A Face in Watercolor and Pen + Inktober Day 2

I am extraordinarily happy with the way today's canvas panel turned out.

When I began the piece, all I had was a doodle of a face I had done on a scratch piece of paper with a Sharpie marker and the desire to work with watercolors. After quite a bit of working with those mediums, this piece came to fruition. It is piece (10/100) for this challenge (I'm at the 1/10 mark!!). 

I love almost everything about it - the coloring in the face itself, the sharp contrast of the doodling and the swirling, almost tattoo-esque designs. In the long run, I'm a big fan. If you're interested in buying this piece, the link is here.

• In the detail shots I took of this piece, you can see all of the work that I put into the eyes on the face. Though I have a hard time picking my favorite part, if I was required to choose, I might just pick the eyes. I love the way they turned out - solid black outlines in contrast with watercolors is a look I really need to experiment with more in the future.
• Another thing that you can see in the photos above, specifically the photo on the right, are the swirl stamps that I've been using quite a bit recently. When I was recently sorting through some of my art supplies, this stamp set caught my attention. A lot of the time it's the perfect finishing touch to a project. In this instance, I turned it into a highlight all it's own. 
• The colors of this piece are another thing that I love - I started out with some faint pinks and oranges, then added the blue and yellow highlights. The brown helps blend everything together into a pleasing color scheme. 

•  This is the final picture of this particular project I am going to share tonight, and it's one of my favorite photographs that I took. You can see the detail that went into the lips (though it's slightly cut off - there was a lot of cross hatching), as well as the letters stamped in the space between this figures eye and eyebrow. It looked a lot like eyeshadow to me, and I loved that particular aspect of the piece.
• In the above photo, you can also see a lot of the texture I was able to get into the face. This was partially due to the fact that the doodle I was working on top of was just your everyday printer paper, and partially because some of the Mod Podge I used to glue the piece down was also applied on top. At any rate, I love the way it looks.

In addition to the canvas panel, I also wanted to share this bird I drew using only ink. This was for Day 2 of Inktober (I probably won't be posting everything I do on the blog, but you can find the rest of it on my instagram). and I adore the way it turned out. Even just conceptually, it makes me happy. Overall, today has been a good day for art.

I thank you all for visiting, and I hope you enjoyed your stay! I'll see you next time, when I have more to share!

An Art Journal Page of Leftovers (9/100)

I'm back and joining all of you today with another couple of projects I worked on tonight that I'm really quite proud of. The first is the above canvas panel. I think that I'm slowly but surely starting to get used to this sort of surface, though it's taken a bit of experimentation and adjustment (though not quite as much as a full-out canvas. 

This piece was a bit of a play on my canvas from the other day, though when I started on this canvas it was a fairly unintentional sort of thing. I am happy with the way I was able to differentiate this piece and have it stand well on its own, while still working as a set. If you want to purchase this piece, you can find it here. 

• As I mentioned on my instagram this evening, this canvas was really inspired by the colors, specifically the color purple. It's one of those colors that I love, but don't tend to use very often, for reasons unbeknownst to me. I had a lot of fun playing with the blue in combination with the purple (then adding the yellow for good measure and a sense of flow). 
• I said above that this piece worked well with another piece I had made previously, and in that post I mentioned that the circles were made with a homemade stencil, that I reused here. I can't even tell you all how good it feels to be using my own stencils in my artwork, it just adds another layer of depth to it all, in my opinion.
• The purple in the circles was done with a Portfolio oil pastel, which I then proceeded to activate by rubbing it with a damp paper towel (you could also use a baby wipe). I love the end result. 

Now I want to share with you something that I have done previously on this blog, and I will continue to do it in the future. When I had completed the above project, I still had quite a bit of paint on my palette that I didn't want to go to waste. I actually have a special journal (not this one) that I use specifically to get rid of my paint leftovers, but there was enough to create a full page and I hadn't worked on an art journal page in a while.

And so, out came the composition notebook!

• The words placed on this page were very much inspired by how unique I felt this page was to me. Though it is fairly simple (and I'm not completely sure that I'll never add anything to it), I still feel as if it is very uniquely me. 
• There are several reasons for this, but first and foremost it is because of the doodled pieces that are scattered throughout the page. I had created these as part of a sort of collage sheet fairly near the beginning of last month, and I'm just now getting around to using them. They just seemed to fit. 
• Another thing that I felt was very much particular to my style in particular is that I used yet another one of my stencils I created in this piece. The oval shapes were this very stencil, and it's quickly becoming one of my favorites. 

