hard wallet as your bank and the Metamask as your wallet you carry on you. DO NOT buy from a 3rd party store like Best Buy. Buy directly from Ledger because if someone opened that box and got the seed phases out they will steal your currency. NEVER give your seed phases to anyone including your mother! LOL! Here is a link to the ledger store. https://shop.ledger.com/products/ledger-nano-x The best videos to learn about crypto and wallets is Crypto Dad on Youtube. Here is a link to Crypto Dad. Type anything you want to know about crypto in the search and it will come up, such as how to set up a Ledger wallet. https://www.youtube.com/c/CryptoDad Try to have the highest quality images you can. Opensea and Known Origin allow 100MB, Foundation is 50MB. I usually stay around 25 to 50MB. The cost of putting NFTs up on the blockchain depends on if you are paying gas fees and how many (Foundation you pay a gas fee to mint, a gas fee to list and a gas fee to do an auction). The price of gas and crypto fluctuates like the stock market (ie. last month I had a piece that sold for .1 ETH which was $100 and now .1 ETH is $170). It is fairly easy to list an NFT, marketing is the hard part, as it is with anything you sell. You need to join communities where you can post your work and be a part of twitter groups. There are also Facebook groups. My live Twitter space called Christian NFT Lounge meets on Mondays at 10am EST and Wednesdays at 2pm EST. We talk about everything from Jesus, NFTs and even our kids. We get to know each other on a personal level. We also have a Twitter DM prayer and praise group and a support DM group to retweet each other's posts. Sometimes we have 2 people in the space and other times we have 50. Some who come into the space are not Christians, but all are loved by God. It is truly a ministry. We also have a Metaverse Galleries on Spatial and we have praise and prayer meetings on Thursdays at 4pm EST. Just take one step at a time. It is not as hard as it looks to set it up. It took months before I listed my first piece. I have people in my twitter spaces that have been there for a while and have not minted yet. I am here for any questions you may have. I am also able to meet you in my virtual gallery where it is easy to chat live. I am excited to have you with us on this new journey of being a light across the world. Blessings! Bonnie Terminology Gas - NFT gas is the fee you pay to execute any transactions on the blockchain. These fees are used to pay the people who operate the computers that execute the transactions. Gas fees are determined by the current demand on a blockchain, at the time of a transaction. Gas fees are usually less on Sunday mornings. Gas is very low right now. When I first started it was in the 100's. Here is a gas tracker website. Gas tracker https://ethereumprice.org/gas/ https://www.useweb3.xyz/gas?source=ethgas.watch&referrer=ethgas.watch Blockchain - Blockchain technology is a decentralized, distributed ledger that stores the record of ownership of digital assets. Any data stored on blockchain is unable to be modified, making the technology a legitimate disruptor for industries like payments, cybersecurity and NFTs. Top crypto currency coins used for NFTs - Ethereum, Polygon, Wrapped Ethereum, Solana, Cardano and Tezos Minting - Minting an NFT means converting digital data into crypto collections or digital assets recorded on the blockchain. The digital products or files will be stored in a distributed ledger or decentralized database and cannot be edited, modified, or deleted. Shilling - NFT shilling is when someone promotes an NFT and encourages others to invest in a specific NFT. Essentially, it is crypto goods marketing. When people on social media say, “shill your NFT”, it means to show or drop a link to your non-fungible token so it can be viewed and potentially purchased. NFT Platform Information Ethereum (ETH) platforms use Metamask Wallet Opeansea is the most popular it will cost you a 1 time gas fee. Then after that it is free to list because it is not actually minted until it is purchased. Opeansea also has Polygon which uses wrapped ETH and it is free to mint and purchase. Many people (myself included) are complaining about Opensea because there have been issues with error codes and people not being able to purchase. I have lost 3 sales because of them. They are by far the biggest NFT blockchain and I think are having a hard time keeping up. https://opensea.io/ Another good ETH platforms is Foundation . https://foundation.app/ Super Rare, Niftygateway and Known Origin are great but you have to apply to get on these platforms. Solana (SOL) platforms use Phantom wallet It is a few dollars to list with Solana. The best platform for that is https://exchange.art/ . Tezos (TEZ) platform use Kukai wallet. It is less than a dollar to list and the best NFT platform for that is https://objkt.com/ I have a friend that loves Cardono (ADA) blockchain but I don't know anything about it. Voice takes crypto but also takes credit cards so some love that platform. https://www.voice.com/ Check out all the different Crypto coins! Pray and do what is best for you and your audience.
