Well Compendium of Colored Pencil just landed and I’m finally united with my fellow colored pencil artists. It’s a beautiful new compilation of artists who use colored pencil as a primary medium, curated by Casey Jex Smith, and my work is featured in it alongside so many artists I admire.

Believe it or not, I picked up the drawing habit back in Industrial Design school, through endless hours of product drafting (if only there was a school for erotic art back then). We would block in the underlying forms with light colors, then define them with darker tones. I took to it naturally, and it carried straight into my figurative work. As you can see, I never really left that style behind.

On the color question, since people always ask: the pink and blue aren’t a gender thing. Pink is for girls and blue is for boys... I know that’s the usual read, but trust me it isn’t what’s happening. I love these colors because they are soft and visually sensual to me. They feel good next to each other, they harmonize so beautifully.

The choice of where to place each one is about how my eyes visually scan. Red is the hotter color, more dominant and activating, so it reads first. Blue is cooler, subdued, and lingers after. Usually I want the female figure to catch the eye first, followed by the blue figure in support, though I've often reversed it, as in the artwork on the left below.

Being included in this book, among these artists, is a real honor. Here are a few of the spreads that inspire me. And lots more to discover inside.

You can grab a copy directly through The Drawing Stall. I’m still trying to hunt down Volume 1, which I missed when it came out, and my guess is this one will go really fast too.

Well, if you've ever found yourself moon gazing, this one's for you: an artwork from my archive devoted entirely to…Asstronomy: that pure impulse to revel in the mystery and wonder of celestial abundance. 🌝✨

It’s always been my hope that my art inspires awe and reverence for the natural world, both on the grand scale… and the gloriously close!

This piece started as the blue and red color pencil drawing above, which I then adapted into a linocut print incorporating the sun and moon into the design.

I printed this by hand in an edition of 6. The print is 15 x 19 inches (38 x 48cm), with a beautiful flat deep blue and wonderful texture, the artwork in negative linework carved into the linoleum block. Given the small edition, I also made this available as a digital print.

Above is the transfer process before carving the linoleum block.
This was an alternate version with slightly different pose.

Alternate version- her legs and his hands in a more casual posture.

Color iterations above.
Explorations of a wavy ground pattern below.

Alternate Variation Above- with infinity symbol for a pillow

There are three titles for this one, because I just couldn’t decide :)
Contemplation of the Universe / The Asstrologer / Moon Rising Over Setting Sun

These artworks are a reminder to slow down and take in the breathtaking wonders of the natural world. All of it, visible to the naked eye. The closer the better. Take it all in💕

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Right now, in this moment

Soulful Woman Getting Fucked by Her Wild Lover
2016 Color pencil on paper 20 × 26½ inches (50.8 × 67.3 cm)
Original Artwork • Prints

The Sacrament • Tastycake

These are miniatures, all painted in one session. I started with no plan, just blobs of color. Let them dry, added more, let them dry again. The mushrooms found their shapes first, then the little characters showed up. I never knew what I was going to get and that was the best part.

Spore Dream • Trumpet

Reishi Throne

Funstack • The Fruiting

Bootius Magnificus V. Plumpus

These were part of Game of Shrooms, a worldwide scavenger hunt where artists hide original work for strangers to find. I’ve sent paintings out into the wild for several years now.

More from this series coming soon. You can also find these little spirits in my Flirty Fungi sticker collection. 🍄

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Featured above is Under the Bam, a collaboration back in 2019 with Eric Wareheim for the Las Jarras wines label. Scroll down for the artwork, the story, and an interview I did with Eater about the collaboration.

Las Jarras Wines is Eric Wareheim's wine venture with Joel Burt. Many of you know him as one half of the comedy duo Tim and Eric. Their labels showcase great artists like Jen Stark, Chloe Wise, and Angelfire.

The Inspiration

My idea was inspired by the Two of Cups tarot card, two lovers drinking from each other's cups and sharing abundance.

watercolor underpainting

colored pencil line drawing

color explorations

Two of Cups- line drawing for alternate version

Two of Cups- monotype print

Above are some of the directions that emerged. Under the Bam had the vibrant, playful energy we wanted, so that became the label. The Two of Cups version appears in my Alphacoloring book and many have colored it in over the years.

