My Favorite Fonts

Having been on Pinterest for a little while, I've collected quite a few pictures and links to inspire my artistic endeavors. Sometimes I go through my boards to gain some motivation, and I chuckle when I notice what styles I was drawn to for that day or week. There are blocks of watercolor pins, flyer design pins, brand identity pins, the list can go on and on. But I want to focus on one particular subject, as you can probably already tell by the title of this post.

Designophile that I am, I love to collect fonts and font combinations. Especially when I'm designing a flyer or doing a typographic representation of a quote, I like to browse dafont and find the perfect font. Of course, I hardly ever know what I'm looking for until I find it. But I wanted to share some of my favorite default fonts. These are the ones that are the "base" of my graphic designs. Do I need a nice looking serif font that looks official? I'll go to Garamond or Didot. And of course, Helvetica is on my list. Granted some of these fonts are already well-used, if not over-used, but that doesn't change the fact that I love to use them.

1. Helvetica is hands-down the safest, most ubiquitous, and slightly over-used font. It's aesthetically pleasing, it's simple, it's sans serif, it's modern, what can't this font do? I especially love using Helvetica for body texts, but it works for a big bold headline as well.

2. I find Garamond to be a superior serif font, especially above Times New Roman. It's great for a classical look.

3. For a more modern serif font, I usually go with Didot. It has harsher serifs and it looks more deliberate.

4. Champagne and Limousines is a recent favorite, and honestly, it's my absolute favorite font. It's modern. It's Helvetica-esque, but it's different enough to have its own mood. I love the roundness of the letters; it makes this thin font look bold, even in its regular form.

5. I'm noticing a trend of modern sans serif fonts. Geosans Light is favorite mostly because of its similarity to Champagne and Limousines. For some reason, I see it as more professional and not as whimsical as C&L. I'm not sure why though...

6. To me, Bebas Neue seems to have randomly appeared, and then all of a sudden, everyone was using it. It's big, bold, and all-caps. It's condensed characteristics make it a great heading font since it saves space but doesn't shirk on boldness. It demands your attention, and I love it.

7. Lastly, Minimal. I don't use it too often, but I love the whimsical nature of this font. Of course, it's modern, and true to its name, uses minimal strokes for each character. I'd characterize it as a more fun version of Champagne and Limousines.

And there you have it, my favorite fonts. Most of them stem from Champagne and Limousines I've noticed. Hopefully they give you some inspiration of fonts to use for future designs.

Draw. Paint. Design.

A Little Practice Goes a Long Way

As an artist, your art is never perfect. I found this little gem on Pinterest, and I think it captures the struggle of artists of any kind anywhere.

http://themetapicture.com/how-artists-see-their-work/

And sometimes, even when you finish your artwork, it's still not finished. I still look at some of the pieces I've done in the past and mentally make a list of all the things that could make it better. I'm afraid of overworking a piece, but I'm also afraid of underworking it; I can never really find that happy medium, so it sometimes feels like I end up stopping in the middle. 

So I figured that I should focus on (for now) practicing. I haven't really done a formal large piece in a while, so my fine arts skills have gotten rather rusty. I've been doing a lot of graphic design, and I love it. But there's still something special about holding a brush or pen in your hand and creating something beautiful. Therefore, I'll practice as much as I can (plus, I need to use all of my mini-canvases). I won't sell these since these are on par with sketches and they're also pretty small, about the size of a business card. But they'll be nice for me to see my progress this summer.

I'll also add to this post as I continue with practicing.

Painting a background to get rid of the horrible plain white canvas

"Finished" paintings of snowberries and poppies

A Dream No Longer Deferred

What better way to showcase my art than by selling it? This is a dream I've had for a while and that has manifested itself in many different ways. When I was little, I "created" a business called Kira's Krafts. I wanted to make little crafts like beaded keychains or felted crafts and then sell it. I even drew myself behind a table with a banner that said "Kira's Krafts" with the K's drawn as paintbrushes and pencils. Since I was in elementary school, I didn't have a bunch of resources besides my imagination, so that never really went through.

Fast forward to late middle school, early high school, I started StreetArt. I only did commissions and half-heartedly sold art that I had already done. I was much too attached to my artwork, and I couldn't handle the thought that I would have to part with it. So I practiced some and mostly did free portraits of people. I only had one large commission where I drew two portraits and was paid a relatively large sum of money. But I never seriously gave selling my art a thought. 

Fast forward to college. I guess you could say I'm a bit more mature (-ish) and that I know more about business related things (-ish). So I created Draw. Paint. Design. It started off as a professional portfolio for furthering my career. I figured having a link to all my artwork and designs would be attractive to potential employers. It was meant to be a more formal portfolio than this blog. Then I asked myself, why not make it a business? I could design a logo for it, some business cards, a Facebook page and I'd be in business. I could showcase and sell the artwork on my portfolio and then sell it on my Etsy shop.

And that's just what I did.

To God be the glory, I've been more proactive in trying to sell my artwork and in getting people to know about me. I've handed out my business cards, shared posts on Facebook, and updated my portfolio as much as I could. I have a fiverr account where I do small design or crochet tasks that don't take too long. And I think I'm gaining ground. I just need to work on the marketing bit; I'm quite averse to being the annoying-person-on-Facebook-who-doesn't-know-when-to-stop-sharing-links. I don't like to clog up others' newsfeeds because I hate it when my newsfeed is clogged. But oh well. I'll do my best to advertise (I've already bought some ad space on Etsy) and keep sharing photos and new artwork that I'm selling. And hopefully this summer, I'll have some new projects to sell.

So here's to a dream that's no longer deferred, one that I've been trying to accomplish for a long time.

Wisteria and Orange flowers

Watercolors are amazing, I'll just say that. The color are beautiful and it has this fresh quality that few other media can duplicate. Just this weekend, I did some painting over a friend's house, then came back and did some more painting since my work was pretty much done.

Wisteria are one my favorite flowers, especially since they are in my favorite color

Drawings and Paintings

I guess it's been almost a month since I last posted. This was mostly because of artist's block (of course) and the fact that I was out of the country for the last week and a half. It was a cruise with my family to various tropical islands. I took many pictures and I'm sure some of them will become inspirations for future paintings/drawings.

Anyway, I did draw/paint quite a bit before my trip. I've rekindled my love for drawing. As you can see from my previous posts, I've been experimenting a lot with watercolor, and unfortunately, I've been neglecting practicing my drawing skills. So here are a few paintings, sketches and drawings that I've done so far.

Almond blossom sketch

Pumpkins for a little fall project of mine, but I might not continue it

The above paintings were done using a plastic wrap effect. After painting some washes on the paper, I arranged plastic wrap on top and let the whole thing dry. After the paint dries, out comes this awesome crinkly effect.

This one and the three previous ones are all of koi

Watercolor sketches

I found the reference photo for this one on Pinterest