Mahal Kita

"Mahal Kita" was the first alternate version to "I love you" that I ever learned.  It's from my parent's native language of Tagalog.

The curves on this one were the most fun of them all!  Plus different shades of blue, which happened to be my favorite color.  What's not to love about this piece?

This is the final piece in my "Love You" series.  I'm a little sad to see it end, but I do have other projects in mind that I want to try out.  But, if there is a certain to way to say "I love you" that you would like to see, please let me know.  It's a project I would love to get back to from time to time!

Previous posts in the series:
Love You
Je T'Aime
Te Amo

Te Amo

I had such a blast putting this one together. The curves of each letter seemed to just flow into each other.

I really wanted to use the yellow and orange combination, but kept doubting myself. They are not exactly colors associated with love, but I'm so glad that I went with it!

Just one more to finish up and share later this week!

Je T'Aime

This is the second piece in the "Love You" series, inspired by scribbles in my sketchbook.

"Je t'aime" is just a beautiful way to say I love you. And blue and orange, my favorite color combination.  Or course, I had to include it in something about love.

Stay tuned! I have two more to share next week!

Love You

One day I was feeling stuck. With no idea of what to draw or write, I grabbed a pencil and started to just scribble. One particular scribble grabbed my attention. The scribble turned into a play with lettering. That lettering turned into a small series of art for me.

This is the first part of my little "Love You"series. I had so much fun making them, I have three more to share later this week and next week!

Wizardry and Gouache

My birthday was last month and I was surprised with art supplies. Art supplies are always on my wish list, as you may have suspected, but I received two things that I never put on my actual wish list even though I really wanted them. What were they? Gouache and colored pencils!

New to gouache, I borrowed one of my son's LEGO characters as a model and gave it a try. Despite being an "opaque watercolor," I quickly learned that it is nothing like regular watercolors. The paint is thick and fast-drying. Too much water also seemed to break the paint up after it dried, leaving plenty of cracks and flaking paint. I'm not sure if I put too much paint, but using colored pencils on top scraped some of the paint off.

I've got a lot to learn, but I love using the new materials and getting to know them!

Are you a gouache user? I would love to hear any tips or tricks you may have to share.

AEDM #8 & #9

For Monday and Tuesday I got a chance to play around with some colored india ink that I watered down.  I had heard that it was different from using watercolor and wanted to give it a try.  So far the differences seemed very slight, but I do want to play around more.  One thing I did like was that it was a lot easier on my micron pens to draw on top of the ink.  Watercolor seems to dry them out really fast.

I'm also having fun playing around with different lettering and just loosening up.  Not the greatest looking outcomes but definitely a learning experience!

That's all I have scanned in for now; more to come soon enough!

Peace, Love, Joy

love
Funny thing, all I wanted to do was make a piece that said "love" on it.  My original idea was to make it with a bunch of patchwork rectangles and then place the letters on top with a different material.  Then one day I was looking around a noticed a picture where someone had such bold dashing lines in their work.  The lines seemed to come alive and I began to ask myself . . . Why am I limiting myself?  Why do I keep myself within the orderly lines?  Why can't I have lines that move?

Right away, I knew my "love" piece was going in the wrong direction and so I trashed what I was working on and started over again.  This time I worked differently, letting my lines flow where they wanted to and choosing to just go with it.  When I was done, I had displayed it in a spot that I would walk by often to see how I felt about it.  I decided something was missing and added the words to the background.  What a difference that it made!

joy
I fell in love with "love" and the background really turned out completing the picture.  While I was working on "love" I was already thinking of doing another one with the word "joy."  With the "love" background in mind, it all came together and I just knew how I wanted "joy" to work out.  I wanted bright, cheerful, and uplifting - so I used my favorite combination of colors: blue and orange.  The words and form seeming to pop up from the bottom just felt like the right thing to do.

peace
I knew I wanted to make at least one more word, so I started throwing words out there.  When I came up with peace, I just felt like it was the right choice.  I wanted calming colors, so I went with blue and green, later picking the rose for some contrast.  Thinking of peace, "Silent Night" popped into my head and a star came to mind.  A star felt appropriate, but no matter how I tried to apply it in my thumbnail sketches nothing felt right.  I remembered what I did with the first two words and just went with it.  That's how I ended up with a sort of funky/wonky star.  The background was also hit and miss.  I ended up just playing around with different shapes until I came to the diamonds, which is when everything seemed to click together.

I love hearing about the the thought process that goes into other people's work, so I wanted to share my thought process on these.  I would love to hear any questions, comments, or suggestions. . . would you like to see more posts like this?

Joy

The final part of the three part series that I made.  Well who knows, I had so much fun making these that I may end up making more.

Come back tomorrow for the story of these pieces!

Love

This is part two of the three part series, though this is the first one I ended up making.

Come back tomorrow to see part three!

Peace

This is the first of a three-part series, though the last one I finished up.

Come back tomorrow to see part two!

Inheritance Series

I actually had to take a break from drawing after trying to do the picture below. This was a pain in the wrist and a test of patience. Not something I plan on doing again, but I at least gave it a try to see if I liked this style. As you can tell from the randomness of late, I'm still trying to grow and find my style.