In the long run, I'm very happy with the way these mixed media pieces turned out, though I think I prefer the canvas panel. That's only if I had to pick a favorite. I've actually been spending a lot of time with my art today, and I ended up finishing a digital piece and my first drawing for Inktober if you want to check my instagram (@worldofimmensum). 

Thank you all again for visiting me, it's greatly appreciated, and I'll see you all next time!

2 Panel Update (7+8/100)

Hey everyone, I'm back with another one of my 100 Day Challenge updates! If you're following me on Instagram, you'll have already seen that I did in fact still do a mini canvas yesterday, despite the fact that I didn't update the blog. If I'm not around on here, you can find me over there at worldofimmensum.

However, back to the art itself! Yesterday's piece was definitely a way for me to try to work through some rough emotions I was experiencing. I got through that by scribbling with pencil chaotically on the very first layer. I further emphasized it through the thick black outlines and gestural shapes. I definitely did feel better by the time I was finished. At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but it's definitely starting to grow on. 

• By this point, you guys are probably starting to spot some reoccurring shapes/materials in my artwork. In this piece in particular, you may recognize the diamond stamp. You can see this in both of the above photographs. There's just something intriguing to me about the texture it gives. It's similar to dots (another weakness of mine) but varied just a bit. 
• Another thing you may recognize is the polka dot tissue paper that is collaged inside of the oval shapes. This is one of my very favorite things to add to pieces, just because of the way it almost appears as a stamp, since the background shows through whatever parts aren't black. 

 Next up is today's piece! I do like the way this little canvas turned out, since in my opinion it is pretty personal. In my eyes, this canvas is a representation of my artistic journey, which is why it looks vaguely chaotic. All of these different styles are originating from the same point, and I love that. The colors were also fun to play with.

• Looking at some of the finer details of the piece (the photo on the left stands out to me in particular), you can see that a lot of work went into getting this piece to look the way it does. There was stamping, stenciling, finger painting, collage, and basically whatever else I could think of. 
• The fine details of this organized chaos are really what I love the most, and you can see a lot of that in the photo on the left. The blue plant is the final of three stencils I made about a week back, and I've loved working with them. The dots were done with the tips of my fingers and acrylic paint. 

In the photo on the left (another one of my favorite photos I've taken of this piece), you may recognize the mushroom from a while back. I had drawn them, then photocopied the drawing I did, to use the copies in my art. That was exactly what I did here. 

In the long run, this is the way my mind works. It's crazy, it's a little bit structured and a little bit not, but in the end it all comes together. I'm glad it worked out the way it did, even if it does make me feel kind of vulnerable putting it out there. 

If you would like to buy either of the canvas panels in this post, they can be found here and here.

Until next time, I hope you all do well!

Mixed Media Canvas Portrait (9.4.2016)

I honestly don't think I could be happier with the way today's 29 Faces piece came out.

I worked on this for a few solid hours before I was finally happy, but it was the complete opposite of yesterday's feeling rushed. It was nice to just work while listening to music, not worrying about much else. I did this piece on a canvas, so that's still a new sort of learning experience, but I'm much happier with this piece than the other canvases that I did.

• Right off the bat, the first thing that draws attention is the hair. This was a shimmer paint that I got from Target last night, and I'm extraordinarily happy with the results of using it for her hair. I had tried to give her a braid, but the more I worked at it, the more I realized she was probably better suited for long, wavy hair.
• The inspiration for this piece, the thing that made me want to make it in the first place, was the idea of incorporating the butterflies into this girl's hair. If you've been following my 29 Faces journey, you'll have seen that the other day I drew a girl with a fairly elaborate mask. She's probably my second favorite face that I've done for this challenge thus far, and her mask was somewhat inspired by the elaborate details often associated with butterflies. From there, this idea was formed.
• On the right, you can see some of the details of this girl's eyes. I actually painted them first, and then painted her hair over top of the face, in order to better get a feel of the flow of the hair and the way it would fall more accurately. 

•  On the left, you can see one of my favorite bits of this entire painting. This little cluster of butterflies, plus the stark contrast of stamping and the gray painted circles pretty much define everything that I love about this piece.
• You can also see some of the texture in this girl's hair in these photos. I think what happened there was that underneath the painting I did a good bit of collage (most of which was covered by the face - you can see some bits of newspaper text at the very top of the piece though) using Mod Podge. Then I dried her hair with a heat gun. It was a sort of happy accident, and I'm super excited that it happened like that.
• The right hand photo is my second favorite part of the painting. It's soft and feminine, and the sharp black stamping adds just the right stylistic contrast for my liking - if you know me, that's basically my fashion style. I like to mix leather jackets and boots with lace and florals. I think that's part of why I love this canvas so much. 

