-
Late Night Sketching
Tonight’s sketchbook page: the objects on the coffee table in front of me. Hey, sometimes you just gotta work with what you have. I didn’t sit down to draw until 9:30pm-ish, so considering it took me about 45 minutes of drawing time, I feel pretty proud that I completed a page. I was not feeling good after dinner and had convinced myself that art and blogging were not in the cards tonight. But after laying down for a couple hours and drinking room temp sparkling water, I’m happy to say I still reached for my sketchbook.
-
Mark Making Part 6: Ballpoint Pens and Highlighters
Today was a low day, not much to talk about. I managed to do some yoga in the morning after a long shower, so that was nice. Sat out on the apartment balcony and video chatted with my family. Read more of Below the Root. Sketched with colored pencil sticks (aka, part 10 of this project). Still have a headache from allergies. >_< Today’s post are the pieces I did with the pens kept with other office supplies such as tape and paper clips. I wanted to include them in this project because using ballpoint pens to sketch can be fun. I also have occasionally used a highlighter to add…
-
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…
-
Mark Making Part 4: Copics, Brush Pens, and Loosening Up
I was super looking forward to reaching my Copic markers in this mark-making-artistic-medium-whatever-it-is experiment. I don’t use Copics near enough, but they are in my top favorite art supplies. <3 I tried not to use too much Copic ink on the project (after all, these things aren’t cheap!), using each color only a bit, to practice blending more than the expressive marks I was getting out of the brush pens. Plus, that way it was easier to get through them all without drawing like…5+ pages of marks. Using the Copic multi-liners to first make boxes/shapes helped with having specific small areas in which to blend color. I really like the…
-
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…
-
Mark Making Part 2: Multicolored Paper and Gel Pens
I love how white gel pen looks on tan paper. I think the first time I fell for the technique was watching Will Terrell’s sketchbook videos on YouTube. With my mark making project, as I became more comfortable, I began to seek out ways to experiment further – not just varying pens but also the paper. I have a bunch of multicolored card stock (you know, impulse buys when it’s on sale at JoAnne Fabrics….). Card stock is so smooth to draw on, much better than the cheap copy paper or the lighter sketching paper I used for some of the other mark-making sheets. It has a satisfying paper weight.…
-
Mark Making Part 1: Markers and Fineliners
There is such a delicate balance between making art and then having time to scan/edit/crop and write about it. And also the balance between making art and having time to watch more Sailor Moon, which is another way I’ve been filling my time (on episode 23 of… 200 ^_^”). But hey, look! I came up with a project for myself a couple months ago, and it’s been going pretty well in terms of finding time to work on it. And it’s *gasp* enjoyable! Back in February, I had this idea to start a “mark making” project. I was inspired by a suggestion in the book Once Upon a Colorful Canvas†.…
Art with a dash of old school blog rambling
