Ninjagrl Art

A few months back I decided to rework my entire office. I had grown tired of a tiny corner desk that would only hold a desktop computer and a keyboard. It felt cramped and left little room for writing or planning with real paper and pencil. This desk also featured a large hutch that took up almost an entire wall. Sitting across the room was a large bookcase that also took much of the wall space.

To rearrange, I purchased a new kitchen table to act as a desk that supplied ample room for a desktop computer, a large external monitor, and plenty of extra space for writing. Transforming the table into a desk was a fantastic idea but removing the old desk left an empty bare wall. It needed some pictures or art, and I just couldn’t decide what to get. This changed when I seen the following painting titled “Lumen”:

This painting is from ninjagrl, an artist who started an open source collection making paintings of various projects and sayings within the open source community.

The Lumen piece certainly struck a chord with me because all through high school I would draw this same Anglerfish. I’m not sure what specifically I like about it other than it can represent so many things.

After reaching out she was pretty booked up, but I commissioned two paintings for my now empty wall. One to represent my Laravel News project and another with my two daughters.

I was probably her worst client. I had a vague idea of what I wanted and struggled to articulate clearly what that idea was. After a few emails and asking friends we came up with the idea of a reporter interviewing an elephant. For those not familiar, an elephant is the PHP mascot that Laravel is written in. Then for “Daddy’s Girls” I sent her a picture that she said would be perfect and it just went from there.

Here is what the final product of the two commissions looks like:

In the one with my girls notice the rabbit. That is her favorite stuffed animal that she made at one of those “build an animal” places. What is great is that inside its paw is a contraption that when pushed causes the bunny to roar like a dinosaur.

I think they turned out fantastic and can’t wait to hang them on my wall.