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!

The Night Sky + A Watercolor Portrait (4/100)

I am extremely happy with the way today's canvas panel turned out. The colors turned out exactly the way I wanted them to, and circles have always been a bit of a signature motif for me. Because of that, plus the fact that the vision I had in my head actually came to life, I don't know if I could be happier. 

If you would like to purchase this piece, it can be found here.

• Now we're moving on to a few of the detail shots. In the photo on the left, you can see one of my favorite bits of this little painting - the focal point. I was at the point where the piece was almost completely finished, but it just felt like it was lacking to me. I've really been enjoying playing with this color of paint and I thought I would try it out. I could always paint over it if it didn't work. I like to think that it did.
• I used several different methods throughout this piece to attempt to tie the circles into the background, in addition to letting them stand out on their own. This included, but wasn't limited to, splattering white paint, stamping, watercolors and NuPastels. 
• There was a good bit of collage in the background, a lot of which disappears completely, but I know it's there. If you look closely, you can see a few places where words show through and some black dots that were from a piece of patterned tissue paper.

• I absolutely adore the texture in the first photo. The canvas texture shows through in some places and is completely covered in others. It's one of the things that I've really enjoyed about working on these canvases. 
• Another part of this piece in particular that I adore are the bits of dots that were stamped over the piece. I feel like it helped to tie the piece together and gave a different size of circle for interest. In the long run, I feel like this piece does exactly what I wanted it to in the first place - shows the concept of a night sky.

I also mentioned the other day that I was still extremely interested in doing faces, and just because I had started a new project, I wasn't going to let creating new characters fall by the wayside. The other night, I was feeling in a watercolor kind of mood, and this girl was born! If you follow me on Instagram (@worldofimmensum), you may have seen progress shots of this portrait in my story.

Honestly, I adore the way she turned out. She feels like she's just screaming for a story, and I think she definitely would have a sword. I've been having a ton of ideas lately based on the art pieces I've created, and that's something that I absolutely adore. It's a big part of my reason for doing art in the first place - this blog is my development place for World of Immensum. I've really been enjoying this whole journey so much, and hope all of you agree with me as well.

Again, thank you all for visiting, and I look forward to hearing from you!

A Science Fiction Inspired Canvas Panel (3/100)

I'm extremely happy with the way today's canvas panel for my 100 Day Project turned out. It really defines the style I love to achieve in my art - quirky and almost cartoon-like in style, but with something that is just slightly off (the science fiction twist that I love to throw in). 

In this case, it's that the leaves of these plants are actually eyes. 

The title of this little painting (which is something that I've just recently started doing and am quite fond of) is "The Forest's Eyes". This was yet another one of those projects that I started before heading off to work, then got back with a completely different idea in mind. 

• Starting off with the photo on the left, one of the subtle elements I added to this canvas were the little circles in both the lower right and upper left of the canvas. I wanted to parody the look of the eyes, as well as add a subtle hint of interest to the equally subtle background. This was how I chose to do that.
• In both of these photos, you can see the background. It started out with shades of blue, but after having created the plants and adding collage, I decided to add a wash of pink instead. Some of the background layers shone through, but for the most part I covered them up. Then I added the hints of blue and yellow that create the swirled background. I think that further adds to the mystery. 

•  And finally, for the last image I will share with you all tonight, a close up of the eyes themselves. They were cut from bits and pieces of scrap paper, and if you look closely, the blue leaf in the lower left hand corner may look familiar (it's cut from a scanned copy of this painting). I had a lot of fun with this piece, even if it is fairly straightforward in comparison to my previous two pieces. 

In the long run, though I'm only three days into this self challenge, I've been having a lot of fun with it. The ideas are already starting to churn (I have a title idea that I may work off of tomorrow), and I'm excited to see where this project will lead! If you would like to purchase this piece in particular, you can find the link here. 

Thank you all for joining me, it means a lot, and I look forward to seeing you all next time!

