Minis

In my little city we have these things called "transfers" that you receive when you use the public transit that serves as your proof of purchase and allows you go switch between buses, trains and streetcars on your way to your destination. A while ago when I first tried to reintroduce creativity into my life and wasn't really sure if I could find the time to be creative, I collected a bunch of these at a train station with the intention to use them as my new canvases, and see if I can indeed squeeze some time for creativity.  It was a great size (2.5 x 3") to work out to let out some steam or mark a special day as these things were issued daily, and I always managed to find some time to make these little pieces as they were definitely therapeutic. Eventually though , life did get to me and I wasn't able to find time for creative moments like these as I struggled to find balance between two jobs, a social life and time to sleep - I guess it was just NOT the right time to get creativity back into my life just yet, but it was certainly reassuring to know that I could find the time in any crazy schedule because, your canvas does not have to be big, it can be as small as you choose (in my mind,it was drilled from high school days that to be considered an art work,  art was created on things bigger than 5 x7").

Recently, I finally came to realize money was just not worth converting myself into a workerbot for and decided to work one job, live a little poorer but happier. I started investing a little more time to the creative process and a little less time to work.I've been working steadily in my altered catalog art journal and made great progress and the creation process is becoming smoother, faster and more therapeutic than not. Still, sometimes I just don't have the energy to make a spread and am more in the mood to make a little quick something. I really wanted to get back into drawing people(well, faces mostly) and expressions but I was just not wanting to buy another little book (I have a few already) and the idea was just peculating in my mind.

Then on the transit, I saw this incredibly beautiful brown girl - it was just not  fair that so much beauty belonged to one person; she was plump had the preettttiest eyes cutest face and I was in awe (which just means I developed an uncontrollable staring problem) and she awkwardly smiled as she got off the bus. I wanted to just capture this face - never you mind the rest of her body - I don't care what she was doing. My mind frantically started going through all the stuff I have to find the perfect place to try to capture this face without pressure an came up with the pile of gessoed transfers.

I had given  a good coat of watery-gesso over these transfers as the papers were glossy and I wanted a matted surface and I was just not sure if it would take to paint. I found that, gessoed surfaces are not great to draw or paint on with markers or watercolors. It turns out pencil crayons don't like gessoed surfaced too much either as the chunk of pigment just peeled right off her mouth, causing all sorts of waves of panic.

This final piece doesn't really look like the girl I saw; she was ebony colored with the cutest eyes and dimples ever but clearly, this piece is nothing like her. However, it marks the moment and when I see this pic it REMINDS me of what the girl looked like, which I guess is good enough for now.


I enjoyed doing this piece SO much - and wanted to do another face in watercolors...my painting skills seemed to have ebbed and I thought this would be a great time to start working on them again. I  took out the pack of watercolor ATC cards that's been waiting for this moment for YEARS - and banged out this one:

Athough I am pretty happy with the way it turned out (I'm not digging the hair), I think I was much more in love with the piecebefore it got all sorts of detailing done.

Well, that's all for now.

Hope you enjoyed,

Love always,
Shines.

Freebies - mermaid

Okay.
I cannot beeeeeliiieve this isn't on here... I came about this mishap when I told a friend of mine to check out the blog for a line art I made a whilllle back following and incredibly well written and WONDERFUL BOOK by J "Neondragon"Peffer called "How to draw fantasy charecters" which I borrowed from the library;my  drawings are all a modified version of her pieces which makes me feel that I can distribute my version as I see fit. In general, I like to give my characters unrealistic amounts of hair because I like working on them and because I, personally, have unrealistic amount of hair according to my hairdresser.

This book was such an inspiration for me to start drawing again, that I would highly recommend it to anyone who  is pondering about picking up that old art kit your parents got you for art class way back when.  Just look at it - it's so pretty I love the colours, the background and the composition.

