Lace & Cloth Studies

Hooray for another longer holiday weekend. 😊 Feeling a bit better from the flu. I’ve pretty much just been testing out Procreate brushes, rather than working on any new artwork. It’s certainly a low-key, peaceful art practice. But I’m thinking tonight I might be able to do some more smaller studies, similar to these lace ones I created in late November. And there are a couple cloth studies and lace doodles from this past Wednesday done in Procreate.

The page below was drawn while traveling for Thanksgiving. I threw a bunch of pastel pens and markers into a travel pouch, not sure what I’d draw. I’m happy with how the page turned out, and I found it very relaxing. I was drawing these late at night in bed after visiting with family all day. I used a variety of reference photos from Pinterest, blending them together into original designs.

And then below, attaching the lace to cloth. I was trying to keep it simple, so I tended towards almost flat spread or slight pipe folds. I shaded these with a pink mechanical pencil, an effect I really enjoyed. Especially the pink, purple, and peach combinations. The one that’s all splotchy with gold gel pen was mostly covering mistakes – trying to overwork the effects until it was something OK. It didn’t really work out ^_^*. No reference was used for these, besides thinking of lace designs I’d done on the first page.

Below was doodles from this past Wednesday in Procreate, when I wasn’t feeling great. Very simple pipe folds, and very simple scalloped lace without any design (except for the upper right one, which was the first one I drew). I’m still getting a feel for how to draw and paint with an iPad. It feels very clunky to work with, but is slowly getting better?

And finally, for the last set of studies, I looked at a reference pack above from Jessica Truscott: Fabric Drapery – Pose Reference Pack on Art Station. But I omitted doing any figure studies from the reference photos – I just wanted to focus on cloth folds. In the future, I’d like to do studies from folded cloth still lifes. There is just a meditative, centering feel of drawing directly from life. Photo references certainly help (and don’t require any set up or clean up!), but I think it’s about balance between studying from both.

In non-art ramblings, we had couscous and falafel for dinner tonight. 😋 And I tried the Nixie Sparking Water strawberry hibiscus flavor, which I have been wary of – I don’t always like how hibiscus tastes. This flavor is quite good though! Mostly I’ve been gulping camomile tea the last couple of days, to break up congestion. I worked through today (remotely of course), but I’m glad for the weekend and for the upcoming new year.

Now to test out more of the basic Procreate brushes. I bookmarked a bunch of sets I want to buy – I’ll need to narrow it down though to stay under budget T__T… And I still promised myself I won’t buy any until I finish trying the defaults! I’m like…40% of the way through?

Since I wouldn’t consider playing around with brushes something that requires a ton of concentration, I’m going to indulge in some X-Files while I doodle. I have been slowly watching the series – rather than binging – and I am up to Season 6 episode 20. I do feel like they jumped the shark after moving to LA for production, but I still like the show in spite of the increased goofiness.

‘Til next time.

P.S. Ah I just stumbled upon The Protomen Rock Opera albums, and I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole. And I’ve never even played Mega Man T_T