Sketch Diary: TBT - Elf girl with wings inked

Throwback to 2011! That was 7 years ago... I'll let that sink in for a minute.

I'm happy to say, I still enjoy this drawing. This was when my drawings started to feel less flat. They started to feel more fleshy, like they take up space.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Armored blonde elf

An throwback oldy! Hailing all the way from 2008. Probably colored in 2009. Still struggling with drawing hands...2018 haha.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Cute little ears portrait ink

Throwback to 2006! Whoa now. This is one of those drawings where, as soon as I see it, I'm transported back to when I sketched it out. I remember vividly drawing this portrait and being so proud of myself. I don't remember inking this at all... but look at those little ears!

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - the Trio water, air, fire

Taking me back to college here. I remember working on this sketch for my illustration class. I was working on adding themes and little stories to my sketches. Obviously, these are some of the elements - water, air, and fire. But I think I also was meaning them to be representative of the Fates, too. Water is the old crone, steady and powerful. Air is the young maiden, whispy and wild. Fire is the matron, passionate and relentless. Or something like that. Sketched in 2007 but probably wasn't colored until 2009 when I started playing with prismacolor markets (before I discovered copics).

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT- Centaur with green hair

I know, I know... my titles can be so literal. But that's what it is! I'd rather that then people think it's something else and click on it and be like 'oh... well bye'.

This is super old - almost a decade! Looks like I colored it in 2009 or 10 when I first started using Copics. People seemed to reeeeeally like this sketch back when I first uploaded it online. Idk why though. I always thought the proportions were wonky. Mysteries of the universe hah.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Orange hair, don't care

This little note card is throwback from 2010. I had all these postcard size cardstock paper things, originally meant to be used material for wedding invitations for someone but ended up not being used. Not one to waist good card stock, I tried out my Copic markers on them. The weird background of the cards (kind of marbled) didn't quite work though and made solid color areas look blotchy. Also, I wasn't so good at taking my time with blending yet. The white you see is acrylic paint added at the end. I don't do that method anymore but could see my self going back to it if I worked on bigger pieces. On small things like this though, it's way easier to just use a nice gel pen or something similar.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Horned girl blue colored

I uh... I can't remember if this was pre or post Copics when I colored this beauty. Wow. Welp, here's to 2008 in all it's glory. Jeezey Petes. Why did I use the same blue for the... no, I'm not breaking down a drawing from  years ago. Totes not worth it lol. NEXT PLEASE

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Fairy Princess from Faeriecon East

Ah an oldie but a goodie. I sketched this during Faeriecon East 2010 after seeing a beautiful cosplayer there. This sketch only has a small amount of the detail she had put into her costume though. It was really impressive at the time. So I just scribbled down the stuff I could remember. Then I colored this while in Japan, 2011. Not a whole lot of color though... I think I would definitely color it differently nowadays haha. Just because a costume seems white as snow, that doesn't mean there are no colors there.

I miss costuming. But I like that I've incorporated some of my costume pieces and style into my day to day wardrobe. Win some, lose some.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Ram's horn guide and her ward

At the time, I had some kind of story in mind for these two. They never made it so far as to have names but they had personalities. The girl/woman there with the horns was this kids guide, his guardian. I think the idea was that she could only be seen him and other people that had their own guardians. Now in my defense, this was before I knew about Deathnote and such so no, I was not pulling my idea from there. It was more of a Faerie world kind of thing.

The young man pictured here, clasping his papers tight was supposed to be a bit melancholy and his counterpart was the opposite. She was realistic, however, about his chances of not making it ie. being killed by some monster or another sometime soon. She just had a good hold on making peace with whatever might happen before it actually happened or something like that. Something I find myself aspiring to quite a bit nowadays interestingly... Maybe I should revisit the idea.

Oh and she isn't really a she... or he. Just a being. No private bits to speak of and no need for that sort of thing for any of the guardians. There was a reason for that... but I can't remember anymore. I just knew that I didn't want any sort of sexualized relationship between the guardians and their wards, it was to be more... simple but also much more complex.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Colored redhead like fire

Soooooo old! This is from 2005?! Madness. Still kinda love it though. Always grateful to that first set of Prismacolor markers. The didn't like to blend much but the colors were bold and I learned a lot before saving up for my Copic set in 2009. Of course now I like to go back and use crappy materials sometimes because they help challenge certain skills. So... irony.

