Loonaworks

Loonaworks, the Mexican American artist who's paintings are the epitome of Kawaii y Latina. She has been posting her art online for the past two years and has had great success on tiktok, especially with her iconic hand painted Calico Critter t-shirts. When exploring her other art I was truly blown away with the detail and passion that goes into her work. I’ve included full quotes from the interview because the responses contain so much meaningful context about her work, and I didn’t want to lose any of the nuance in paraphrasing.

Both my parents were born and raised in Michoacan and Jalisco Mexico in bordering

towns. I was born and raised in the central valley of California. We would visit our family

back in Mexico every summer, and those memories definitely inspire a lot of the subjects

that I am drawn to now and like to paint. As well as the nostalgia of growing up in a

predominantly Mexican small rural town, and the design elements our generation grew

up with like the curly girly aesthetic and 90s nostalgia.

Growing up I was always surrounded by craft-making and art, and my mom always

taught me to cross-stitch, crochet, and knit. When I was in college, I took a lot more art

classes and realized that painting was the medium I wanted to pursue further. I feel like my style

 has never really been consistent, but I’d say it leans more toward realism.

I really love the calico critter shirts I’ve been painting. Something about them is so

endearing and enjoyable to paint. Now as I’m researching more about them, I’m

surprised at how big their archive is. This project helps me a lot when it comes to having

a creative block because I can pull so much from their older collections. For example,

their World Parade sets they released in 2000 which included the calico critter dressed in

a Mexican outfit. That one was one of my favorites because of how much detail they put

in it, as well as all the other countries represented in those sets.

Calico critters for sale in Mexico flea market

I didn't know about calico critters until 2019 when I was watching the show “pen15” and that one

episode came on where they are playing Sylvanian Families. I didn’t think they

existed anymore since the show is based in the 2000s, and I had never seen or heard of

them before. But since that time, they’ve grown sooo much in popularity on social media.

I started seeing them everywhere with the rise of blind boxes and trinket collecting. I saw

how big they got in different countries including Mexico where they call them

“ternurines”, and that also influenced me to look back at the company’s history. I had

never seen any calico critter merch before so I decided it would be cute if I painted one

on a shirt I had. After posting it on tiktok, I started receiving a lot of positive comments,

so I began selling them on etsy. I've only made about 25 of them so far, including other

characters like Sony Angels and Monchichi plushies, but hopefully that collection

grows.

Ternurines en venta en CDMX

The shirts are one of my favorite things to paint, I think having wearable artwork is so

cool, and something that makes art very accessible and approachable to people. Besides

that, I really love painting portraits and stills from tv and film. The process of choosing a

subject is my favorite though, I really enjoy rummaging through old family albums and

watching old movies to get inspired.

I look forward to growing my Esty and building off of the shirts I'm making, hopefully

more custom pieces and more portraits. I have a lot of ideas for the calico critters, and I

want to start personalizing them a lot more. I want to expand on the World Parade set

and make some for other countries that weren't included in their original designs. Or

maybe do bigger, more intricate scenes of them with backgrounds and friends. Whatever

I decide to do, I hope to continue enjoying the process :)

You can shop her art on her Etsy and follow her on Instagram & TikTok @Loonaworks