Here are a few value studies for pieces in progress! Working towards a painting style that I’m really proud of is very rewarding, and I’m looking forward to sharing more pieces with you!
“wrong room”
“swamp gown” look, no one said I was good at titles.
“dressing the princess”
My hand hurts!
As you know (I can’t shut up about it) I completed 365 drawings in 2022 (technically, there was more, but I stopped counting at 365).
Anyways, it’s high time to show off my top 10 pieces, talk about how my art changed throughout the year, and drag some of the worse one’s kicking and screaming into the light.
Number 10 - Day 266. I’m pretty pleased with this one! It might even be a sticker in the future. I was doodling women in long dresses - as is custom - and wanted to fit a bunch of figures together - again, as is custom - and when adding details, decided to make them goddesses of animals, the heavens, and weather respectively. I was playing with the shale brush on procreate, and it felt good to play with softer lines!
Number 9 - Day 206. This was with the brush nikko rull, of a nice sunset picture of a canal near me. There’s definitely no fish in it, the characters are my artistic license.
Number 8 - Day 85. This was a quick illustration that popped into my head and flowed pretty easy. She rides around in meadows followed by a trail of fire, making flower crowns, putting them on her head, then replacing the ashes with another one.
Number 7 - Day 150 - This was a day of MerMay, one that I was really looking forward to drawing! Deep sea, ice water, glaciers, all of these inspire fear in me, so walking across creaking ice and seeing movement below is my worst nightmare, so I drew it.
Number 6 - Day 20 - This one was pretty early on, and came together because I was on a medieval kick and wanted to draw an arc of blood. I still really like this one!
Number 5 - Day 180 - This is my OC Ally, walking through an old mysterious mansion. I was on aa dark academia kick, and wanted to draw a creepy mansion :)
Number 4 - Day 168 This one was a crazy; it was a five minute scribble and I LOVE how it turned out! something about the strange color of the sky paired with the darkness of the superhero, the simple brush strokes - chef’s kiss (This brush was nikko rull)
Number 3 - Day 285 - This is fan art of the Locked tomb, and it was the first artwork of mine to go viral on tumblr (for me :P) This piece also re-kickstarted my love of this geometric style.
Number 2 - Day 64 oh man I was so excited for this one! I got really into the whole dot-printing thing in comics - I’d like to play with it more! Anyway, I don’t really care about Batman specifically, but the idea of his silhouette rising above Gotham, but he’s comprised of comic printing-dots.
Number 1 - Day 250. Of all the pieces I did in 2022, I think this one marries the most focus, clarity of purpose, and the skill level I was striving to achieve that year. It started out as a scribble of words “indian thumbalina, lotus flower??” and everything fell into place once I actually sat down to work on it. What I’m most proud of is the sense of hot sunlight and capturing that sense of wonder and joy as a mother discovers her tiny daughter in the lotus. This piece is up on my Etsy store for sale, that’s how proud I am of it:)
My conclusion after drawing a piece every day in 2022, was that drawing every image that popped into my brain instantly is a really good thing to do - it both puts the idea onto paper so you don’t forget it, and it clears space in your brain to generate new ideas. A majority of the ones above, the one’s that I love and think turned out well, started out with aa very clear image in my brain - So I guess my conclusion is doodle all the stuff out of your brain, and the best pieces (of mine) were the ones where I had a clear idea or image in my mind that I wanted to create.
Aaaaaand the bottom three, the one’s that I either rushed through, least fit my art style, or in the case of the very sad Murk (raccoon’s name) on the right, how my brain and my hand were just not talking that day. Just so you can see the stinkers as well as the pieces I am proud of :P
Have a wonderful day!
In case you didn’t know, I have a Patreon! I post twice a week (WIP Wednesday and Finished Fridays) so you can keep up with all the different stuff I bounce around with. Right now I’m working on creating some digital downloads, a comic starring Rose Doyle (You can see her in my comic here), and random other art pieces - fan art from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Beetlejuice, and The Queen’s Thief, some doodles, some polls, and I don’t even know what else.
Here’s a little sneak peek from last week’s WIP!
This week is Grape, Orange, and Strawberry!
Grape Goddess
Orange Debutante
Strawberry Agent
and there are so many left! Blueberry, lychee, banana, pomegranate…. mmmmm fruit salad…
Inspired by my love of pretty ladies and also eating fruit, here are some fruit - inspired Princesses and Warriors. Eventually, the whole orchard/vineyard will be here :D
(Coconut, Apple, Lemon, Raspberry, Watermelon, Dragonfruit, Cherry)
Okay wow. I have done 365 days of art this year. Maybe I’ll do a ranking of my favorite 10! and the Worst One I Created This Year:P
Here’s the highlights from Nov-Dec! I’ll release a few more I’ve worked on later in a series involving fruit 👀🍎🍉🍋🍓🍒🥥
See you next year!
I absolutely though I posted September’s art sump - oh well. Two for one!
October was my busiest month to date - between shows and people coming to visit, I actually fell behind on daily art! I’m quite caught up now, due to my comic (which you can find a link to above!)
