ad astra per aspera

Ad astra per aspera

"To the stars with difficulties"

This is a kind of quick and fun drawing I started on a whim. It was based off a very similar sketch I did on a cover of a sketchbook.

Night Creatures

For the monthly theme for Children's Illustrator Club. The theme this month was night creatures.

I'm rather pleased with how this came out, but had some issues with the paper. It didn't respond well at all to the frisket film. I'm hoping it's just a bad sheet, however I'm concerned since I used that same sheet for a few upcoming pieces as well. Including the Skater Gater piece which will relies heavily on the frisket film and will be a lot of smooth colors. The smoother the colors the harder it is for me to hide any blemishes on the paper the frisket film may cause.

Also updated my webpage to a WordPress style site, which also includes a blog portion. I'm not sure how this will affect this blog. It feels weird to have two blogs that are essentially the same thing.

Sketches

Sketches upcoming projects:

Vin from Mistborn.

 Night Creatures. Monthly Children's Illustrator theme.

Skater Gater Roll-a-Rama

Under the Mask 2

So I decided to a series of the masked self portrait I did a few months ago. When I was in Hawaii this summer I asked my friend to borrow her two Venetian masks she had gotten in Italy. I plan on at least doing one more, if not two. I really like how this turned out, and really enjoy the two masks together. However the first mask may get a bit of a touch up depending on how the rest in the series turn out.

Check out the process HERE.

Rudaba Rapunzel

Back to pastels. First time using them in over a year. I'm glad I haven't lost too much ground with using them. Guess it's like riding a bike. This is for the monthly theme of Rapunzel for the Children's Illustrator group. I did some research on the fairy tale and discovered the Persian tale of Rudaba, which is a much older story than the Brother Grim's story. However it's not completely like the known tale today, so I ended up combining both the Persian and the European story into this.

Grandchildren Wanted

Attempting to pick up my comic "Grandchidren Wanted" again. Comic is either directly scripted from interactions with my mother, or heavily inspired by it. I'm going to attempt to update this weekly.

Masked Series?

So a while ago I did a self portrait of myself in a mask:

While I was in Hawaii my friend had two more of these Venetian masks. She is the one who originally bought them in Italy. I asked if I could borrow them and take some photos with the idea of possibly of doing a series of these portraits. As I see it, it would be a series of three with a portrait for each mask.

The Mermaid Queen

So I've been working on a new digital technique that looks like chalk or dry brush traditional work. This is the fourth piece I've done in experimenting, and honestly it's only the second completed drawing.

I think I'm just over complicating it. I think I just need to keep it simple. Or something. Not sure. I guess I'll just keep pushing it on to see if I can get it where I like it.

By the way I've gotten myself a tumblr  account. I post lots of WIPs of my projects, which generally of late have been more of my anime style.

Under the Mask

My self portrait is complete. I've been fighting with the scan on this one. I now remember why I liked pastels over pencils- pencils for me don't scan well. Something about how the scanner scans and shines light on the pencils. Personally I love this piece when viewing it in real life. The scan is pretty good after digital tweaking, but still nothing beats viewing the real thing.

Check out the process of this here.

What I love about this technique is that it's easy and simple. With pastels it requires much more of a prep. I can't work too small with pastels, I must have it taped down with frisket film (via the technique I use with pastels), cutting the frisket and using the pastels. The pastels are messy. They get the hands dirty and create dust. Honestly it doesn't bother me that much, but with pencils you can just pick it up for two seconds and stop and move on to something else if need be. You can't just pick up and work on pastels like that without getting dirty.

I think the pencil technique is something I needed right now. A way to create wonderful art without a lot of hassle on the side. But it's sad it simply does not scan well. Even my previous piece, the Nimue's Lamnet one, didn't scan the best it could of been. Both these pieces look so much better in person. I love the way this technique looks when finished but I just can't get the same results to transfer to a digital copy. A complete and utter shame.

The question is do I continue on with this process for a bit? Or perhaps look into going back to pastels? Well regardless I do plan on doing a charcoal piece in the future anyways, so that will give me time to think things over.

