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Mark Making Part 7: Crayons and Other Nostalgia
So this one was on the principle that if I’m using all my art supplies, the little kid ones count too! I bought these crayons and markers way back when I was first working through The Artists Way. I thought making art with them would be a fun “artist date”. I can confirm, drawing with crayons is a) fun b) satisfying to my “inner child” and c) like sooo easy to relax, because who cares what it looks like, it’s just for enjoying the moment of creating stuff! Little kids get this stuff right off the bat, but we can remember that carefree creativity through some repetitive effort *grin*. I…
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Mark Making Part 5: Prismacolor Markers and Little Loose Ends
Tonight was photo session night: taking the photo for this post’s title card, as well as a couple more. It was too overcast today to use the sun for good photo lighting. Then it became so late in the evening that I had to use the LED lights, which are suuuuch a pain to set up. They are Ricky’s photography lights, so he was helping me at least. Tonight is also a night where I feel tired and worn out from stress, reading too much news, and feeling uncertain about the future. Still, it’s a blessing to have art to focus on. I am just ready to go make chamomile…
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Mark Making Part 3: Calligraphy Pens, Random Felt Tip Markers, and Other Such Things
Calligraphy pens are one of those things I buy, thinking I’ll practice fancy hand lettering techniques, and yet I never really get around to it. I have this vague notion that, as someone who majored in graphic design, I should be obsessed with lettering and typography, but my interests have always focused on web design† and illustration. Typography is intriguing to me, but that isn’t a very high bar to jump: my curiosity can be peaked by pretty much any article on Wikipedia. It’s no wonder my calligraphy pens don’t see much mileage, if it was general curiosity that spurred me to buy them, rather than passion. I do like…
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Try, try, try again
Title to the tune of row, row, row your boat. So. I had written most of the post below (and the title and sentence above) at the end of February, when I was feeling like I had more energy to finally restart blogging and commit to making more art. But I didn’t want to post it until I finished creating a light theme for my blog (and let us leave aside this tried-and-true procrastination method for now); this retro-terminal-dark-mode one had been bothering me lately, though I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly it felt constraining. So the post waited a bit while I thought about a new layout…
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Catching up: Character Art & Sketchbook Musings
I finished that mercenary digital painting back in early May. I’ve also been sketching more in my portable sketchbook and picked a few highlights to post. Since my post last spring, I’ve been waiting to post more until I’d figured out a more cohesive plan for how I want to make art, but that is just a laughable goal at this point. I’m far, far too an inuitive person to have a “cohesive” plan. A plan, sure. A plan that goes mostly out the window when the rubber hits the road. The more I wait to think up the perfect plan or perfect order in which to learn and practice…
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Digital Painting WIP
It’s so much easier to make time for digital painting when I also have a TV show streaming on my other monitor. That’s the trick, I think, to getting myself to work on paintings at a computer, after coming home from working at a computer all day. Shading of the flat layers I’d left off with is going well – I feel like between this piece and last summer I’ve gotten a better handle on keeping the light source in my mind’s eye and having it be a three-dimensional lighting situation. I completely credit most of my progress to regularly dashing off quick life studies in my sketchbooks; even if…
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Sharpening Pencils
I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of using a single-edge razor to sharpen pencils. They really do work so much better to have a variety of line, but I’m still fond of cheap mechanical pencils too – nostalgia is a strong force. And of course a consistent line weight has its advantages on occasion. I feel a little silly, showing fundamental drills/practice work like value bars, but honestly, even if they don’t look very special, putting the time in on simple exercises really does make a difference. I’m getting more confident with graphite, but dip pens are still rough. The ink feathers so much on most paper. It…
Keep your muse happy
