The Only Thing You Love: Artwork BTS (Patreon)

When I realized I only had a week and a half left to submit not only the song, but the artwork as well...😅 OOPS.

My first course of action was to ask a couple people if they would maybe mind taking some pictures for me, just on my phone, sometime in the next week. And the answer was yes, but plans were never made, so I decided not to rely on it, and instead started trying to figure out if I could do it with existing photos or otherwise get it done myself 😅👍

Enter: Canva Pro. I have been paying for a pro account on Canva ever since I started releasing my own music. Because honestly, it just makes creating all the artwork and promo stuff so much easier. Am I any good at it? That remains to be seen 😅 Am I paying for many months in which I don't use it? Probably 🙈 BUT it's also the best investment I've made. Because it just makes my life easier. And gosh darn it, that's worth it!

This is not an ad, so I won't bore you with details, but holy did I ever learn how to use a lot more of the features on Canva, and it was a relief to be able to do everything on one site instead of my usual 3. 🙌

Anyway, I started by just creating a few collages essentially trying to map out the concepts and imagery I wanted for the art. Did this end up screwing me up later because I got these specific concepts stuck in my head and didn't bother to consider anything else? MAYBE, BUT WHO ASKED YOU 😂🙈

Fun fact: I actually sent an email to a kickboxing gym to ask about using their space for a quick 20 minute photoshoot. Buuuuuuut I never heard back and I did not have time to follow up. SO, I then saw an Instagram reel of cool photography techniques with leaves and thought "I could probably make something like that work with thorns..." And that's how idea #2 was born.

In the end, I ordered a dozen thorny roses (I specially asked for roses that hadn't yet been de-thorned) for same-day delivery, took some photos of thorns, cut the photo into workable pieces, had my mom take a bunch of pictures of me outside and then in my building's gym, and then cut and pasted everything together and hoped for the best 😅👍

Fun fact #2: the heart in which the word "Love" sits is a frame, and I had to get the frame to the right size and location, and then insert the same workout bench photo and try to size and place it so that it would exactly overlap with the bench under the colour filter...just to give the illusion of a cutout 🫠 Was that the best/most efficient way to do it? I have no idea. But it worked! Should I have made the bench a bit lighter so the text was more visible? Probably! But it's too late now 🫣

We did our best. And it's very indie. But it's not bad...I hope 😂🤞