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!

Inspiring a Character + 29 Faces FINISHED

There are several interesting things to me about art, and this finished page in particular says a few of those things. This page was actually worked on top of something I had already started - every now and again I find it worthwhile to look back through my journals and look for pages I haven't finished yet. I didn't have a whole lot of time tonight, so that was what I decided to do. I love the way that it turned out.

That leads me to my first point about art that I adore. Even when you're happy with the way your art looks on a consistent basis, when you think that you've developed a style, there's still more room to grow. The more you do, the more you work at it, the happier you start to become. At least, that's the way it has ended up working for me.

• The second thing that I find interesting about art is that, at least for me, the more that I do, the more ideas I seem to have. The words in this particular page illustrate this point. They read as follows. "In all my days, with all the things I've seen - there is nothing much more difficult than fixing a broken heart."
• As I was working on this page, the drips coming from the heart immediately started screaming to me that it was a broken heart. I didn't have a quote in mind, or any sort of phrase, but what I did know was that I wanted to incorporate a broken heart somehow. As I worked, and continued to build up the page, the words continued to jumble around in my brain, and eventually I managed to spit this out. It didn't come from anywhere except for my own brain, and I can imagine it coming from a wizened old man in a fairy-tale esque story. In fact, a character started to develop out of this page, and that was something I didn't intend to happen when I started it.
• The sharp contrast of the black with the bright colors is something that I love about this page, and I feel like it plays right in with the feeling of the page. Besides, it's just something that I generally enjoy. 

•  In both of the above photographs, you can see some black outlines of collage bits I cut out and glued down onto this page. I've been hoarding this scrap for a good long while now, but I've decided that I can't keep things just because I like them - that I need to start using them so that I can buy new things that I like even more. It was just a piece of copy paper that I painted a lot of doodly scribbles on with india ink, and I think it fits this page beautifully.
• Also in these photos, you can see a lot of the beautiful layering I was able to achieve with this page in particular. The color layered much better than I had even been expecting (I actually never painted the color purple onto the page, which can be seen in the first photo - the colors just mixed that way) and a lot of it I don't even remember doing, since some of it was already down when I got to this page.

• I want to finish off talking about this page with a close up of the heart itself and the drips that inspired the words. I created the heart with Prismacolor NuPastels, which I've talked about quite a bit recently as something I've been experimenting with and having a whole lot of fun. They're water-soluble, so they spread beautifully, and if you wet them enough when the page is tilted, they create beautiful, inspiring drips like these. 

That brings us to today's face I completed for 29 Faces. It's been a crazy journey, and this actually marks my 29th face. I've finished with a bit of time to spare, but I've definitely learned a lot these past 20 days. I've learned that I love painting faces, and I've awoken a love of watercolor that wasn't there before (as you can see in the sketchbook page shown above). 

After painting my ocean-inspired girl, I felt the need to give my watercolors another go. I also wanted to try out this sketchbook, which I typically use more for pencil sketches, but it has 98 lb paper. It warped a bit, but I think it's manageable, so I'll probably be doing more watercolor in this sketchbook in the future! Ultimately, I like the way this girl turned out. The coloring is perhaps a bit more brown overall than I typically tend to go for, but I'm certainly not opposed. It's definitely better than I could have done at the beginning of this month!

If I've learned anything, it's that painting people is definitely something I'm capable of if I put my mind to it, and that continuous practice is a good way to make significant improvement. Essentially that's what I plan to do this October with Inktober (as well as a top secret upcoming project that I'm super excited to share with all of you).

Thank you all for being with me through this month, I hope you've enjoyed viewing the work I've been sharing as much as I've loved creating it!

Mixing Digital and Physical + A Sketchbook Page

Today the art I focused on doing was a lot more oriented towards drawing and not so much painting, but I suppose the first piece could technically be considered mixed media.

This is definitely one of my favorite things I've finished in a good long while, and I'm happy that I even managed to come up with the concept in the first place. It's definitely something I'm going to have to explore in the future. I scanned the page from my art journal I painted yesterday into my computer to start things off.

