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Let’s be messy
I say, there is no ideal way to start posting art online when you’ve been on hiatus. Or at least, I’m not aware yet of how to approach it without it feeling extremely uncomfortable and clunky. So here I throw up my hands and say “Whatever will be, let’s just go!” 2024 has been a messy year, so why not just spend the last few months of it scrambling to figure out what I want to do with my art?
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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…
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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…
Art with a dash of old school blog rambling