A lot of these are stickers that can be found on my etsy store! Here you go!
I think this month was very successful! I figured out how to make digital art look like marker - I’m especially proud of Day 31. It just amuses me, like something I would draw in church when I was 7 :P
The statue in the first illustration is my dnd character! This is the fist dnd game I’ve played with my sisters, and we and our benevolent dm are having so much fun :)
also, I have new stickers up in my etsy shop! Here they are!
Rough month:P artfully and emotionally. Using a limited color palette really helped to kickstart my brain and pump out drawing very quickly, not caring about the result, only thinking about the balance of the colors. It was nice! And some of them came out very cute!
I went to the Anime Expo in LA! People watching and sketching cool elements of outfits was very fun and inspiring!
My favorite day is probably the person with the blue cloak and swinging a sword. It feels like a whole different style! Maybe I’ll play with it more next month:)
Welp. Here they are. We moved during this month, so getting all these done was pretty tough, but I did it:)
Almost halfway! Woohoo!!
Overall, this month was pretty strong. I feel like I’m entering a new phase of art - like I’m drawing faces differently, and moving more away from such shaped art. This month was so super busy, that I decided to use coolors.co (an online palette generator) to kickstart some daily drawings. As is my way, I started making them way more complicated and detailed, so I was forcing myself to go lineless, to go fast, and to be okay with it being more sloppy. The end of the month was best, though - those simple color palettes? The art of Ally walking up the stairs? and the last one? a good way to make an unfinished sketch look intentional. I’ll have to try it again!
It happened, and it kicked my tail. No pun intended ;)
But the important thing is, I FINISHED. On the last day of May! No catching up for me:)
Still chugging at that drawing every day train! It’s hard. I’m working ahead, but it’s sooo weird to see the numbers go into the triple digits O.o I’m running out of steam for the digital paintings, but Really into marker drawing sin my sketchbook! so expect to see more of those:) I’m still working ahead, becasue honestly, I know myself and know I won’t produce one piece of art a day :P
Quitting Instagram and Tumblr for Lent was really, really, good for me. I was more productive, much less addicted to checking my phone every hour, and overall more happy with myself, my body, and my art.
Lately, Instagram has felt like throwing my art into a hole, hoping my follower count would go up.
I drew fan art I didn’t want to in the hopes of gaining followers. While I got some cool series out of it, it wasn’t what I really wanted to draw.
I researched how to please the algorithm, which changed constantly, as soon as I felt like i was on top of it. I even had a sticky note on my desk telling me the optimal times for posting each day.
This realization blew my mind. I charge people for my art. While I know lots of people use instagram as a way to show people their art, but in the end, Instagram profits off of YOUR art. Not paying you a dime, and punishing you if you don’t produce enough or enough of the right media.
Kind of dramatic, but you get the idea. I’m thoroughly disenchanted with social media as a whole, and happy to leave it behind
So I don’t know what comes next. I think I’m going to post once at the end of each month, with my favorite artworks of the month and point people here, to my website. I’d like to make this more the home for my art, and be a weird little house you can visit and see what I’m up to:)
What do you think? How do you feel about social media? I’ve heard both sides - I know it’s important as an artist to be visible to people, but there has to be a better way that living on Mark Suckerberg’s little app.
So I forgot to include these in the February post. They are characters of my friend from her original story, called Jade Torch. You can check out her website and instagram! She also has some amazing fan art as well:)
I’ve read the drafts and LOVE the story and all these characters! She’s also like, RIDICULOUSLY good at outfit designs. Because the project isn’t complete, I’ll only be adding the names with bare minimum of detail:)
King Kent and Queen Zethar
Prince Gabryl
Princess Lune - dragonrider!
Korthi
Cam
Kenneth
Cas
Aril, my personal favorite character:)
So I stopped using Instagram and Tumblr.
It’s amazing. I highly recommend it, even if it’s only for a week.
The first day without it, I had the urge to check Instagram 48 times (I kept track). The second day it had halved, and two weeks later, I rarely, if ever, want to check it. It’s so crazy how much my brain has changed since then - this sounds dramatic, but I really am paying attention to stuff and people around me more, reading more, and my attention span is soooo much longer. I’m more productive, and most importantly, my art process has changed from “what will people like” to “what do I want to draw” which is such a healthier mindset:)
Anyways’ here’s March’s art dump! (I’m still trying to draw something every day, even if it means working ahead).
At it again! The shortest month of the year. The same amount of way too detailed art. My goal is to draw (post) every day for a year. As of today, that’s 59 BRAND NEW pieces of art in 2022! Even if I do no more but these, I’ll I’ll be satisfied with all I’ve done already :)
So, I was inspired by gbsketch on tumblr. They’ve been posting every day for over TEN YEARS. Not quite my goal, but shoot for the stars amirite. Anyways, here’s the art I did for January! Notice how it gets more complex and time consuming as time goes on. You would think it would be the other way, but nooo I can’t do anything simple.
(I’m working ahead because I know myself. She she’s a huge procrastinator and sucker for instant gratification and not to be trusted.)
Stay safe, and have a wonderful day!