When I decided to take a step away from my drawing and art, I ended spending my spare time reading the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini. I had recently picked up the third book in the series, but it had been so long since I read the other two that I decided to start from the beginning and read all three. What was supposed to be a trilogy is now being made in a four-book series. So I sadly need to wait until the one is finally finished up. But since I liked the series so far, I decided it would be fun to draw the books. The above was the final piece, well as final as I was about to take it.

If you looking for a few books to read, I would recommend picking these up. They were pretty fast reads for their sizes.

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!

AEDM Finale

Hello December! So sorry to see you go Art Every Day Month!

It's been a busy month and to sum things up, here is what I was able to accomplish in the second half of AEDM. (Oh, and I'm so sorry for the bad photos of my work!)

Some practice in values and the folds in cloth:

Materials: Conte Crayon, Paper

Materials: Charcoal, Paper, Eraser

Some practice in 1-point and 2-point perspective:

Materials: Graphite Pencil, Colored Pencils, Paper

Materials: Graphite Pencil, Paper

And my current work-in-progress that I started on the last day of AEDM and will hopefully finish up tomorrow (oh and it is on gray paper):

Materials: Charcoal, Paper

Once again, I would like to thank you for visiting my blog and for all of the supportive comments! AEDM was an awesome month!

Works in Progress

So far, I've been taking Art Every Day Month as a time to work on projects rather the the route of finishing one piece of art every day - which is absolutely fine by me.

It's slow going, but here are a few things that I have been working on:

Pen and colored pencils.

The above was inspired by the Barron Storey journals (specifically this one). It's a little hard to see but there are very light shapes blending into the background, like ghosts surrounding the figure. I don't know if it's done yet, but for some reason it keeps calling me back to look at it in my journal.

Pen & Ink.

Above is just a sneak peek at the pen and ink project that I mentioned in my previous post. I'm about a quarter of the way through, but hoping to have it done and ready to share in about a week or two.

Graphite pencil.

And last is just some practice in perspective that I did today of my front door and the view out of it.

I'm loving AEDM and hopes that it gets me in the habit of doing something daily by the end of the month! Thanks for looking!

Wreck This Journal - Part 3

The weather is so nice and my days have been so busy with school out, I haven't had much time to even think of WTJ. Fortunately, I did remember to at least get a few things done!

burn this page

I started looking around for a lighter . . . and couldn't find one. Matches? Don't have any in the house. No fireplace. My stove is electric, so couldn't produce a flame. I was standing in my kitchen with my journal while cooking dinner and trying to figure out how to burn this thing. An AHA moment finally arrived! Who says I need to have a flame? I quickly and awkwardly lifted up the skillet I was cooking on and laid my page on time of the hot stove. I had to move it around a bit to get more burns in, then promptly replaced it with the skillet again.

I was really scared at first, but then I remembered that the sink was right behind me if the burn turned into something more. Though I think I should have been more concerned that I was balancing a hot skillet in one hand while burning my journal in another!

I was going to do more with the page, but thought that the burn looked great on it's own (and whenever I think of touching the burned parts it cracks or falls off).

tear this page out.

(put it in your pocket. put it through the wash. put it back in.)

I crumpled it into a ball and threw it into a pocket of one of my pants I was about to put in the wash. Though the paper is a bit on the thinner side, I was expecting it to make it back in one piece. Wrong!

I wanted to at least attempt to put the page back together. It was separated into little bits and still crumpled up. I had to slowly pull them apart just to see what was on the page without it breaking even more in my hands. Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that! I ended up taking some distress ink and lightly rubbing it along the top and edges of the page. When all was done, I took a glue stick and placed back in.

do some rubbings with a pencil.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I love having color! I grabbed a #2 pencil, ready to do some rubbings when I thought, "No way! It's going to look so dull!" It was quickly followed by, "Who says it has to be a #2 pencil?" Colored pencils to the rescue!

I grabbed my four-sided cheese grater (using only three sides) and used a different color for each side. I love the funky layered look that came out of it!

I see more fun times ahead with all of you and this journal! Happy wrecking everyone!

Day By Day

Resolutions, goals . . . whatever you want to call them. I tend to not make them during the new year because I generally find myself not following them. This year I have a few goals in mind, but I took a different approach. I chose things that I have already been doing but building upon them. My main one:


Do something creative every day. Last year, I slowly grew into the habit. First it started out here and there but in recent months I've made an effort to do something at least once every few days. So for the new year, I know I won't have the time to do something every day . . . but I'm so close, I can't say that I won't try.

And in that same light, if you are unfamiliar with Ali Edwards, each year she chooses one little word to help her focus. So my one little word for 2009 is:


Focus. I have so many interests that keep me going, that sometimes I can't decide what to do. I end up freezing and not doing anything at all. This year I choose focus to keep my list of activities narrowed down and can concentrate on just them. I can't just say only one activity because that would bore me, but having a few choices I can avoid boredom but still keep. . . you guessed it. . . focused.

So hello 2009, I'm ready to take you on day by day.