Sketch Diary: Lilac haired digital portrait

I'm late to the Clip Studio party... but man is it sweet. The drawing above was a quick sketch that turned into playing with a bunch of settings and such. It's far from perfect hah but it was really fast and fun. I'm excited to spend less time rendering and more time just drawing and painting digitally. But if you want to see something wild... See the image below! A similar colored drawing that I scanned and then colored probably using the original Photoshop back in 2002. 

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inktober Day 22 - Whispy hair and purple lips

So I've been watching a lot of Artwork by Christopher Cayco videos lately so I've been all about the freehand brush pen drawings. Be sure to check out his live drawings at least. It's like watching a wizard do magic on paper, to me anyway hah.

How it works is you need some kind of ink and brush - brush pens are definitely easier than using raw ink and brushes. Or at least cleaner and takes up less space. Cuz for raw ink you need the ink well, some kind of palette, some kind of towel, glass of water, brushes, and heavy duty paper. Anyway, you have your brush and ink and then you just draw! No pre-sketching in pencil. Just brush to paper and go. I haven't drawn in straight ink like that in ages and it was so freeing and fun and I felt like my wrist was opening up more. Super nice. Highly recommended.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Sitting on a ledge in color

Played with colors here. I like the skin. Fabric looks ok from a distance but I didn't get the smoothness like I wanted. Hair just fell flat. I don't have many purples. This was on thin paper so I couldn't rework the colors or overlay much at all without ruining the paper. Ah well. Still fun.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inktober Day 9 - purple portrait

Note to self: don't play with brush pens when you're tired and don't feel like sitting upright to draw lol. What's funny is that I blamed the brush pen when I first inked this... like it was responsible for my shaky lines.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Playing with color in a portrait

My second quickie sketch with the new Wacom. Playing with some colors and shading but ultimately, I got frustrated because I don't understand how to adjust the brushes and levels how I want yet to get the effect that I want. Basically, I want to paint watercolor or copic markers digitally.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Self portrait in purple monochrome

Old school! And by old school I mean high school senior portrait class project circa 2004/05. I still remember how much of a challenge this project was for me. It was a great process.

I had to sit and pose in this little photo studio the teacher had setup in the basement of the school and let someone take portrait shots of me. Then I took the film (not digital) and processed it myself, darkroom and all. Then made a print of several of the photos, all myself. And finally, pick one and start painting a monochromatic piece in acrylics. The teacher recommended black and grey tones to make it easier (since the photos were black and white) but said we could do any color... so I had to do purple. Then I had to map the light values and make a sample palette strip that had an example of a gradient from lightest to darkest so I didn't get confused while painting.

Wow, it was really a lot for a single project. I'm still really proud of it, regardless of the oddness of some things in it. I think it was a great example of all that I had learned in that class and with that teacher (the lovely Mrs. Lacy XOXO). Maybe this would be a good project to do a redo of in digital form with my wacom, see how much I've changed. Maybe take a new self portrait photo... hmmmm.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Mermaid hair in a frame

Taking me back! I still get good feels from looking at this piece and remembering how cool I felt while painting it. They sketch alone, I thought, was pretty awesome for my skills at the time and then the actual execution of the colors was quite exhilarating. I think this was 2010 or there abouts. Maybe a good one to hold onto for an OC. I'm so bad at creating original characters... correction, I make them all the time but I very quickly move on to the next one. I should commit to one, at least.

So this was one of my 'just starting out' watercolor pieces. I had (and still have...) no clue what I was doing. I was just putting brush to paper and seeing what happened. Man... it's really making me miss doing watercolors. Just one more reason to get my craft/art/sewing/book/misc room cleaned up so I can get pack into these things again. I certainly don't have to have my art table to paint but it sure makes things easier and more enticing. It's almost there! Just a couple more big projects to finish and it'll be ready for war.

With love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Orange hair is THE BEST

Ya know, as much as I get frustrated at certain things in this drawing  (that ear is wonky >.< and that neck belongs on a giraffe) I still can't help but enjoy it. There are a bunch of things about it that remind me of certain things I like to draw. Like genuinely enjoying drawing eyes, hair, and frilly clothes in particular way. The necklace seems really jarring, yeah? But at least I took my time with the purple top.

So I hope you've enjoyed this little throwback to 2011 (colored with Copics it in 2012).

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - mermaids on the beach

Time for a throwback! This cutie is from January 2010. I wanted some more color on this blog so here's one of my first attempts with my Copic markers. Also... one of few attempts to actually have a real background heh. I don't know why that's so frightening but it is. Still, I remember enjoying drawing the piece initially but when I started coloring I specifically remember that I zoned out and just kind of threw caution (and sense) to the wind when choosing the colors. I went through different phases of love and hate with this piece over time. I think I finally appreciate it for what it is and I'm glad it came out this way. Those clouds are really weird, though. Not sure what was going on there... I assume it's supposed to be sunset? Shouldn't I know these things?! No.

with love - M