I hope you all enjoyed viewing this painting as much as I enjoyed creating it and love the finished result. It's been great to hear from all of you in the comments, it really makes my day! Until next time, I hope you all have a good time with your art!

Two Faces + A Canvas Pair (9.2.2016)

At least during September, I want to attempt to be more frequent with my posting - daily if possible. I'm not going to make any promises, because I have been extremely busy lately, but I'll do my best.

I figured I would start this post off strong with some sketches I did for 29 Faces. These are faces 3/29, and they came together fairly easily. I use Derwent Graphic Pencils for the majority of my graphite sketches, and this was no exception. In this case, I used an HB for the base sketches, then added details and shading with a 3B.

• The girl on the left is somewhat of a variation of yesterday's face, but a version that I envision to have orange hair. Honestly, I just loved the hairstyle so much that I felt like I needed to play around with it some more.
• On the right was an idea I started conceptualizing yesterday as well. Underneath yesterday's portrait, there was a failed attempt at an oil pastel face. The texture of the background didn't blend well with the oil pastels (I wasn't thinking), and it ended in disaster. However, the girl I had been playing with ended up with some rather free-flowing lines around her eyes that reminded me of a mask. That was what I was trying to recreate here. Part of me thinks that she could be a superhero.

Now we arrive at the "I don't know what I think" portion of the post. I've been wanting to create a set of canvases for a good long while now, but I sort of think that I rushed these a bit. I'm not a huge fan, and I tried to push myself to use warm colors when I'm more of a cool color kind of person.

These were done for part of the 30 in 30 challenge, which is another one of the main reasons I'm going to be trying to blog more often.

 Part of me just thinks that they're underdeveloped. I started adding details like words and giant ink circles when the background wasn't yet ready for it. However, I took a bit of a different direction than I'm used to and I'm more conflicted about it than anything. I don't hate them, I don't love them, I'm somewhere in the middle.

Who knows, maybe somewhere along the way I'll decide to add more onto them, and I'll fix them up to a point where I love them. If I do, you'll all be the first to know!

Thank you for joining me today, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Connections (8.7.2016)

I'm not sure if you can really tell from the photos, but the piece this post is about was done on a canvas. It's the first canvas I've done in a good long while, and I absolutely adore the way it turned out. The layers, the colors, the message - I feel like I've created something I'm proud to call my own and that's a good feeling.

As far as the message is concerned, it's a sort of companion piece to a poem I wrote for my Patreon page. If you look under the "Why Immensum is on Patreon" tab, the bits that are in bold are part of  poem I created to describe my journey. After I had done the mixed media layering of this canvas and was trying to think on what words would fit the feeling of the piece, this phrase is the one that immediately came to mind.

There are far too many layers for me to fully explain all of them, but I'll do my best.

• The first thing that stands out to me, because it is clearly the focus of the page, is the giant pink heart. That design was actually created via a stencil I made a good while back on a simple piece of printer paper. It was never intended to be used for long term use, but it was made during a period of time when I was experimenting with hearts as a significant theme in my work. I still like the idea of that.
• The stenciled letters in the upper right hand and lower left hand corners of this canvas are indeed the same stencil as the word 'heart' in the title. For the title word, I applied multiple layers of the while paint in order to make sure it stood out against all the layers of the background and didn't blend into it too much.
• Speaking of the corners, the lower right hand corner is probably one of my favorite parts of this canvas. You can see that there is a lot of texture, which was created by dabbing on white acrylic paint with a paper towel. There are also a few bits of book paper, layered with some stamping, some watercolors, and a bit of masking tape.

• In this photo, you can see the details of the title a bit better. I simply used a gel pen to outline the letters of the title, doing it several times for emphasis. The rest of the words were stamped.
• You can also see in these photos how a bit of the heart has been lifted away. That effect was achieved when the piece got wet, due to an attempt to make some vague drip marks. However, I then proceeded to place a sheet of paper down on the canvas and pull it back up (a technique that you may have seen in the video from my last post. I love the effect that I ultimately got.

As you can probably tell, I sort of love this canvas. It has a bit of personal meaning to me, but I also think that visually it is incredible important. It defines a specific point in my artistic journey, the point where I truly decided that I wanted to try to make art for a living, at least in some capacity.

Also, from the creation of this canvas, I was able to come up with several other ideas of things I would like to try to create in the future - a potential digital drawing inspired by some of my favorite parts of this canvas. But that's the funny thing about art - you always come up with the best ideas when you're creating something else. Thank you all so much for joining me, and I'll see you next time!