Chalk Pastel Portrait + Developmental Sketches (6/100)

I'm back today with yet another canvas panel for my 100 Day Challenge, but this time with an entirely new direction. Essentially, I had every intention of creating a piece similar in style to the rest of the pieces I have done thus far, but when I went to block out the eye to do in a collage style I used chalk pastels.

Once I had started playing around with a new medium (they were actually Prismacolor NuPastels, which are water-soluble as well), I couldn't stop. Thus, this little partial portrait was born. If you would like to purchase this piece, you can find it here. 

• I think the tears depicted here were somewhat of a way of working through some issues I've been having recently. I've been reconsidering a lot of things - things that I once believed were set in stone when it comes to my future. I've been extremely emotional lately, and art just seems to be my way of coping with that.
• As you can see in the above photographs, the texture is a bit different from pure chalk pastel. This is because I actually started blending acrylic paints into the pastels with my fingers at some point, because I wanted to add some depth and variety (as well as texture) that I wasn't quite getting from the pure chalk pastels.

• The eye itself is another one of my favorite parts about this little piece. I love the coloring and shading that  was able to achieve (plus purple eyes are cool). The chalk pastels mixed with acrylics is definitely something I'm going to need to play with in the near future, no doubt about that.
• The amount of time I spend working on this piece was well worth the result. I love experimenting and playing with different techniques and things I've never done before (because you can only get better with practice!) so this was a very relaxing, soothing process for me. It helped me come to grips with a few things and I think it was good for me in the long run. 

The last thing I would like to share with you today is this little page of sketches, which I did in preparation for a new digital painting that I actually started working on today. I had the idea for this girl (her appearance and color scheme) in the back of my head for a few days now, and I decided to just take the plunge and do something about it.

I've also started messing around with a new way of organizing my storytelling/art ideas, and if it works out for me, then maybe I'll share it with all of you in the future!

Thank you all for visiting and leaving all of your amazing comments, I don't even know how to explain how good they make me feel, knowing that people actually like what I'm doing. Until next time, I wish you all the best!

A Fantasy Inspired Art Journal Spread (9.12.2016)

 I had the day off of work today, and because of that, I had the time to complete a couple of faces for 29 Faces! I haven't done more than one face since the second day of the challenge, where I did two sketches in a style similar to the one shown above. I later expanded on one of those sketches later.

However, today only one of my faces is a sketch. This was done while sitting and listening to music - I hadn't been doing much of anything except for browsing the internet. The second I started thinking about it, I got the immediate urge to sketch. I had recently uncovered a set of Prismacolor Premier sketching pencils, so I decided to use them instead of my typical Derwent. I'm pretty happy with the results (I used an HB and a 4B).

This little girl feels pretty determined, which was the intention. I also used the opportunity to experiment with the folds of her clothing a little bit.

My second face was actually created for several challenges. It was done in a composition book, and it's mixed media, as pretty much all of my faces tend to be, unless I force myself to stay in one medium. 

The first challenge that inspired this piece was Mixed Media World's "magical/fantasy" challenge. Likely because I had been creating a lot of faces recently, this was the first thing that came to mind. I combined it with the Mix-It-Monthly challenge "inspired by trees". The third and final challenge this was created for was the More Mixed Media Challenge, "anything goes + optional brown".

The result is something that I'm incredibly proud of.

The majority of the time spent on this piece (I think it took several hours, but I wasn't exactly keeping track) was spent on the face itself. I started out with a background on this particular spread (though with my cardboard series, I haven't been doing anything of the kind), and stayed in colors that sort of screamed fantasy to me (deep browns, reds and greens in particular). I'm glad that I spent so so much time on the face itself, since I'm incredibly happy with the way the page as a whole turned out.

• On the left, you can see some better details of the face. I especially love the way the antlers/tree branches blend into the hair. I also adore the colors. Dark reds mixed with brown is a color palette I'm going to have to explore more often. 
• I spent a lot of time on this figure's shirt, trying to get it to feel right. Sometimes I've been known to just put a t-shirt on a character and call it a day, but I really needed to get this one right. Anything too modern would just throw off the entire feel of the spread. Also, I've been trying to get better at clothing, so this was a good chance to do just that.
• In the right hand photo, you can see the quote that I ended up putting on the page. This was a stamp that I hadn't used at all - that's something else I've been attempting to do, pulling things out of my stash that I've never used and actually doing something with them. Plus, I just love this quote.
• Also in the second photo, you can see one of my favorite tiny little details, done with another stamp I haven't gotten any use out of. I put little leaf clusters on the tree branches, just for an extra little detail. I adore the result.