Zentangling Singer

So I've taken an interest in zentangles. This is what has come out of it.

I picked up zentangling as something I was looking into for my students to do for the ones who had finished early. Even though we looked at examples, they were having issues starting it off. I think they were overwhelmed when seeing a few finished zentangle examples and thinking it was too complicated. So I started one to show them one in process. I rather enjoyed it and ended up staying at school that day to finish mine up. I kind of want to get a zentangle kit, but it's a bit pricey. (Plus I have most of the supplies already, just not the books or DVD. I wish they sold them separately.)

Progress: Self Portrait

Progress of my current artwork- a self portrait.

Nimue's Lament

Nimue's Lament Illustration
Based on the song by Alkaemy.

This involved a technique I've never used. It involves a wash of watercolors, color pencils, and then glazes/washes of acrylics on top. It was a very time consuming technique with just layers upon layers:

Do I like it? I'm not sure. I did rather enjoy the process when I was doing it. I think it fit this piece and I wonder if I would be able to achieve that same look and feeling with other materials. I'll be repeating the process again on the self portrait piece I'm planning on.

I still kind of want to do the second sketch I came up for this idea. Though granted I've thought of ways to (hopefully) better the composition. I don't feel like this was the best illustration ever, but I am happy that I did it. This is my first real illustration since I graduated SCAD. Just need to scrape the rust off and get going again. 

Graphite or Charcoal?

Last weekend or so I was just feeling pretty creative. I was just in one of those moods were a lot of ideas were coming to me. I keep a little notebook where I write down prompts for ideas. I also doodled a few ideas out.

I came up with one new idea I rather liked. Originally I was just thinking "Oh I'll just do it in pastels." But then I thought about it and realized perhaps it would be better to do it in pencils. It's the kind of picture that could work very nice in monochromatic tones.

I am a fan of pencils myself. In fact I realize there's often something nice about my sketch work that doesn't transfer into my final drawings. (In truth I've thought about exploring doing graphite drawings, and then taking them into photoshop and adding just a color layer on top.) But back to the question at hand, what kind of pencils to use? Do I want to use graphite or charcoal?

I think they both have their pros and cons. I haven't used good ole graphite pencils seriously in a long time. The same could be said about charcoal. I think I'm leaning more towards the charcoal though only because of it's darker and richer tones. The piece needs some darkness and richness. As previously stated my pencils haven't been used in a while. I do currently question the state of these pencils. I may be needing some brand new pencils.


I'm hoping I can carry through with doing some of those ideas. I first need to finish the two pieces I've started. Daylight saving's time has been a very bitter adjustment to me.

Nimue's Sketch and Colors

 

 My progress on the Nimue's piece. Ended up choosing the second piece. I added more to the left which is not pictured here, so the person isn't so centered in the image. Spent the day looking into doing color schemes. The image below is based upon my scanned sketch, not the final image which adds more to the left.

I have a few favorites, but I can't quite decide. The lyrics state it's night time and that it's summer (or at least I was going for the more summer/tropical vibe). Not all the schemes fit that exact detail. I'm slightly leaning towards 1, 2, or 5.

I also started work on a self portrait piece. I just got it drawn down onto the final paper. It's also for an online group I'm doing.

Revamp 2.0

Let's try this yet again.

Alright so here's something I've actually been working on. This is some sketch ideas for an online group I'm part of. It's an art group that offers monthly challenges for children illustrations. This months theme is to illustrate a song of your choice, which is pretty open ended for the group.

I picked the song Nimue's Lament by Alkaemy. Some of the lyrics I focused on:
Somewhere in the darkest night
Peace will come, as the spirit flies
As you weave a spell by another name
Snow falls whith the summer rain
 ...
Far beyond the crystal sea
I can hear all your whispered dreams
And the endless signs of the ones who love
They live on in the stars above

Then I will come to you my love
Whith the passing of the days
And I will set you free each time
Your heart is bound in chains

I'm thinking to possibly do this in watercolor washes and color pencils. I don't know if I'm feeling up to chalk pastels. Plus I do question why I'm so attached to pastels. Why do I have that mindset of "EVERYTHING MUST BE IN PASTELS."