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The Name

I suggested the name Bam Bam for the wine, inspired by the T. S. Eliot line from Fragment of an Agon: “two live as one, one live as two, two live as three, under the bam, under the boo, under the bamboo tree.”

Unfortunately, we couldn’t use it due to a conflict with an existing wine. But I kept the title Under the Bam as a reference to the poem.

The Wine

This pet nat is a collaboration with Las Jarras and winemaker Martha Stoumen, made from organic old-vine Valdiguié. It’s bright and playful with gentle bubbles, dried raspberry notes, a touch of grape Otter Pop, and a savory finish.

Eater interviewed me about this collaboration, here are a few things I said that still feel true.

The project was a chance to extend the joy and pleasure I feel from my art making to a product that was itself crafted out of that same spirit, and ultimately meant to be enjoyed when it is consumed.

I use my work as a way of releasing the energy I’m holding. It’s an intuitive expression versus a cognitive one.

I choose collaborations that are driven by a shared enthusiasm for creating things that have intrinsic beauty and are motivated by the spirit of play.

Read the full interview here. → Eater

One of the publications I'm most proud to have been part of is The Library of Esoterica by Taschen. Curated by Jessica Hundley, it's an incredibly rich series of volumes that open up whole worlds of mystery and discovery into the esoteric.

If only these had been around when I was younger, they would have led me right to all the artists and areas of inspiration that took me decades to uncover.

Six of my artworks are included in Plant Magick, Volume IV, alongside an amazing selection of other artists.

My art on the right, River Cousin on the left.

Every page in this book is an inspiration. This volume chronicles the symbiotic relationship between plants and people through essays, interviews and over 400 images from artists both past and present.

I'm honored for my art to be shown in the company of so many artists I've admired, including great influences like Pablo Amaringo, Salvador Dali, Matisse, Alex Grey and Georgia O'Keeffe, as well as contemporary artists whose work I deeply respect: Casey Jex Smith, Matthew Palladino and Meagan Boyd. Every page in this book is an inspiration.

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below are some of the beautiful spreads from the book

About the Book
Plant Magick: Library of Esoterica
The fourth volume in The Library of Esoterica explores the historic roots of plants in myth and magickal practices. Through essays, interviews, and more than 400 images—from ancient Egyptian stonework to Victorian botanical art, to contemporary works celebrating nature — Plant Magick chronicles the symbiotic relationship between plants and people.

Credits
Editor and Author: Jessica Hundley is an author, filmmaker and journalist. She has written for Vogue, Rolling Stone and The New York Times, and has authored books on artists including Dennis Hopper, David Lynch and Gram Parsons, with a focus on metaphysics, psychedelia and magic.

Design: Thunderwing, Los Angeles

Some of the Artists Featured in Plant Magick
Alex Grey, Alphachanneling, Andie Dinkin, Ansel Adams, April Rose, Ariana’s Papademetropoulos, Arik Roper, Arrington de Dionyso, Aymon de Lestrange, Becca Mann, A. Dagli Orti, G. Nimatallah, Casey Jex Smith, Chris Fallon, Daniel Herwitt, Daniel Meijome, Darren Romanelli, Donna Outtrim, Edward S. Curtis, Elena Stonaker, Ernst Kreidolf, Johfra Bosschart, Jeaneen Lund, John Dwyer, Joyce Lee, Katie Scott, Florence + The Machine, Florilegius, Freya Dean, Frida Kahlo, Gallardo Gervasio, Glenn Brown, Guadalupe Maravilla, Helena Arturaleza, Heliana Rotariu /Aitch, Henri Matisse, Pablo Amaringo, Howard G. Charing , Inka Essenhigh, Jade Gordon, Megan Whitmarsh, Jason Traeger, Javiera Estrada, Li Lian Kolster, Lieke Romeijn, Linda Westin, Lucien Shapiro, Luis Tamani, Luke Brown, Mantovani, Mariano Peccinetti, Mariela de la Paz, Mark Rogers, Marlene Steyn, Matt Loeffler, Matthew Palladino, Maurice Harris, Meagan Boyd, Meagan Donegan, Meret Oppenheim, René Magritte, River Cousin, Rodarte, Roger Dean, Salvador Dali, Samuel Colman, Sarah Stewart.

