Inktober, the notorious month-long drawing challenge, has begun! I made it through the first week with little problem, but have fallen far behind this week. I’ll catch up (I hope). Anyway, here are the seven drawings I made last week. The theme is witches.
Day 1: Spring Witch
Day 2: Modern Witch
Day 3: Vagabond/Merchant Witch
Day 4: Garden Witch
Day 5: Socialite Witch
Day 6: Oracle
Day 7: Seamstress Witch
So, in addition to writing lately I’ve also been drawing. I’m constantly trying to improve my art and develop a unique drawing style, and the only way I know how is to practice. It’s not easy finding time to draw, but I make an conscious effort to sketch at least every few days.
Here are some random drawings from my sketchbook:
a character of mine that has magical powers
Michael the astronaut on a pink planet
random sketch
fanart of Max Caulfield from the game Life is Strange
That’s all for now. I hope you all have a great week!
Yesterday was simply gorgeous. My family and I went out in the boat and I took the opportunity to sketch some of the landscape (and my brother’s portrait) as we drifted around.
The weather was perfect. Not too hot, with a refreshing breeze blowing across the bay. We could see fish underneath the boat, but nobody could catch one.
Later we brought my grandfather to the beach with a bunch of chairs. There we sat, enjoying the sun and drinking pepsi. He told some stories. I sketched some more:
Some days are like little gems among the rest, and I’m learning to cherish them.
Sometimes a break from writing can be helpful. Sometimes not so much.
Happy Wednesday, everybody!
This week I made a digital painting using my computer and bamboo tablet. I’ve been looking to improve lately with that medium so I thought that making some more space-art would be a fun way to do so. This time, however, the crew (Michael and GG) aren’t in space, they’re underwater!
To be more specific, they’re on a planet covered in deep oceans. Michael is scanning a species of seaweed while GG whirls around in the water.
Below are my process pictures and the steps I took to paint the scene. I used the art program Paint Tool Sai.
First I made a really rough sketch of the general idea and shapes of the drawing.
After the sketch I created a new layer to draw the lines. I also made the sketch transparent to make it easier to draw on top of.
Here’s the finished linework.
After linework I created the background using a couple of different brush textures. I imagined the environment to be a deep, expansive ocean, and a little mysterious.
I wanted to experiment with the textures a little bit so I chose a brush that looked kind of like pastel or crayon.
This is what it looked like after most of the coloring. This was the most time-consuming part of the whole process XD.
I tried very hard to fit the colors to the background/environment and learned a lot, I think. For example, what is brown over a white background looks orange when over a blue background!
Why? My guess is that the way we see color is very much based on the lighting of the environment surrounding it, rather than the true color.
I just realized now that the tanks kind of look like hot dogs. Let’s move on.
I made quite a few small changes to finish up the painting: I changed the color of the lineart to match the colors a bit more, colored in the bubbles, added some more rays of light, cleaned up edges, and blurred some of the plants in the background to create depth. And, of course, I put a little signature on the bottom. 🙂
Overall this was very fun to draw/paint and I hope to do more digital art in the future. Thanks for reading!
While waiting for all the snow to melt outside from the blizzard last weekend, I was keeping busy with practicing watercolors. One of my goals this year is to improve my drawing and painting, as well as to develop a unique art style, so I’ve been trying to hold fast to that goal. So far it’s been very fun.
For some reason I’ve been interested in “space” stuff lately, like galaxies, astronauts, and fantasy space-travel. I’ve always loved looking up at the night sky, feeling incredibly small, and wondering what it would be like to actually be in outer space. Becoming an astronaut in reality is not something I’m really cut out for, though, so the next best thing, I think, is creating the dream through art. 🙂
So I created these two characters, Michael and GG, who travel through space as explorers, landing on alien planets and discovering new galaxies.
Linework
Finished Painting
Michael A. Earnhardt is the name of the astronaut, and GG, his little robot-companion who keeps him company during the often-lonely journey through deep space. Together they have all kinds of adventures.
