Sketch Diary: Mopey face portrait

I feel like I'm getting the hang of doing these quick 5 to 10 minute sketches every day. Well, every other day maybe. Some days I don't even sit at my desk (for gaming, drawing, banking, whatever). Just not enough time some days. But it feels good when I make time for it.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Teal hair elf portrait

So this was sketched in college and colored a couple years later with Copic markers. This was one of the first marker drawings where I started using a color palette more. Nowadays I do little color blocked mock ups on a separate page to try out color combos because that's just not something I can easily visualize yet. It's way easier to just try it out on a small thumbnail first. A lot of weird things going on in this drawing. But as a whole, it still makes me happy.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Feather's for hair

I had a specific image in my head of this when I started drawing it. Now that I'm looking at it, I think it'd be cool if it was part of her head and she could open the feathers like a male peacock does, in a big fan. Hmm...

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Mermaid back bend

A quick 5-10 minute sketch in my mini sketch book. I'm liking this one. I think my versions of mermaids are usually more like serpents than fish. Or at least eels. Fish don't really bend the way I like to have my mermaids look.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: A dud

Welp. Happy Monday. Here's a 5 minute sketch that fell flat. I'm trying to get out of the habit of erasing... like ever. So when I saw this thing was wonky from the start, I tried to work with it. It was only 5 mins of my life. I think I'll live.

But I promised (to myself) to post ALL of my sketches for this diary thing... your welcome.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Bad posture girl

5 minute sketch - I thought it might be good to practice a little bad posture on purpose. Usually it's an accident when the posture or shape of the back curve looks weird but for this drawing at least, it was meant to be. I wanted her to look a little... shy?

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: Perfecting 'oh hey' woman

I do this kind of body twist pose thing a lot. I think it's something to do with the interesting contrast it creates in the line of the body. It's like how I like weird angles of long necks. Something about it looks so cool to me but IRL it's super awkward and uncomfortable probably.

This sketch is in a small sketch book that I keep next to my computer that I like to practice quick, 3-5 minute sketches in between playing a game or watching videos. Keeps my hand loose.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Dude sitting with a dog

Another sketch done at the airport on my way to NC. Messed up his torso angle. But the face turned out ok for that weird angle.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: girl hanging out

I mean, I think it's a girl. Woman. Doesn't matter. I drew this while waiting for my plane to head to North Carolina to see my parents for a long weekend. I kept getting interrupted by a sweet older woman so I couldn't focus long enough to fix that broken arm thing lol.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Wavy hair portrait

I wonder how many of my sketches are called something like 'wavy hair portrait'. It's just a fun kind of hair to draw. I goofed up on the eyes, though, the one eye looks too far to the right side. Would that be the opposite of cross-eyed?

Anyway, I'm excited cuz I started editing my images in Krita now instead of a basic uploader for the interwebs. The images look way better now.

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: short hair portrait practice

This was one of those drawings that started with an eye which is a practice that I don't recommend. It's fun to draw eyes without anything around them. You can focus on the details of the eye more easily that way. But if you then decide to add things around that eye, it's tough to figure out the space to place it in. It feels like working backwards.

I used to do that method ALL the time when I was young. Then I started following more conventional gesture drawing methods and it helped speed things up tremendously. Now I can crank out a figure drawing in minutes instead of hours. And little to no erasing. That's the goal. If you have to erase a lot, best to just start over. Count that discarded drawing as a stepping stone on your path to greatness.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Gesture practice dancer jumping

Another quick gesture sketch but this time... in motion! Conveying movement in a drawing can be a difficult skill to learn. I really struggle with it sometimes.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Gesture practice dancer with veil

Quick gesture sketch. Wasn't planning on adding any details (like eyes and clothes and such) but it looked like a bellydancer with her veil maybe so I played with it. The angle of the shoulders and shape of the hips/butt are weird. Should've checked against a reference.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Gesture warm-up bathing suit lady

I'm gonna take a WILD guess that I was shopping around for a swim suit and coverup kimono when I drew this. Just a WILD guess. Also, you don't have to finish all your drawings people. It's ok just let it go. This thing was going no where fast. Whatever.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Mohawk rainbow

That arm, those legs, that head! Proportions are for wimps, clearly. Throwback to 2008... that's almost 10 years ago, guys. A decade. Let us reflect on that.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Half-buzz profile

Still in-love with this sketch. Like, I would totally take this person out for dinner and a movie hah. For real though, that nose-lip-chin combo is pretty sweet.

The thing on the arm/shoulder is supposed to be the tip of a large star tattoo. Idk why. It just is.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Getting ready in a crop top

My drawing titles have either devolved... or evolved?! Heh.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Loosen up with scribbles

Even when I'm just wildly scrolling my hand around the page, I still draw mermaids.