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I’ve been repeatedly deplatformed by Meta. My whole online history evaporated in an instant: over ten years of daily posting, 4000 posts, 1.5 million followers. I was able to find my way back online, but it wasn’t easy... or cheap. I’ll write the full story soon.

Recently Emma Shapiro from Don’t Delete Art invited me to share my perspective for their DDA Interview With... podcast series. Don’t Delete Art advocates for artists facing censorship and algorithmic suppression online. We spoke about what it means to keep creating in a climate that increasingly filters out intimacy and erotic expression.

Listen to our conversation.

Listen on Spotify / Watch on YouTube / Read on Blog

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Here are a few moments from our conversation.

“The loss of creativity is silent”- On disappearing from the internet overnight:

Alphachanneling: The thing that you think is familiar doesn’t show up one day and you don’t notice it right away and you start to get used to other things in that space. I don’t know the artists that have disappeared from my own social feed because I only track them because they were present. Are they still making stuff? Am I not seeing it? I would have to go investigate them and half the time you don’t remember exactly what’s their name or what’s their handle. Things can disappear — the loss of creativity is silent. Silent. And because of the nature of it, we all just assume many things other than that person was taken away from us.

“A cultural lobotomy”- On what censorship of sexuality actually means:

ES: Your artwork is this celebration of safe space, about enjoyment and freedom — where does that belong if it’s having to face this antagonism? How does being in a hostile environment change the message of it?

Alphachanneling: The censorship of sexuality, of sex positivity, of all of these topics feels like this cultural lobotomy — let’s surgically exclude this central piece of humanity in our media, in our collective repository of humanity.

Audre Lorde wrote: “In touch with the erotic I become less willing to accept powerlessness or those other supplied states of which being are not native to me such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.”

Alphachanneling: I’m honoring myself and being true to my joy in making it — but while I’m making it, I’m understanding that this is working against me in my world. This devotion of my time and my energy will be creating problems for me.

“Why would you want your work to be invisible?”- On the impossible choice between integrity and survival:

ES: We’ve developed an entire visual vocabulary of how to try to trick an algorithm away from identifying the human body just to be able to include it. It’s such an absurd game that we play.

Alphachanneling: If you use a nude body, it’s a machine who’s going to visually scan the image, detect what’s in it, and if it sees anything that has association or resemblance to a nude figure, it will get filtered. So how could you ever include those things knowing that the tiniest inclusion of anything that trips the system will make your work invisible? Why would you want your work to be invisible? If you could just not put that figure in, then the whole world will get to see what you’re making. And if you refuse to obscure it, you’ve maintained your integrity, but it will never be experienced. It’s such a crazy way of making art.

See the full interview here

Don’t Delete Art is part of a campaign dedicated to free speech and human rights that calls on social media platforms to follow a set of principles that would allow art to circulate freely online. If your art has been removed, downranked, or restricted online, you can submit a Censorship Report through Don’t Delete Art.

Babe Spreading Honey was a personally significant artistic moment for me. This little painting was made one afternoon when I first had the idea to use watercolors to explore erotic realms.

The impulse was to work as small as possible in order to take the focus away from the details and instead concentrate on the more essential feeling. How could a couple of watery drops of paint be full of erotic charge? This was the question that led me into discovering the play and pleasure in making these works.

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I painted this while I was spending a few months living in a small hill town near the Mount Subasio Park outside of Assisi in Italy. A place famous for being written about in Dante’s Inferno, and the same hills which Saint Francis used to walk and commune with the divine through nature.

Special thanks to David for collecting this piece :)

My work exists within the Utopian Erotic, a place where each of us is free to believe in our own dream of love, joy, and desire. A place free from shame, judgment, and even our own self-censorship. Though we may not share the same desires or ideals, what we do share is a commitment to holding sacred desire, beauty, and all that inspires us.

My wish is that my artwork reflects your own passion back to you, becomes a point of connection with a lover, or compels you to dream into your own erotic desires. This is an invitation to create our own culture, where we indulge and celebrate the Erotic.

The Utopian Erotic is a journey, an initiation into discovering your own personal erotic realms. Let desire lead. Let pleasure expand. Let love and creativity move through you, uninhibited and free.

Happy Dreaming
-Alphachanneling