I don't know why I've been straying towards warmer colors lately (maybe it's just because autumn is coming and I have it subconsciously on the mind!) but I love the results I've been getting out of it.

Thank you all for taking the time to visit, and I hope you enjoyed seeing my work!

A Face and Its Remnants (9.11.2016)

After the change with yesterday's face in doing a digital piece, I'm back to mixed media. As you can probably see from the sporadic nature of this blog, I don't like to feel tied down to one medium when it comes to my artwork. I feel like I learn more when I'm constantly learning and practicing new things. 

However, with this piece in particular, I'm working on cardboard again, and for this series in particular I'm sort of attempting to stay with a vaguely similar style for the pieces. This is the first time I've really worked in a series like this (and there's a bit of a secret to it, I'd be curious to see who'll guess first), so I'm really excited about it. 

I'm also particularly happy with today's face (face 12/29 for 29 Faces), so without further ado, let's move on to talking about it.

• I'm sort of in love with the tones in this face. I used a lot of pinks and yellows and blended with brown and just the tiniest bit of white. After the tones in the face had started to come along, I didn't really feel the need to brighten it up too much. It just felt like if I added anything too crazy, it'd be overwhelming. So, I stuck with muted colors overall, adding a few pops of orange in her lips and the flower. The colors are pretty much my favorite part of this painting.
• In the photo on the left, you can see the hairstyle a bit better. It didn't turn out quite as I was expecting, but I'm okay with it. However, the hairstyle was the inspiration for the piece - my sister was wearing her hair like this the other day and I couldn't resist.
• Then we come to the right hand photo. The texture here is crazy. I'm pretty sure that every time I paint on cardboard I comment on the amazing texture, but I just can't help myself. It's incredibly fun to mess around with, and I think everyone should try it at least once. We all have boxes lying around that are waiting to be thrown away - why not cut one down and give it a go?

 I'm not really going to expand on these photographs too much, but they're both from my Instagram story; if you're interested in seeing more progress shots, I've been posting a lot of them there lately.

• As you can see, the first photograph depicts my rough sketch - and when I say rough, I mean extremely rough. My sketches are purely guidelines, I don't try to overthink it too much. In the long run, they're going to be mostly painted over anyways, so I can make adjustments with paint.
• The second photo is after some paint had already been applied. Typically I'll go over the skin tones again with a second pencil outline, more defined and to give me a chance to actually outline with the black paint like I've been doing for this series.

The second mixed media piece I have to share with you guys today is probably the first finished art journal page I've actually done since I started the 29 Faces challenge (you can see the traces of my first face on the edge of the page above).

Essentially, it went something like this. 

Lately, once I'm finished painting faces, I have a random assortment of colors on my palette, since it's much easier to apply them there when I'm painting a portrait. A lot of time this leftover paint goes to waste, since I don't always use it and it dries out. I was getting tired of that happening, so I decided to create a journal page to use it all up. 

Since the  colors I used for the face were very autumn-like, I decided that it might be fun to participate in the "colors of autumn" challenge over at Stamps and Stencils. So that's what this page was created for!

• When I was sorting through some of my art supplied recently, I found some old rubber stamps I had forgotten I owned, the leaves stamped throughout the page. Only one is clearly visible, but there is a second, more narrow leaf stamp you can see if you look closely.
• In the photo on the left, you can see one of my favorite little portions of the page. Here, the layers haven't been built up as much as in some other areas of the page, and the lines of the composition book and some pencil doodles I did on the very first layer shine through.
• On the right, you can see a bit of a cluster towards the bottom of the page. I love this little section too - I thought this page was a lot of fun to create. There are book pages torn and glued to the background, splatters, Prismacolor NuPastels (which I recently rediscovered in my stash and am enjoying experimenting with again), and more. 
• The quote reads "You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself."

The photos above really just depict closer views of the above photographs, so the descriptions are the same. That doesn't change the fact that I love them!

One last thing before I go. I have a Facebook page where I've been sharing a lot of what I do here, but I feel like a Facebook group has so much more potential than that. So here's my question - do any of you have anything that you love to see? Maybe prompts, discussion questions, or anything along that vein that you'd like to participate in? Because I honestly think it could be a lot of fun.

At any rate, I hope you all enjoyed this post and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!