So why are you uploading scribbles, Mere?! Because the best way to show you how I warm up is to... well, show you. Sometimes the mind is willing but the body is weak. Gotta loosen up those fingers and most importantly, the wrist! That's where the magic happens, for me anyway. If my wrists are tight, I can't draw diddly-squat.

If you've never tried it, I highly recommend it. Here's what I do:

1. Put pen to paper (pen is better than pencil if you have a habit of wanting to erase all the time, no erasing!). 
2. Then I close my eyes and start slow, building speed and then slowing down as I meander around the page. 
3. Once I feel I have adequately made my mark and loosened my wrist, I stop and open my eyes. 
4. I look for shapes. Usually I see postures like a torso in movement or something. 
5. Once I see the shape clearly enough, I play with is further, now looking at what I'm drawing. I add details as I feel like it till I'm as done as I want to be with the drawing, usually about 15 minutes or so.  

And that's it! Enjoy.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: the hunchback of pigtails

No idea why I drew her so scrunched up. I was goofing around with my old woodless pencils and ended up pseudo finishing the drawing.

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: Hair study

Quick sketch done while watching Versailles. Loved the show. Loved some of the hairstyles though I doubt they were period perfect. So I was playing with hair for this one.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Iterative drawing hands

Another iterative drawing practice but this time with hands. I've always had a really hard time with hands and hand placement. I clearly don't do enough reference drawing.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Iterative drawing heads

What the in the blue blazes is 'iterative drawing'? Check out Sycra's video

According to Wikipedia: Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a product or process. Based on the results of testing the most recent iteration of a design, changes and refinements are made.

So when you draw with this concept in mind, you can take it many different ways. In this collection of head sketches, I stuck to profile heads, all facing the same way, all mildly feminine looking. I worked at altering the placement of the nose, the eye, the hair, the chin. I could get even more specific and keep all those things the same and only change the ear or eyebrows. The point is to get your hand used to these moments in rapid succession thereby speeding up the practice/learning process.

Now, for these I was only drawing out of my head. No reference. When a reference gets involved, there's another step for your brain to tackle so, while it is an increased learning experience on it's own, you will likely slow down. For me, this is because I look at the reference and analyze placement and shadow etc., then I sketch what I'm processing on what I'm seeing instead of just putting pen to paper and experimenting in a more free form way. Both methods have their place.

I felt like I got a lot out of Sycra's video and out of this practice. Definitely something I would like to do more often. It's helpful when I'm feeling stuck without inspiration. It makes me churn my own mind a bit instead of looking outward.

My favorite is the top middle head. I liked the way the protruding chin looked in combination with the nose and bangs.

Give it a try!

with love - M

Goddess Night March 2016

Better late than never I guess. I've been feeling a bit down lately about my appearance and I find the best way to remedy it is to find things that remind me how fabulous I can be. Whether you like bellydance stuff or not, I think it's pretty darn fabulous just to get yourself out in font of people and enjoy the movements of your own body. It sure helps when those people are lovers of that sort of self expression. That's probably why I almost exclusively perform at Najia's Goddess Nights hah!


with love - M

Sketch Diary: Watching you indifferently ink

I enjoyed this sketch enough that I thought I better ink it and try to color it. Haven't colored anything in a while so I'm looking forward to it.

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: Adventure Time fanart - Finn and Jake

And part 2 of some copied drawings - I do not own these characters! This style is SUPER foreign for me so it definitely helped loosen me up to practice drawing in this style. I would love to draw like this from time to time but I'd feel better about it if I made my own characters and maybe altered the style a bit so it's not just blatantly copying from the wonderful Adventure Time folks.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Adventure Time fanart - Bubblegum and Rainicorn

Copied these from Adventure Time, I do not own these characters in any way. I wanted to share these drawings because for a sketch diary, copying and studying other artists' wonderful styles can be really helpful to me. So... I assume, that might be helpful for other folks to know.

I have very mixed feelings about fanart as a whole especially when an artist creates a piece of fanart and then sells it and doesn't own or pay any rights to the original creators. There have been stories about anime/game conventions that have limited or even banned fanart in one way or another in the last several years. I get it though, it becomes overwhelming when all you see is fanart everywhere and what you really want is to see people's original creations, ideas, stories. Something about profiting off someone else's artwork just doesn't feel right to me. That said, I also don't think it's right for me to say that people can't do that! If they wanna risk getting in trouble with copyright infringement, that's not for me to have any say on unless it's my own artwork they're copying. But everything comes from something, yeah? So let's all try to be a little kinder to each other on this topic.

with love - M