• A featured image collage, showing various looping marks and drawing drills to practice line work. The background is digital, and on top are three photos of copy paper sheets with various drawing drill marks. Text top top states: Chaotic Drawing Drills.
    Digital Painting,  Drawing

    Chaotic Drawing Drills

    I’d paused posting in here for the later half of January 2024, as some very serious health issues have been happening to a close family member. That’s as much detail as I want to give here on my blog for now. How does one stay creative in times of extreme stress? Drawing drills have always been my go to, but even those have felt like a challenge. There are so many variations on drills, and they’re all meant to be very simple: draw ovals, practice line confidence, etc. Recently, I stumbled on a practice of outlining looping marks. The approach is very chaotic looking, but overall I’ve found it’s a…

    Comments Off on Chaotic Drawing Drills
  • Featured image collage of five work in progress sketches of a female character with long wavy hair. She is wearing a wrinkled dress that ties at the neck and has long flowing sleeves. Text on the image states: Fumbling Through Sketching and Inking with Procreate.
    Digital Painting,  Figure Drawing

    Fumbling Through Sketching and Inking with Procreate

    Now that I am pretty well set on Procreate brushes (what with testing out all the default brushes and my mini-shopping spree on brush packs that followed), it’s time to put them to use! Alas, I’m still feeling clumsy and hesitant with my lines and this post shares my stop/start progress on this drawing from the last couple days.

    Comments Off on Fumbling Through Sketching and Inking with Procreate
  • Collage of many images of squares of brush swatches, showing many different marks and blends of the different default brushes from Procreate. Text on the collage states: Trying Every Procreate Default Brush.
    Digital Painting

    Trying Every Procreate Default Brush – Test All the Brushes!

    This was a fun mini project for the beginning of the year and perfect for working on while I wasn’t feeling great. I promised myself I would try every default Procreate brush at least once, before allowing myself to buy custom brush sets. And oh, how motivating that was! I finished these relatively quickly over a few days, and it was very satisfying. I learned how to loosen up in my drawing approach on the iPad overall. So: now to share a ton of swatches with all the brush tests!

    Comments Off on Trying Every Procreate Default Brush – Test All the Brushes!
  • An image collage of four digital paintings, showing wispy cirrus clouds in a blue sky. Text on the collage states: Digital Painting Clouds in Procreate. Cirrus clouds!
    Digital Painting

    Digital Painting Clouds in Procreate: Cirrus Clouds

    More cloud studies, but this time getting more comfortable with Procreate. As evidenced by my last post, my inner visual library of clouds is pretty stagnant: 99% puffy cumulus clouds. Here, I’m focusing on cirrus clouds instead: wispy and cold.

    Comments Off on Digital Painting Clouds in Procreate: Cirrus Clouds
  • Collage of sketchbook pages showing various drawings of clouds, mostly in bright and light blues, some that are gray and violet. They are simple studies of small cloud shapes. Text on the collage states: Calming Cloud Drawings in Colored Pencil & Marker
    Drawing,  Sketchbooks

    Calming Cloud Drawings in Colored Pencil & Marker

    More small studies, similar to my lace ones that I recently posted. This time the focus was clouds and thinking of them more as three dimensional forms rather than flat. These studies were fun and quick, and a nice way to start December. I’ve tried to approach these as: OK what’s the simplest, easiest and fun version of the subject I’m studying – even if it’s a doodle on scrap notebook paper – and how can I refine and push that version to something else? Hopefully this approach challenges me while still allowing me to maintain a non-judgemental view of my skill as an artist overall.

    Comments Off on Calming Cloud Drawings in Colored Pencil & Marker
  • A photo of an open sketchbook. On the left page are cloth studies in red marker. On the right page is a pencil sketch of a long haired sorceress looking forlorn.
    Drawing,  Sketchbooks

    A Lonely Mage Redux

    Sharing another redraw from my collection of childhood drawings – this time a very forlorn looking mage. I’ve included the old version of the drawing from when I was a freshmen in high school! ^_^ Rather than cringe at the super rough drawing, I feel a fond sense of nostalgia. Redraws motivate me to being kind on myself: non-judgemental on how I “should” draw. I am only comparing myself to my own past, and seeing if I can do better. And pulling from the far distant past, I know my skill has grown a lot since then, so I go into the practice of drawing with confidence and joy. That…

    Comments Off on A Lonely Mage Redux
  • Photo of a sketchbook, showing a watercolor painting of a woman in a dark pink dress. She is holding a potion up to a window showing the full moon outside. Rays of moonlight emanate from the potion. Next to the sketchbook are two paintbrushes and a watercolor tin. On top of the opposite page of the painting is a plastic palette filled with various colors of watercolor paints. Text overlaying the image states: Creating fantasy inspiration boards
    Inspiration,  Traditional Painting

    Creating Fantasy Inspiration Boards

    This post comes from working through a short Skillshare class by Gabrielle Bricky called “Create Inspiration Boards & Streamline Your Artistic Process” The whole course was only 10 minutes, but I found it very inspiring! I liked Gabrielle’s approach on organizing Pinterest boards — so much so that I finally kicked myself in gear and organized my entire Pinterest account, ha. Which was amazing to finally clean up. I made most of my many boards private, but then opened up the four that I made for this class on my public Pinterest Profile.

    Comments Off on Creating Fantasy Inspiration Boards