"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 :)

Mad Men's Leading ladies

So my goal this summer is to increase my skill in lighting and color. I never realized just how terrible I am at it! I thought I would have my subject be fan art since I don't really indulge, hope you like mad men

What I find to be difficult is to balance the use of line and color so it doesn't overpower the picture. Also while working with my professor, he mentioned how I need to have a light source for all of my pieces. Even the imaginative ones. This proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. I guess dramatic lighting is another thing I'll have to practice.

Then comes BACKGROUNDS. These are more difficult than color and lighting combined. It's important that it doesn't overpower the main subject. But then again it shouldn't be so simple that it doesn't look like it was rushed. This seems to be my problem.

When I find difficulty in executing my own cartoons I find it helpful to look at old ones. Recently I've been watching the Hey Arnold series, and it looks like they use traditional art for the backgrounds, where the people look more digital. Perhaps this is something I can try for next time, since it really makes them pop. I also know that some Disney movies seem to use this technique as well.

Gramps and me

Cartoon Me