"Rain" Prompt Illustration + WIP Journal Pages

 Hey everyone! It's good to be back, even after as short a period of time as a day. Yesterday was a bit chaotic for me, and I didn't have time for much art at all. I added a few layers to a couple different art journal pages, but it was nothing to write home about, so I figured it wasn't worth posting yet. However, today is a bit different!

I've been trying to take slow steps into creating more professional quality drawings as of late; I'm not sure why the idea appeals to me so much, it just does. I've also been practicing for Inktober, so I figured that an ink drawing would be a nice thing to attempt, since I had a bit of time to dedicate to my art. In addition to all of that, the Illustration Friday prompt has been floating around in my head for a couple of days, and I really felt the need to do something with it.

This illustration was born as a result of all of that. I'm a really big fan of interesting/weird conceptual types of art, and I feel like I was able to capture that with this piece. Perhaps in the future, during Inktober, I'll get a bit more intricate with my details, but for now this sort of cartoon-like style suits me just fine. I like the way she turned out, and much like my post from the other day, it inspires many stories.

As for my mixed media work, I don't have any finished pages to share yet, but I do have a few works in progress that I've been playing with and am super excited with the way they're turning out.

The first page up is a single page, and uses a lot of bright colors, quite a bit of paint, and one main piece of collage. This page is a bit of an experiment in the long run, and I also worked it over top of a base layer that I ultimately hated. The colors clashed and it had been sitting in this journal for freaking ever, so I finally decided to just paint over it completely. I think this has a lot more potential.

• I mentioned above that this page was an experiment, and that's because I recently got a few things that I wanted to play around with. I had ordered some Sharpie Pens from Amazon (because they were on sale and NaNoWriMo is quickly approaching!!) and to bump the order up to free shipping, I got a brayer and a diamond stencil. I figured that they would work in combination with the Gelli plate I recently bought, as well as having other applications. That was what I was attempting to do here.
• As you can see, there are a lot of bright colors and a lot of layers. The neon pink applied around the circles are Portfolio oil pastels, and though I haven't done anything with them yet, they are water soluble and one of my very favorite (and inexpensive!) art supplies to use. 

• The second work in progress I want to show you guys is actually a spread; one that I'm actually afraid to do too much else to for fear of messing it up. It's something that I definitely love conceptually - it was a way of experimenting with the branches stencil used along the bottom but I ended up adoring the way it turned out. I may have to do a more finished piece separate from my journal at a later date.
• One of my favorite bits of this spread currently is the background that shows through the tree stencil. There is some copper metallic paint in there, and in certain lights it gleams.

So, as you can see, I've definitely been up to some things, despite the fact that I've been pretty busy and tired as of late. The art definitely helps balance it out!

Thank you for stopping by, and I'd love to hear from you!

The Other Half (9.9.2016)

I'm officially back with another face for the 29 Faces challenge!  I keep saying this, and I'm sure I will continue to say it - this has been an incredibly fun process for me. I entirely enjoy the feeling of developing ideas in this manner. The more faces I paint, the more ideas I seem to have. Sure, some of the faces are better than others, but that's part of the fun of it all for me. 

So, without further ado, onto today's face!

 As you can see in the very first photo, this was done on the same piece of cardboard as yesterday's piece. Though I may be playing around with some digital work tomorrow, expect a lot of cardboard experimentation in the near future - I've really been enjoying it!

• In this face, the thing that stands out to me the most is the tones in the skin. I went with a lot more orange, yellow and pink than I typically do (mixed in places with browns and whites), and I'm not sure what I think of the result. I think that it's different, and I do like it, but it's an experiment, to be sure.
• I am a big fan of this girl's hair in particular. I'm not sure what it is about it that I like so much, and I do feel as if it could use some touching up (maybe a few more white highlights), but in the long run, it's something I'm definitely happy with.
• In this photo, you can also see the scrap piece of paper I had tucked underneath of my cardboard while I was working. When I went to add color to the page, I would wipe excess paint on this paper - I think it serves as an interesting view of how the face was created!