I think it’s the romantic nature of “exploration” in general that draws me to this particular story. I like imagining the vastness of space and the tininess of this crew, journeying across light-years in a cozy little ship. That’s what I’m trying to convey through these works, so that others can maybe experience the same feelings as I do.
I’ve been trying to experiment and improve lately in my color choices. I researched “color theory” online a bit, and I’m still not entirely sure what it means, but I’m attempting to think of color in terms of lighting- as in how a light source in affects the whole environment in the same way, changing its colors accordingly. It’s still a struggle to pick colors that go together, but I think practicing is definitely helping a bit.
I’m not really sure where this project is going at the moment. So far it’s just a few random scenes, but I’m thinking about maybe making a few comic pages or experimenting digitally with these two in the future.
Despite the lack of updates on my blog, I’ve been continuing strong into October with the Inktober challenge. So far I have a finished drawing for every day! I didn’t want to inundate all of you guys with pictures, so I’ll space them out a bit. By the way, I use Instagram quite often so if you’d like to see a more updated collection of my drawings for Inktober, you can check it out. 🙂
Anyway, here they are:
Overall I’ve mostly been drawing random characters that pop into my head. Occasionally I feel like drawing some space related things, which I’m thinking of compiling into a zine, maybe.
Inktober has been really fun so far, but definitely a challenge. I’ve been drawing at least one thing every day, which is much more than I usually do. I’m hoping to see some improvement by the end of the month. I feel like I’m still trying to find a drawing style that I’m happy with, but with every drawing I think I get a little closer to that goal. 🙂
So I’ve somehow convinced myself to attempt the Inktober challenge, which involves drawing in pen every day of October. It sounds fun and I was inspired by Sam’s work over at mechanicalpen. I missed the first two days but yesterday and today I drew things, so I thought I’d share them with you guys. It seems like a great challenge and I want to see how long I can keep up 😀
I’ve been doodling planets in my notes lately so I thought why not make a zine all about imaginary planets? Here it is:
I’m sad that the pen bled through the paper a little and now it’s going to be hard to copy. I’m still new to the whole zine thing.
Today’s drawing is of a girl with magical powers. I drew it using an ink pen and colored with copic markers.
Hey everyone! I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last posted anything, but I’ve been super busy with schoolwork lately. I just began my first year of college a few weeks ago, and the transition to life in a dorm has been interesting, to say the least. I’m trying to get back into the swing of things.
Anyway, I just wanted to share some pictures of a couple of zines I made a week or two ago. I’m in the middle of creating a mini comic but the going has been slow on that, so I made these little guys in between working on that.
I got really excited when I found out that you could make a zine with just one piece of paper, without staples, so I tried it myself with some paper, a pen, and a copy machine. It was really fun making a lot of little copies and being able to hold the finished product in my hands.
I’m thinking of maybe coloring the second zine to see how it looks, since the drawings are pretty simple. Overall, though, I’m not really sure what to do with the zines. Maybe I’ll stick them in random places for people to find. 🙂
Finally, after months of working on my graphic novel, I have completed its final pages. The artwork needs no further editing, and the dialogue has been put in. I ordered a proof copy, received it, and am making adjustments at the moment in order to self publish by next week.
My blog, entitled Dreams and Letters, was originally made to document my process as I attempted to complete a graphic novel by May. It was supposed to be more of a scrapbook of ideas for me, a way of saving memories for my future self and maybe inspiring someone out there along the way. I am glad to say that I was extremely surprised at what blogging had in store.
I didn’t realize upon my blog’s start in February what a supportive community of people were out there, motivating one another to achieve their dreams as if they were already friends. All I can say is thank you to everyone who supported me along the way. Although I have been neglecting my blog during the past few weeks, when I did post you were all quick to give me a lot of much-needed motivation. You guys are why I love blogging, and will stick with my blog for years to come.
Thanks again.
Here’s a little timelapse video of me drawing a spread from the book:
Dreams and Letters 