Inspiration
Started from an AI-generated reel of impasto oil paintings: thick textured strokes, off-center compositions, one painter's hand across different subjects. The goal was to pick one technique and apply it to every painterly mark on the page.
Design elements
Seal
Author's initials in a hand-pressed stamp. The kind of mark a painter would press into the corner of a finished piece, not a designed logo.
Card frame
A wobbly border around content cards. Each card carries a slightly different variation of the same stroke, so the cards read as siblings rather than copies of one box.
Two or three lines of description would sit here, just like on a real card on the homepage. The painterly border is the same one used everywhere else, with the same parameters.
Brushstroke divider
A horizontal brushstroke marking the end of one section and the start of the next. Replaces the standard horizontal rule with something that stays in the painterly mood instead of breaking it.
Cream sky. Ochre sun. Warm landform. Dark ridge. Deep water. Foam. Ink shore.
The piece where the painterly idea was first worked out.