Use what you have, people! With enough patience/practice and a little ingenuity, you can make art out of anything.

with love - M

PS
Note for my own sake - this was inspired by Catherine! She's one of the few true redheads I know. Thanks for being fabulous, Cath!

Sketch Diary: TBT - Colored kinda 2 dudes posing

Like my mishmash title there? Well that's all this is. I don't recall having any real characters in mind here. Nor did I even bother to finish coloring this a the time, way back in August 2010. Just another sketch in a sea of sketches. This was rare, however, because they were distinguishable as dudes. Drawing ladies all the time made me pretty good at ladies but dude bodies were/are a challenge.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Vanity Fair boys

An oldy but a goody. I still love to watch the Vanity Fair movie with Reese Witherspoon, though I'm not a huge fan of her in a general sense, I felt like she was perfect for this character. Also loved the military boys - as seen above. Well, I gave them Utena colored hair but whatever. This was a fun small sketch done on card stock, meant for printing invitations and such, postcard size. 

I've been cleaning out my art/craft/sewing/book room and found the leftover blank cards. I might go back to doing small ones like this again to give away to people or to send with letters. I'd like to find little sleeves for them so they don't get damaged in transit but they're small enough to fit inside a sandwich baggy... so I guess that works lol. Let me know if you want one ;)

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Scratch-art Vogue Princess

Many many moons ago, I was into the whole scratch-art thing. I never got very good at it but it was fun to do something that wasn't pencil to paper. Also, working in reverse lighting is hard to get use to - like seeing the darkest areas as the blank areas and the light areas as what needs to be scratched out. Highly recommend to help you learn lighting values as a young artist.

This piece is from highschool so ... 2004 maybe? Anyway, it's old. But I still like it. I used a page I clipped out of a Vogue magazine as a reference. Wish I still had it so I could show a side by side comparison. If any body finds it, like it to me, yeah?

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Pink haired girl

Thought the odd proportions are becoming more glaring as time rolls on, I still really like this. I had (have?) no clue what I was doing with my watercolors. No training, no practice - this WAS the practice hah. This piece taught me a lot. Still feels soft and warm to me and I feel happy when I look at it. Isn't that the point?

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Eyes in the flower bushes

Throwback to 2010. Noses are overrated.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Portait of a Mormon girl

As some may know, I have always loved portraits. It's my 'go to' thing to draw. So when I was browsing a National Geographic and saw this beauty, I couldn't resist. It was an article about women and families in a Mormon community. And though the article itself was a bit dark (talked about very young -read illegal- brides, unhealthy relationships, children not receiving much education opportunities, etc) this photo really shined for me. Like this girl/woman was finding her own star, her own fire with which to guide herself and her family even if her situation was less than ideal. Her eyes just glowed with life and a will to persevere. I truly hope that she was able to find fulfillment in life.

Man... this sketch is super old. Still one of my absolute favorites. When was the last time I did an IRL sketch of a person? Or even just a  portrait of someone from a photo like this was? Gotta get on that.

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 - Pink haired centaur girl

Throwback to 2011 - lots of random marker practice pieces that year. I still love this drawing, not exactly sure why... there are a lot of things I would fix (if I was into that sort of thing hah) like the skinny arm in front, the odd shoulders, the 'thighs' are too small for my taste, and that hand. Obviously, I had such a hard time with the one hand, I had to hide the other! But with all that, I still like her look. Looking inside of herself, seeing without sight. And pink hair?! I mean who doesn't love pink hair?

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - parkour angel

A throwback to 2011 here. Though there are many things off in this little piece, I like this piece more now than I did before. Something about the pose and the color of the figure, just looks like a fun character.

With love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - the elf phase

Yeesh these are old. Was cleaning out some papers and found these babies. What was it about this weird 'elf ear, thick bangs' phase? I'm glad I'm past it, that's for dang sure. I also hope my anatomy has improved :cough: don't respond to that. Anyway, be free my sketches. Off to poison another young artist with that weird 'obsess over a physical feature' phase.

with love - M