Merry Christmas!

Hi guys! Merry Christmas! I couldn't really afford presents this year to I made a quick Christmas card. I drew it with colored pencil and then scanned it in to be colored digitally. I'm going to post the process pictures as a treat to see how my weird little mind works haha! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

See the full gallery on Posterous

digital doogle "the painted lady"

So I am totally running low on the creative idea tank so I thought I would try my hand at some very very basic digital painting. I know I could keep going and make this really rendered, but this was more a warm up for something better to come. I tried and use all wild sorts of colors instead of just basic shades of browns and reds. It was fun to do and didn't take long either. Always accepting ideas for a new exciting drawing :)

MY LOVE

Bookmark Contest digital

So I did a little contest for the Prince William County Library System thing. The theme was " I am thankful for my library", a little cliche' to me personally but hey I not the library god so whatevs. I thought I would go for a bit more of a metaphorical drawing, I thought the library has books, books plant thoughts and ideas in your head, plant means tree, so book tree growing in a magical library. I'm still debating if I should put some font at the bottom of the bookmark. Any thoughts before I turn it in? I'm going to go back and fix the actual books on the tree because they don't really read as books right now (bahahahaha get it? READ as books? hahahaha) 

Snow White and the Pig Prince digital doodle

So this is a complete digital drawing that I did. I'm practicing my line quality and speed. This took me 2 and half hours, I think it's because I tend to over think the colors. I wanted this to look sweet but grungy, perhaps too much texture though. Ah well, every drawing is a step closer. I feel like this could be the start to a cute fairy tale.

22x30in bic pen drawing

So this was quite a bit of work. I think I might have bit off more than I can chew, I drew men, blood, and violence all in one big drawing. It's a bit much but the result is okay. I'm going to get a better scan of it later today, I just couldn't wait to put it up.

Norberta, quick doodle digital/pen

So I couldn't sleep the other night so I felt like drawing Harry Potter doodles because it didn't require much thought. Don't judge too harshly, remember this is middle of the night doodling here. I'm trying to practice my lighting since usually all of my artwork is the same mid tone. Definitely more practice on that in the future.

Fairies in the library bic pen

I'm hopefully going to paint this with watercolor soon

Okay so I ended up doing it digitally instead since the original got scratched up by a cat. Note this fellow artists, don't leave your traditional work out where the cat can find them. Anyways, I really am feeling good about where my art is taking me. I at last am not terrified of using colors, and hopefully soon I'll be working on my first book, wish me luck!

Doodle of the day, Pinocchio and the blue fairy, digital

So just a quick doodle so I don't get rusty. I haven't done an all digital doodle in a while so I thought I'd practice me line work quality. The day I get my digital lines as clean as my pen lines I shall be unstoppable. Also I colored this like I would a pen drawing, I think that some of the soft values make it look a bit cheap, next time a hard brush maybe. Oh well, it was fun :)

Quick doodle, paper planes outside my window

So decided to work on my man made objects such as windows...I hate windows. I need to practice my my line work and perspective when it comes to buildings. Anyways I drew this first with pen and the scan turned out awful, so I had to try to amp up the line work with photoshop. Then I colored it digitally. It was an interesting piece to work on but not my favorite. Ah well, practice practice is so important. Just wait in a year I'll draw the best window ever.

The Melanie series, traditional/digital

To capture my inspiration for drawing again after taking a break, I've decided I'm going to do a fantasy series about a magical girl named Melanie. Melanie, who is actually a real person I met this year, is a lovely dancer that I will be studying. That way I get to practice anatomy and fancy poses. This I did with bic pen, and then colored digitally.

If my sister was a Disney princess digital/traditional

This piece is fluff, but my sister is so pretty she inspired me to turn her into a princess. I started this off by drawing with bic pen and then colored this digitally. Then I played with all the different toys photoshop has to offer. It was a lot of fun. Our parrot chuck would be her little animal sidekick. 

The colors were definitely inspired by the very talented artist loish. You should look her up

"My best friend's wedding" hahaha! digital doodle

So my best friend in the whole world is engaged! I can't believe it! What a beautiful way to start off life with no more college :)
 We have been best friends for a little over ten years, and she is the most lovely person you could ever have the pleasure to meet. Anyhoo she is going off to marry her fairytale prince Peter and I couldn't be more happy for them, so in honor of the special occasion I have made a quick doodle of my bestie in a white gown. I won't lie it made me sniffle a little, but they were love sniffles. This is the first of many wedding doodles/art pieces to come. For my best friend is certainly my muse <3

Also, now that school is over and done with, I plan on taking a small break to try and relax my brain. Then I'm going to go back to the basics in drawing ie practice lighting, figures, perspective, still life. I feel that if I learn to master these techniques a little more, than my fully rendered drawings will be so much better. Not to worry though, while I'm practicing my basics I will still be updating my many blogs with quick playful doodles. So yes...and on that note I hope everyone has a nice evening....I might practice my writing skills as well haha

"Ignorance is bliss", bic pen, progress work

This is later going to be done in water color, so I left a bit of it blank for the paint. I am so close to being finished with school forever and ever, therefore it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay focused. I plan on painting the background with all watercolor. Update coming soon

 So the colored version is here at last! I had some problems with muddiness using water color, but after giving the background a nice cool colored wash, I think that helped the foxes pop more. Lemme know what you think, should I pursue this style further?

