Pages from an Artist's Journal

What better way to be inspired and be creative than to start an artist's journal? To be honest, I've been thinking of starting one for a very. Long. Time. I've bought a ton of sketchbooks and sketch pads just to start an artist's journal because I knew that once I did, I could actually see my creative process and practice some techniques. Usually, I'm averse to creating unfinished artwork or doing technical drawings. If I'm going to practice, I'm going to practice for a finished piece of artwork, not in sketchbook. I mean yes I do draw occasional sketches but it's usually with a finished piece in mind, rarely with the intention to just sketch and practice.

So now you can see my process as I experiment with different kinds of media, different kinds of techniques, and different kinds of subject matter. These are all done with something under it first, an underpainting of sorts. I hate looking at a blank, white piece of paper. I need some kind of ground to give me ideas. So for each one, I either painted over a sketch or painted a light wash first before doing something on the paper. Not all of these are going to be awesome (I'm actually not too fond of the first one) but they'll all help me see what works and what doesn't.

Scary isn't it? It's an orange lily that I did with acrylic paint. You can see the original sketch underneath; it was a portrait that I wasn't too fond of. So I painted over it.

My favorite one so far. I'm not exactly sure why, I just like working in charcoal maybe. But in case you were wondering I did accidentally-on-purpose single out the eye. The circle around the eye is the only one not painted on with water. This was done over another less-than-satisfactory sketch that I did in ink.

I was basically just experimenting with watercolor and pen. I wanted to see how I would do lettering with it. I concluded that the black outline wasn't the best. It would have looked cooler in my opinion had I just done it with watercolor. But I had fun painting it!

So expect more art journal postings later. Maybe I'll do a series or something so I can have a definite idea of what I'm going to do.

Goldfish in Pastels (video)

So, here is another speed video of me drawing something. My first one can be seen here; it's a drawing of Alicia Keys. This drawing is of a goldfish and the final finished drawing is below the video.

I really like drawing with pastels, they're so...fluid. You can make them blend smoothly and you can make sharp lines for those tiny details. In all honesty, I'm not too pleased with this drawing, especially when compared to the currants that I did in a previous post. But I have one more Pastelbord to use (I'll probably just end up buying more), and maybe for that one, I'll draw flowers. Who knows?

As a stock photo, I used this photo from DeviantArt (and now that I compare them, mine is a lot fatter, oh well). I also made a few minor edits to the drawing in-between finishing the video and taking the final picture. The entire drawing took me a little less than 40 minutes while the video editing took a few hours.

The finished drawing

Hmm, I might add some more orange or yellow to the background to make it less pure blue (or I might not out of laziness).

Typography etc.

I've really taken a liking to typography, especially quotes and Bible verses. It's interesting to see how different people visualize them and place importance on different parts. In the previous post, I hand-lettered quotes, this time I used Photoshop. I do admit, I like the ease with which I can use an "Undo" button or quickly change colors if I don't like the initial ones. 

So here are two of my favorite Bible passages, 1 Corinthians 13 (aka the love chapter) and Jeremiah 29:11-13. I love the Jeremiah passage because it reminds me that God is in control and I don't need to worry about my future so long as I trust in Him. 1 Corinthians 13 is not so much the actual chapter but a representation of it in the form of a checklist of sorts. The passage is easily visualized as such.

And here is a watercolor sketch I did of some flowers. I also outlined it a little bit using a thin marker. I really like how I did the background; I used wet-on-wet techniques. That basically means I wet the paper before painting on it to make it look cloudy and to make it recede in the background. It was fun, I might do more quick little watercolor sketches.

...And Cue Creativity

How long has it been since my last post? Meh, who's counting? But with freshman year at MIT over, I can finally get back to doing art. As much as I love physics and calculus and differential equations, I couldn't wait to get back to being creative. With the left side of my brain ready to tackle all sorts of mathematical and scientific problems, I'm ready to start exercising the skills of the right side (and utilize all the art supplies I got from Blick).

I started off slowly with some practice in lettering. A steady hand and good eye-hand coordination (notice the reversal) are basic necessities for drawing and painting. Since around the beginning of this year, I've been wanting to do some artistic renderings of quotes, famous or otherwise. It's good practice for having good judgment on layout and composition for graphic design projects or other art projects. Keep in mind, these aren't meant to be finished works of art, just practice sketches. Oh and my camera's batteries are dead, so until I can find new ones, the camera on my phone will have to do.

From one of my favorite poems by my favorite poet; "since feeling is first" by ee cummings

Going from design, I went back to traditional drawing. The first picture is just a tonal sketch to practice for the actual piece which will have the local colors. It's my first time using sanguine and bistre (the light and dark browns respectively) and I rather enjoyed using them with the black and white charcoal. The second picture is done with chalk pastels on pastelbord, a surface from Blick. It makes the pastels come out so smoothly and blend nicely, I love it already.

Expect more pastel paintings and quotes later! I might have some more fun with them. 

And everything was done whilst listening to my Piano Guys Radio on Pandora.

Glass Art

I was one of the lucky ones to take the glassblowing class here at MIT over IAP (that's Independent Activities Period). It was super fun and I'm planning on continuing it, probably through making pumpkins for the annual glass pumpkin patch sale. Anyways, here are some pictures of what I made (photo creds for the first 9 to a good friend of mine, Abdi). They are only the ones that actually look nice and that I can actually give away. I have given away a couple though, and I'm hoping to make more pumpkins and such.

Usually, I shy away from 3D art and sculptures. It's difficult for me to get a blob of material and shape something out of it. But I find glass blowing and glass art to be a lot easier since it's very abstract (at least in my point of view).