Although I made a few of the linearts I only ever got enough gull to try to color the mermaid - I coloured it in markers (crayola mostly - the one to the right), water colors and pencil crayons(one to the left). You are welcome to use the line art and have a ball with it as you see fit , like Lynda did here .

Just click on the picture for the lineart:)

Major project :Cinderella - Disney

I am SUPER excited to post this here... it feels like the very first well thought out and completed piece straight out of my brain even though I have made a few other pieces in the recent. This one is definitely the biggest size I've worked on so far.

I enrolled in an illustration class recently to keep myself sane and busy during the chaos of my life. We have to pick a theme of sorts and make 3 illustrations of it - after pulling my hair out and driving my instructor insane I settled on the theme of Cinderella. One, because to me, the story demonstrates the all-so-easily-forgotten lesson of "good things happen to good people." I feel that this is particularly easy to forget in today's society where we see all around us someone who cuts corners and yet gets to the top while you try to stand by your morals.

We were given free reign except that there should be a reason for any colour used...

Because I am a greedy and tend to bite off more than I chew I envisioned this grandose series which  incorporated Art Nouveau, stained glass colours and still telling you the story of Cinderella in to a tiny 15 x 20" board...which was not quite possible from where I stood. Either way I managed to poop this out:

Unfortunately you can't REALLY see the glitter or the metallic paint but it's there... :(

This is about 15x20" with pencil crayons and watercolours. Thank goodness the watercolour paint came from the dollar store because it has about 7 layers of paint on this thing. I didn't plan out the media as carefully as I had planned the line art and with each layer I made an error which could only be saved by painting the whole thing again.

I wanted the shape to look like a grandfather's clock from afar, with the  each circle depicting a scene from the movie and the characters. There is a light border around the piece done in pencil crayon which gives it a nice frame without being intrusive.

The whole thing - I'm not going to go through each element - leads to that if you keep your chin up, keep your eye on the goal and work towards it honestly, miracles can happen.

I may do a little vid to shoe the glitter. XD OR maybe, the video will have all 3 pieces...?

Due to the many layers of paint the poor illustration board became severely warped, so I decided to paint the back with leftover acrylic paint to compensate or cancle out the warping -which failed. I learned later that if you put a huge "X" and a "+" on the back with gesso, it helps with the warping (actually I hate to mention it but my teacher had mentioned this helpful tip, and like a good student I wrote it down, but like the genius I am forgot all about reviewing my notes filled with tips from my instructor when I was working on this pieces)


Hope you like! there are two more to come so stay tuned!

XO

What muffin will YOU have?

In 2010 I had been working at a call centre where I spent hours on end doodling away(or ranting) in my sketchbook and Sudoku puzzles. This was probably the first time I completely filled a sketchbook with incomplete ideas and pieces which I liked and was bent on recreating. One of the pieces was this little number, which I have called muffins.

 This was based on a simple idea that even though there are statistically less heterosexual woman in the world then there are heterosexual men, at the very end of the day the woman essentially picks the dude she will date, regardless of the charm and good looks he may possess. Nevermind what character he may have, there is usually a girl or two vying for each boy. And when we start that long rocky and rosy road of dating, what do we often -or what is the most popular/common we refer our beloved by? Muffin (in my mind anyway). In retrospect I realize that it can go the same way for men, depending on perspective - that the good lookin' bad boy always gets his pick, but that is not as interesting :P

Anyway, only recently did i finally open that magical sketchbook O' ideas that I dread looking in direction of. It holds frustration for me because there are so many ideas I want to work on but I lack the technical skills to make my vision come to life. I have decided that 2013 is the year where I start facing my issues and fears and start making some headway however I need to. I want to digitize everything eventually but first I wanted a hard copy of completed original piece - and here it is:

I may be biased but I dare say it turned out much cuter than expected! The only regret I have is I had originally worked in a "hippie" muffin which slipped my mind entirely. These muffins - their characters are based on people I knew at the time...which makes it doubly fun for me to look at.

About 9x12" in Copic and Sharpie markers, Prismacolour pencil crayons