I got into making NFTs because my son was into crypto currency. For over a year he was telling me to make my art into NFTs and I just could not wrap my head around it. I had to learn, investigate and explore this new world of art. I read, watched YouTube videos about everything I could, not only about NFTs but about the blockchain and crypto currency. Once I had an understanding, I watched videos on how to make them. I wanted my NFTs high quality so that if someday they were on a screen 4’ X 6 in a NFT exhibit they would be clear. I learn most of this from a Korean photographer named Noealz. I followed him on all the NFT platforms, Instagram and Twitter. He is very kind and helpful. Even though he has over 58K followers, I would DM him and he would answer my questions. I will also be there to help others as he helped me. Once I dropped my first collection, “European Landscapes” I was still not understanding the purpose. I prayed and literally said to God, “What is this whole NFT thing? I don’t know what I am doing.” He woke me up early in the morning and said, “It is a worldwide ministry.” I had a whole new outlook! Yes, I wanted all my art to reflect God because He is the great creator, but this was going to be different. I realized that I had so many new connections across the globe through NFTs. I learned from Noealz in Korea, I Zoomed with a Christian couple in Singapore, I got a phone call from a man in Northwest Canada. I now do live Twitter spaces and I am even a moderator for a NFT Collaborators group on Facebook with over 5000 members from all over the world. God is opening doors for me to minister and pray with people that otherwise would have never happened if it was not for NFTs. What are NFTs?? NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Fungible is a weird word, right? So, what does it mean? Something that is fungible can be replaced. Such as if you have a $10 bill and I have two $5 bills they are equal in value meaning fungible. Something that is non-fungible cannot be exchanged equally. Most NFTs are digital artwork. This means the artwork is created and can only be seen digitally, on a computer or electronic device/ frame or VR goggles. Now you say, what is the difference between owning an NFT and a JPG? It is the difference between owning the actual Mona Lisa and a print of the Mona Lisa. When you decide to create an NFT, you must first “mint” the digital version of your artwork. Minting an artwork is just like when a coin is minted. It is minted on the blockchain which is a system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system. A blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems across the world. The artist will know who owns it forever and can collect royalties forever. If you would like help with NFTs feel free to contact me. Watch Crypto Dad for all things about crypto currency. Watch Noealz for how to make NFTs
I have been very busy since I am now a full-time artist. I have learned more in the past 5 months than I did in all my college life. Today I thought I would reflect on my artist statement. I am a realist artist because I believe in painting what I can see, what God has so perfectly created. I do not want my art to shock people but comfort them. I want people to look at my work and see the peace that God has created. As part of my beliefs, I have applied the scripture reference Psalms 9:1 “I will praise the Lord with all of my heart; I will tell of His wonderful works.” I am not the creator He is. I paint His creations with His inspiration guiding every stroke. They say that art is in the eyes of the beholder, but it is also an experience. Our emotions are attached to past experiences. An example of this is, the fashion industry continues to recapture lost eras of design, being successful, because people had experienced it. The auto industry recaptured the VW Bug and people loved it because they experienced it. The experience of God’s peace and comfort in the art industry needs to come back. Art executed through faith, so rare today, was once a form of worship. Artwork was thought of as sacred in the church, but most art these days are considered secular, or worse, anti-Christian. Have you ever walked into a church filled with paintings, stain glass, tapestry and sculpture and found your senses overwhelmed along with your soul being moved in inexpressible ways? No one can capture the image of God, nor should we, but a Christian artist can inspire deep reverences and worship through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. Michelangelo, being one of the first to do so, made such an impact on art and history to this day. Inspired art brings an awareness of God through the canvas painted. Many artists today try to get noticed by creating art that shocks people. The world is filled with so much turmoil and controversy, I feel art should capture the beauty that was created by God, without violence or sensationalism. It is a reflection of tranquility through the artist eyes and hands from God. I see my paintings as inspired by God. Sometimes I just marvel at what reaches my hand and flows through my brush. I know that I could not paint what I am looking at, but He did. I pray that when I paint, God’s glory will be presented, as He gives me the ability to work through Him. Viewing art should not cause nightmares or confuse the mind, but bring peace and comfort to an already troubled and busy world. My desire is that when you look at art you see beauty that is inspiring, uplifting and is a gift from God.