"Mr. Cooper and his jar of floating acrobats" all digital

So I thought I would work on my digital drawing skills. I still need a lot of practice before my digital line work becomes as clean as my traditional line work. I definitely will color this one, though what to do with the background is beyond me right now. Actually I might change the mound of grass that Mr. Cooper is standing on to a bunch of hills. This was fun to do though, I'm very sick of drawing umbrellas and tiny people :) Comments are always helpful and appreciated :)

Here's the colored version! I think that the umbrella girls look nice, but the little dwarf I'm still not so sure about. But it was an interesting experience, onto the last piece and then graduation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Evil snow bunny, bic pen

Here is another drawing for my independent study. Now the question is, to color or not to color. I'm afraid that If I create a landscape it'll ruin the creepiness of the drawing. I haven't been doing too hot with water colors lately, partially why I haven't uploaded the colored versions of a lot of these drawings. The monster was fun to draw since I usually don't do scary things, but now that I look at it, it kind of looks like an angry rabbit mixed with a camel...hmmmmmmm

Egyptian Monster, bic pen

So in hope to rest my mind from all the coloring I did this summer. I went back to an all bic pen drawing. This is of some kind of Egyptian monster dangling a boy over a crocodile pit, oh no! I love ancient Egypt history and I'm hoping to dive into it more in the future. I also decided not to fill up the page all the way like I usually do, but I think it's a decent drawing. 

"What she once was" blue colored pencil

I'm halfway there!! I have to say this has been a long summer, but I I have learned so much! Since we're heading towards the end I'm running low on steam, and my ideas have been less spicy. But I do enjoy drawing beautiful dresses, especially after watching My Fair Lady. I love the scene at the horse races with all of the big hats and froo froo skirts. Actually one of my biggest desires is to go to an event where you have to wear a gigantic hat.

Anyways, back to the art . I have also been trying to find ways of filling a page without COMPLETELY filling the page like in my "Dream" piece. Not that filling the page is a bad thing, but it is good to change it up. So I've been trying to think of how to convey a memory in a drawing without it being completely obvious that it's a memory, like with a thought bubble. I would like to do more memory drawings in the future so this was an experiment. The old woman fading away remembering the days in which she was young. Like the 'Circus" drawing, I am going to color this on the computer. The paper I used is an off yellow, I thought it looked nice with the blue colored pencil.

Tired self portrait digital

Oh my goodness, so I haven't had a break from school since forever. Sometimes one just needs to throw down the pen and cuddle up with a nice pillow. When I graduate I will make a more colorful portrait :)

"Circus", blue colored pencil

Image #4 for my independent study. I thought this time around I would make a lighter piece with less deep dark meeting. I did this on 15x22in paper with a dark blue prismacolor pencil. I've seen artists use colored pencils for their line work and I really love the effect it has once color is put in. So once I finished this I documented it and now I am working on the coloring process. I am going to color it the same way I did the "Princess Lolli and Mr. Mint"

"Diving In" bic pen

Another piece for my independent study, playing around with lights and darks. I really don't know how I feel about this

This first pic is just a color study I did for fun to find some inspiration. But alas color still seems to defeat me,

so I kept the real piece black and white with the help of my little bic pen :)

For a girl to be free

So theme to my independent study this summer is the concept of being trapped and being free, basically I interpret  the idea in my own way and here's another that I've come up with. 

 

For me the idea of a girl truly being free,

is to love herself. I hope this picture helps inspires girls everywhere (myself included) to feel free in the body and mind they're in :)

Later I'm going to paint this, thus some of the empty space

Bic Pen "Drowned by Hopeless Career"

So this is what I love to do!

You know those of us who find a job that truly makes us happy are truly blessed. This is a piece for my summer independent study, it's done in bic pen and is 15x22in. I'm going to be coloring it digitally, and then finalizing it with watercolor. But I figure just incase I mess up I would document my lovely pen drawing. I'll come back to this one later to explain the process, but so far I'm pleased :)

 more progress, simple flat digitalcoloring more to get a feel for what I want my color scheme to be. I'm going to go back and clean it up later

SO! It's been about a week, and I have gone back and painted the actual pen drawing with water  color. I am for the most part very pleased with the outcome. The colors could probably be a bit flatter and less contrasting, but this was after all my first pen/watercolor painting. I found that I could control the paint

better than I expected, so hopefully my next painting will be even better!

Princess Lolli and Mr. Mint colored pencil+digital

So I'm still trying to figure out how to color my drawings. I just know once I get this down it will a break through for me. Since I really liked the simpleness of the " Mermaid and her Pirate Boy"  drawing, I thought I would apply the same technique of coloring as before. But this time, I would start traditionally, since I seem to have better control over a colored pencil than my wacom tablet.

After scanning the drawing into the computer, I colored over the drawing with very bright and saturated colors, keeping them all flat and simple so not to take away from the line work. Then I turned the opacity way way down so the colors seemed faded. I really like this effect because it makes the drawing seem quiet and sweet, perhaps my sort of drawings weren't really meant to be very colorful, hmmm.... 

Mermaid and her pirate boy

This was inspired by my friend Skelly. She told me to do a mermaid, so i did. I figured I needed a break from the serious art I've been doing for my independent study. Also I wanted to show you what i did before I color

it, and potentially ruin it.

 

Okay so I tried a completely new way of coloring. I took extremely bright colors on different layers and lowered their opacity for each part of the person/background.

I was trying to get a more natural watercolor effect. Hmmm... thoughts?

 

Bic Pen "Drowned by Hopeless Career"

So this is what I love to do!

You know those of us who find a job that truly makes us happy are truly blessed. This is a piece for my summer independent study, it's done in bic pen and is 15x22in. I'm going to be coloring it digitally, and then finalizing it with watercolor. But I figure just incase I mess up I would document my lovely pen drawing. I'll come back to this one later to explain the process, but so far I'm pleased :)