about me
Hello, friends! I’m Clare (she/her). I'm the hands and the face behind cedar & sun.
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While I am a business lady doing important business, I like to reiterate that I'm a person first and foremost, way before any product or labour. It’s important to me to preserve my humanity and resist the “hustle culture” normalized within the entrepreneurial world. I try to resist placing value on overcommitting to working, and instead focus on running my business in a way that’s sustainable for me.
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Some things about me, a person:
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I work and live in Kitchener, Ontario. I live with my partner and two cats
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I'm a queer, ADHD girlie with a libra sun, pisces moon, scorpio rising
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I think astrology is made up, but it is also very fun!​
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I'm medium-outdoorsy (I like provincial park campsites with an outlet so I can charge my phone, bonus points awarded to sites that are close but not too close to the bathrooms)
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I love a good introspective moment! Let's talk about our feelings!
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My favourite sport is the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show
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I buy orange juice with extra pulp
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I own a bajillion houseplants, and they are all my favourite!
about my process
I love making art! I've never met a medium I didn't like, but my truest fine art love is acrylic paint.
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Most of my painting is done on birch panels! I honestly think I started with these because they were all I had on hand when I was getting "more serious" about art, but I continued with them because I liked the sturdiness that you don't get from a canvas. One of my favourite things about painting on wood panel is how the texture comes up through the paint! I've also recently started staining the edges and back of my panels with an oil-based interior stain! I love how it highlights the wood grain, and I think it's a really snazzy way to tidy up the non-painted parts.
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One of my strangest habits as an artist is refusing to sign the front of my work. I find that being able to identify my signature (or even just knowing that it's there) takes me out of the vignette I've created, so I avoid it altogether and sign the back of each piece. I think this is also reflective of my subject matter -- I am very intentional about not capturing human life. I don't want people in my paintings. I'm just not a people person! I'm a leaves and rocks and water and dirt and flowers person!
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There is also a huuuge spot in my heart for making my watercolour cards. I grew up creating handmade cards for every person in my life, for any occasion (shoutout to the "happy bug day" card I made for my mom. No idea what or when "bug day" was supposed to be. I was four years old and just loved bugs, I guess), and I love helping people celebrate each other. I find papercraft super meditative, even though it's probably going to contribute to early-onset arthritis.
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let me put you onto something: art supplies edition
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kroma acrylics - a Canadian company. their acrylic paints are so buttery and beautiful, and the colourfastness/pigmentation is crazy. these are people who seriously know their colour theory.
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beam paints - a Canadian, Indigenous family-run business. they make the absolute best watercolour paints. i seriously can't use any other brands anymore. these are a must for watercolourists of any degree of expertise!
contact me!
Any questions, feedback, concerns? Give me a shout! I'd love to hear from you!
email: cedarandsunstudio@gmail.com
instagram: cedarandsun