• In the photo on the left, you cane see this girl's eyeliner, which I also like quite a bit. It was somewhat of an accident - I went to paint the line of the eye and my hand took it a little too far. Essentially it was a happy accident. 
• The left photo is probably one of my favorite sections of this little face. If you look closely, you can see some of the graphite shading I did on top of the acrylic paint around the eye area. I also love how the teal markings of the background overlap with her hair. As far as the background is concerned, I'm moving on for now though I may come back to it later.
• The right photo shows a bit of a better view of the textures of the piece - they're rougher, and the cardboard likes to suck up the paint, so you can see a lot of that as well. I love the lips in this piece; the color reminds me a lot of my own lipstick. You can also see where I went to put in an extra line for the area that separates the nose and the mouth and essentially pointed out that the nose was placed wrong. Whoops.

In the long run, I am happy with today's face. I think I'm starting to learn that faces are one of those things that I just need to relax abut. The more I worry about them, the worse I end up doing. Really, I'm better off just letting it flow, and critiquing the work afterwards in order to grow in the future. Here's to even better faces in the future!

Playing Catch Up (9.8.2016)

Due to a lot of things happening last night, it was impossible for me to post on here, as much as I wanted to. However, I still did manage to complete a face, so I had that going for me. Almost as a bonus for you guys, you get to see two faces today!

First and foremost, we have the face that I completed yesterday. This one is a little rough, and was done in colored pencils and graphite. 

This face in particular had unpromising beginnings, so in the end I'm happy with the way she turned out. Essentially, I began the very rough sketch in the dark in a moving car, so it was a little weird when it came to proportions. However, all things considered, I think she turned out very royal looking. 

Somewhere along the way, while I was coloring her, she began to remind me vaguely of Gwen from the television show Merlin - some of the influences started to work for me after that. I would still like to try this girl in particular again, perhaps digitally. We'll see what happens!

Now, we have today's face, which I am extremely happy with. 

I'm beginning to get to the point with painting faces where I'm getting more comfortable with it - it's almost soothing, actually. Sometimes things don't exactly turn out as I planned, but I'm trying to learn to be okay with that. For example, I know this girl's shoulder should be extended further out. However, for this concept to work, that would be impossible. And that's okay!

I took some influences from Tuesday's painted girl as the inspiration for this piece. Of course, there are many things that weren't even close to the same - for example, I didn't use any oil pastels at all in this painting, though the other face's skin tone was almost exclusively oil pastel.

• The main idea that I took from the other post was the dark black painted outlines around the entirety of the character. That was an extremely appealing aesthetic to me, and I felt the need to try to recreate it. Part of me feels like it's going to become a part of my style, though I'm not going to be attempting to nail anything down in stone. 
• In the left photo, you can see some of the finer details of this girl's eye. I'm particularly happy with this part of the painting, I think that the eyelashes turned out great and the color of the eye is extremely pretty. The finer details of the eye were done with a Sharpie pen (again, sometimes they're just great for the small things), but the majority of this face was done in acrylics and graphite pencil. 
• On the left, you can see some of the interesting textures I was able to achieve, especially in the neck area. I've never painted on cardboard before, and it was certainly a new experience (one that I enjoyed immensely and will have to experiment with in the future!).

 

•  In this first photo, you can see some of the better details of the cheek coloring, which I thought was nice. I was playing with some neon pink and trying to get it to blend - I think it did exactly what I wanted it to, luckily enough.
• In this final photo, there are several things that stand out to me. Quite obviously, the focus is on the hair, which is in a style very similar to my own (I think I might need to try thinking outside the box with my next hairstyle), but with highlights to match this girl's eyes. I like the texture that was achieved under the hairline, caused both in part by scratchy acrylic paint and by graphite pencil. The texture in her eye shadow is another added bonus.

In the long run, I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with these faces and playing around with new techniques and ideas - I hope all of you are enjoying following my journey as much as I am enjoying taking it. I love hearing from all of you in the comments, it honestly makes my day!

I hope you all have an amazing day, and I thank you all for visiting.

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!