TroysArt Archives

The Art of Christmas Cards and Christmas Card Etiquette

2024, pencil drawing for DWR card. Is the tradition of sending Christmas cards lost or passe'? In an age of emails, texts, and the US Postal Service hemorrhaging $11 Billion in 2024, is snail mail a forgotten tradition? Researching the dos and don'ts of Christmas Cards is tricky. There is not enough written about sending cards. And often what is said is antiquated. This post explores the art of Christmas Cards and Christmas Card etiquette. I make my own cards and have for decades. There were years when I would hand paint or draw every one of them. In recent years I have made the image, designed the layout, and had the cards printed. It is a lot ...

By Troy Broussard|2024-12-14T14:01:58-05:00December 12, 2024|Lifestyle, TroysArt|

How to start a new sketchbook; page one, the Frontispiece.

My Page One drawings include my signature, the year, and a drawing to set the tone for the next twelve months. Troy Broussard, Frontispiece 2024 The first drawing of a new sketchbook can be as intimidating as that first brushstroke on a fresh white canvas. Yes, you've got to start somewhere but if you spoil the first page it sets a disappointing tone for the whole book. In my early years of sketching, I would just open a page and draw on any blank page, Helter Skelter like a maniac. Perhaps I was too intimidated by my skills to start at the first page. But around 2006 I began creating a distinct first page. And since then, I ...

By Troy Broussard|2025-10-10T17:19:09-05:00January 21, 2024|TroysArt|

CAUTION: Anatomical drawings and the line between art and pornography.

2023, model E.M. These are wieners, and I recently shared a drawing on social media that caused a bit of a ruckus. The sketch is explicit, and I awoke to a smorgasbord of texts, comments, adoration, and jeers. The experience led me to consider the difference between acceptable and taboo content. Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward famously wrote, regarding the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio, that pornography is hard to define, but "I know it when I see it." It's a brilliant, concise, vague, and memorable statement. And it allows for indefinite societal interpretation. Unfortunately, the precise interpretation is left to us, and it is often an individualized determination. This post examines recent pieces in my series of ...

By Troy Broussard|2025-10-15T18:01:49-05:00August 29, 2023|TroysArt|

An art and camping story: a disturbing homage to Courbet’s Origin of the World.

This page contains language and images that some people may find offensive. This is an art and camping story: a disturbing homage to Courbet's Origin of the World. Martin Dies Jr. State Park is a 705-acre area on the northern edge of the Big Thicket. Martin Dies Jr. State Park is a 705-acre area on the northern edge of the Big Thicket, on the bank of the B.A. Steinhagen Reservoir, where the Angelina and Neches Rivers meet. Established in 1965, the forested park is home to loblolly, longleaf, and shortleaf pines, along with an abundance of water oak, red oak, sweet gum, and magnolias plus bald cypress trees in wetland areas. A couple years ago I spent ...

By Troy Broussard|2023-08-28T16:06:01-05:00August 27, 2023|TroysArt|

So you were curious about my sketchbooks?

So you were curious about my sketchbook? And you're thinking about starting your own? Here is my encouragement for all skill levels, punctuated by drawings from the first six months of my 2022 sketchbook and a few quotes by some of our favorite artists. (Disclaimer: Some artistic representations herewith represent the human anatomy.) Subject matter for my sketchbook is a hodgepodge. Art history began on cave walls when early humans felt an innate urge to draw. No one knows exactly why prehistoric humans made art, but it was almost certainly as spiritual as it was a form of communication--but it could have been for fun too. For decades I have carried a sketchpad and pencils in my backpack, ...

By Troy Broussard|2022-07-04T16:43:23-05:00June 24, 2022|TroysArt|

Pochade Box: a fancy word for a traveling art kit

Pochade Box ready for travel. Now is the season to get outside. The weather is perfect for outdoor activities—outdoor painting being one of them. And there are artists with the ability to paint outside with achingly beautiful results (unfortunately I am not one of them but it doesn’t stop me from trying). En plein air is the act of painting outdoors, enabling an artist to capture the changing details of light and weather. With the invention of tube paint in 1841, artists were able to carry their supplies. A pochade box is used to make painting outdoors more convenient by organizing equipment as if a mobile studio. John Constable, one of the early plein air artists, was known ...

By Troy Broussard|2025-10-10T17:25:09-05:00May 7, 2021|TroysArt|

Yes, I made other pictures besides toilet paper in 2020!

2020 was a disaster—the weirdest year of my life. And making paintings of toilet paper was the lion's share of my body of work. Canvases depicting white paper rolls found homes faster than any other series in my art career. But, yes, I made other pictures besides toilet paper in 2020! This post is a humble overview of recent works. But be warned, more sentences here begin with “I” than in an Obama speech. "Lalique" 2020, private collection Houston. Pet portraits have been a staple for me for over a decade. And though I did not do too many this year, I did some good ones. (Link to TroysArt: A few recent pet portraits). I work from photos ...

By Troy Broussard|2020-12-16T15:26:19-05:00December 12, 2020|TroysArt|

The coronavirus era and a symbol of the times—paintings of toilet paper

2020 - A Sign of the Times, 12x12" canvas. (Private collection, Sugar Land, TX.) Toilet paper is cheap and mundane—an everyday product to perform a menial and unpleasant task. But this has been a bizarre year and I find that nothing could be more emblematic of 2020, the coronavirus era, than a roll of toilet paper. How many conversations were had over the quandary of toilet paper hoarding? Has anyone made sense of it yet? I have not. I was shocked when I saw that the entire toilet paper aisle at my local grocer with shelves wiped clean, signs posted to limit the number of packs per customer, even if available. The media reported that almost every grocery ...

By Troy Broussard|2020-07-17T14:09:23-05:00May 13, 2020|TroysArt|

A few recent Pet Portraits by Troy Broussard

"Putting on the Ritz" D'Jango by Troy Broussard, 2019, 11 x 14" canvas. Private Collection, New Orleans. A few recent Pet Portraits by Troy Broussard: The dog has been man’s best friend for thousands of years and, in many cases, the dog has perfected the relationship better than man has. I grew up with dogs—all types of animals really. The Broussards always had dogs and cats, but at certain points in my childhood we also had Guinea pigs, mice, hamsters, rabbits, hermit crabs, chickens, ducks, geese, guineafowl, parakeets, tropical fish, goldfish, turtles, a crawfish, a lamb, a horse, pigs, a raccoon, and even an alligator. We had just about everything but a monkey. So between my history with ...

By Troy Broussard|2019-07-13T10:42:57-05:00July 10, 2019|TroysArt|

Troy Broussard – 30 years of interior design

Interior design forms the link between architecture and humanity. Anyone with a credit card can walk into a furniture store and fill a house. But without the proper understanding of scale and proportion and the right talent and resources to “pull it together”, it can be money poorly spent. Using an interior designer is not as intimidating as it sounds. In fact, it is guidance that is undervalued and underutilized. With 30 years of design experience and in conjunction with the launch of my new Troy's Design (Click this link forTroysDesign) page on the TroysArt website, this essay is about Interior Design. “Design is not just what it looks like or feels like. Design is how it works.” Steve Jobs ...

By Troy Broussard|2020-06-10T12:13:22-05:00June 20, 2019|Furniture & Design, TroysArt|

var today = new Date() var options = { year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric' } var formattedDate = today.toLocaleDateString('en-US', options) document.write(formattedDate)