The Luda P.
About the Artist
Laura Parker ~ Artist
My name is Laura, but my nickname and now "stage name" if you will, is Luda. I am mostly a traditional mediums artist and live streamer. What exactly does being a live streamer mean? More on that later.
I have always been interested in the arts ever since I was a little kid. I have vivid memories of checking out Disney books from the library and painstakingly trying to draw the characters from them. As I grew older I kept drawing but my attention shifted to dance. Throughout junior and high school I took a few drawing classes here and there but still wasn't putting much focus into it. One of the notable classes I took during high school was a 6 week portrait drawing class with a master portrait artist. It wasn't until I was injured in my Junior year of high school and could no longer dance that I decided to shift my focus back to visual art. During high school I had taken an interest in computers and graphic design, so when I graduated I decided to attend a university for a degree in graphic design.
After about a semester of graphic design course work I decided it wasn't for me. I spent most of my time in the computer lab longing to be in the traditional art studios where I could paint and draw portraits to my hearts content.
So I changed majors and never looked back. I graduated in May of 2017 with honors and received my Bachelors in Fine Arts (BFA)
When I graduated I was newly married, working as a Ballet Teacher and had no real direction in what I wanted to do with my shiny new degree. I had an oil painting commission I was working on with not a lot of motivation to complete it. I heard about live streaming video games from a friend and looked into live streaming my art process.
Although I did much of my university work in ink and oil paints, upon graduating I switched to watercolors and later tested out alcohol markers. I still love portraits but I have expanded into landscapes, wildlife, architecture, pet portraits, and most recently abstracts.
I am an artist for hire, but I currently have my commissions mostly closed. (I am taking a commission here or there) I recently had my first child and am still adjusting to work schedule with a baby in concurrence with navigating Covid-19 lockdowns.
If you are interested in buying work from me that isn't a commission I have original works as well as prints available on Etsy.
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Live Streaming
So what is this whole live streaming thing about anyway? Well as I mentioned before, after graduation I had no real direction in where I was going or how to stay motivated to work on art. I was burned out from the crazy race to the finish line to graduate and was unsure of how to begin collecting clients.
But first I had to deal with the biggest problem, motivation and loneliness. My teaching job was at night so I would spend all day alone and miss seeing my husband by 5 minutes as we passed coming home from and going to our respective jobs. A couple months after graduation a friend of ours asked if he could live stream us all playing board games together, we agreed and on that night a whole new path for my career opened up.
I began streaming on Twitch in July of 2017. I did pretty well for myself, and most importantly the scheduled nature of streams and the company of people interested in watching me paint got me motivated to work again. Over the next two years I built a community of friends and clients. Some people just watch and give me the moral support to keep going, others have bought much of my artwork. Streaming literally opened up a world of possibilities as many of my clients live all over the world. In August of 2019 I moved to another streaming site called Mixer and very much enjoyed my time there over the next couple of months. In late January I decided to go on maternity leave as the end of my pregnancy was having complications and I needed to rest more. I had every intention of coming back to streaming, but between the new baby and Covid lockdowns streaming has been sporadic at best. I am still attempting to figure out a schedule that works for me and my family while my son is young. Since leaving for maternity leave Mixer shut its doors and I returned to streaming on Twitch.