A big thing I wanted to do was make this painting feel more finished, so I opened the scan in Photoshop and used my drawing tablet to add solid black outlines. I love the way this turned out, and the lines from the composition paper showing through add a sort of subtle touch that I love.

The second thing I have to share with you all today was a age that I finished in my sketchbook (you can see the marker lines peeking through on the opposite page from this sketch) that I absolutely adore.

When I started this page, the only real idea I had in mind was the girl in the lower left hand of the page. I didn't even realize that I was going to give her a body (which is why the one side of her body is sort of falling off of the page), but I'm glad that I did in the long run. She's a character that I'd love to give a final version eventually. 

After I had given her a little bit of work, I started to develop other concepts and felt the need to put them down as well. After it was all said and done, an hour and a half had passed and this was the result. Sometimes a little bit of pointless sketching is great stress relief, and this was one of those instances.

In the long run, today was more of a time to recover from working four days with long hours in a row. I watched a couple of movies and got nice and inspired in that regard, and the ideas are slowly but surely starting to merge and work themselves out. 

Thank you all for joining me, and I hope you're all as excited to see what the next couple of days (that I have off) will hold!

A Harley Quinn Inspired Face

Today's post is going to be a pretty quick one, since I didn't really have a whole lot of time for art today. I had a lot of work and school things I was trying to juggle, but I made sure that I put aside the time for at least one face.

I bought a few Prismacolor markers last night while at Michaels (they were having a sale, and I've always wanted to try them out), and decided to play with them a little bit in my sketchbook. This was the result.

I actually really love the way this piece turned out, as simple as it is in comparison to some of my other pieces. I believe that the colors work well together, and it's an idea that's sort of been floating around in my head for a good couple of days (a girl with one half of a mask), so it felt good to actually put it down on paper.

A little ways into actually drawing the piece, I realized how the quirky style and the colors I chose to buy had a Harley Quinn esque feeling. I decided to go along with that feeling, seeing as she is one of my favorite characters in anything, and added the triangles to her cheeks.

I think I'm going to have a lot of fun experimenting with these markers in the future.

Art Journal Video + Four Faces

Hello everyone, I'm back and this time I have my third art journal video ever to share with all of you. I know I haven't been incredible consistent with making videos, and I'm not going to promise to do so because I honestly don't have the time to edit them a lot of the time.

However, I am going to be making them whenever I can (most likely on days I don't have to work, like today). I'm also not going to be expanding upon the photographs too much, only because I added captions to my video this time around. However, I will be adding a few comments, so stay tuned!

I broke out the better camera to take these photographs today (honestly, I had just kept forgetting to use it, but I'm glad that I remembered, since these are much clearly and generally better). In the above photograph, you can see a bit of the page opposite the one I was actually working on. You can also see me adding things to it in the video. Essentially this is how I clean my brushes and my stamps, as well as test out ideas. Then I just work over top of the layers later.

In these two photographs, you can see the quote a bit more clearly. I heard this the other day and I just couldn't get it out of my head. I knew that it would become an art journal page eventually, and when I ended up creating a circle with wings that looked good, but didn't really make sense, I knew it was perfect.

I thoroughly enjoy this little section of the page. I grouped the majority of the main elements of the page down in this corner, which gives it a lot of interest (while at the same time using the rest of the page as a way to even out the overall feeling of the piece). 

Finally, I would like to finish the sharing of this page off with what is probably my favorite photograph of it. In the long run, the idea was to work with bright colors. I was starting to miss them after so many warmer tones recently, and I'm glad that I made the decision to do an abstract piece instead of a face (not that I dislike faces, don't get me wrong).

For this page, I'm linking to Creative Artiste Mixed Media for "anything mixed media goes".

Speaking of faces, I did some doodles this morning in an attempt to practice some faces that weren't straight on (not including the girl in the upper left). I think it's fairly obvious that I don't do it very much, but that's exactly why I knew that I needed to practice doing so. I used Prismacolor pencils again today for these sketches - they give a bit of a different look than the Derwent ones that I really like. They both act differently, and because of that, I'm glad that I'm experimenting with both.

Thank you so much for visiting and commenting, it really means a lot to hear from all of you! I hope you enjoyed today's post.