Deliberate Reluctance

December 13 2017

December 2, 2017

This week, after working on the mostly physical side for the past two, I decided to do my illustration completely digitally. I began by making a seperate artboard in my berry.ai and looking at my previous two pieces to draw my final piece. Because I still struggle with dimension, I decided to check how I was doing along each step by placing the individual piece I was drawing right beside the hand drawn images to make sure that I was getting my dimensions correct. 

I used the pen tool and adjusted as I saw see fit. A struggle that I have with the pen tool is that in the middle of a project, it’s hard to understand the illustration as something finalized in my head. It’s safe to say though that out of all three mediums, I feel most comfortable working in digital.

After my drawing was done, I found a green palette and a red palette to work off. I used two of the tiff textures that my professor had provided to us and put them in as clipping masks. Because of the unique pattern on these particular berries, I knew that the haltone one was perfect for them when I first looked at it a couple weeks ago. I used vector textures for my previous two illustrations and I wanted to work with clipping masks and the tiff files this time, so I used the fibre texture for all my leaves. 

This project was really cool as it taught me how to solve the same problem in three different ways while maintaining a link between all three illustrations. I’m happy with the final outcome, and proud of myself for coming as far as I ahve this semester, starting from what felt like ground zero. 

November 24, 2017

Continuing with the current assignment, I decided to do more physical work this week. I’ve always been relatively comfortable with digital work, as I know that there’s a way to fix anything without worry. Working with layers and a pen tool always feels less intimidating than working with a pen. I guess I’ve come to rely on the freedom and safety of that a lot. I decided that I wanted to work with my copic markers again this week in an effort to get a better understanding of blending. 

I started out on some regular cardstock, what I’ve been mainly using copics on, and found that I wasn’t getting the vibrancy I wanted but what I knew copics could give me. I ended up doodling on the back of another assignment. The paper was semi-gloss and a good weight, suddenly my copics were more vibrant and blending a lot better. I starting working off that paper to blend my copics together and figure out how they blended well. I chose colours that worked and watched a tutorial on using my blending copic. 

I freehanded the illustration with my copics and worked off a photo of my now dead fruit and my previous watercolour. I wanted my new image to look unique but I wanted it to also be an obvious copy when placed beside my watercolour. I scanned the image at 1200 DPI, which was unnecessary in the end, and cleaned it up in photoshop using a masking technique that my instructor taught me last class. I then took it into illustrator and placed a smart blur on it to further clean up the edges. I played around with a couple of textures, looking at using some neat tiff ones, but settled on some cleaner vector ones to keep it less busy. 

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, I feel like it matches my first illustration well while still managing to be refreshing. I also feel like I got something out of it and have taken a pretty big leap forward with my copic markers. 

November 20, 2017

Our new assignment until the end of the semester is to iterate the same object in three different ways. At first, I struggled with what I wanted to draw. I knew I wanted to draw something that I thought I could easily do so I could focus more on the exploration and less on the technical aspect, but unfortunately, my eye got caught by some beautiful berries growing on a tree outside the classroom. I can be pretty stubborn when it comes to decisions which is something I need to get over with design, but I decided since I had the passion for it, I should attempt the berries. 

So far this semester I’ve worked with ink and illustrator a lot, as well as digitally on an ipad. I had yet to try something with paints because like every other media I’ve tried this fall, they tend to intimidate. There’s a lot of beautiful work out there using watercolour but I’ve never quite understood how they were done. I decided to go to someone I knew rather than a tutorial. My sister is a pretty accomplished artist so I asked her to sit down with me and teach me the way that she does watercolour. 

She told me that her way of doing it isn’t actually the technically correct way, but I think that her technique worked out well. I never knew that it’s good to wet the page before applying colour, I always just thought that you just mix water with the colour to get what you want, as that’s what you’re taught in elementary school.

I ended up really enjoying and experimenting with the watercolour and tried to switch up my techniques on the leaves to get a cool effect. My sister showed me some cool ways to drop water to get effects, and how you can use a cloth to smudge and a dry brush to fix bad spots. 

It was neat to learn something from my sister and to create something new in an entirely different way than I’d ever tried before. 

I used watercolour as a base and then ended up going over some spots like the stem of the berries and the red on the berries in prismacolour crayon. I’m satisfied with how this piece turned out. 

November 14, 2017

This week’s blog assignment was to do a portrait. After my month of sketching faces I was feeling pretty confident about the line drawing, however, blending copics is something I had yet to learn. In my opinion, still have yet to learn! It’s definitely not easy trying to figure out how to get that perfect blend. 

I started this assignment by looking up tutorials on how to blend copic markers and then trying some blending myself. I then looked for whom I wanted to draw and finally settled on a nice front facing image of a Kpop idol named Taeyong. After a couple fun attempts at some blind contours, I ended up with a rough sketch. After that, I traced over my rough sketch and ended up with the final product. I made the choice to not sketch in his hair and just try drawing it in. 

November 5 2017

Ink --> digital!

October 29 2017

Inktober 26,27,28/31

October 26, 2017

Inktober 25/31

I know that I said I was going to stop posting Inktobers individually but I was so happy with how this one from last night turned out. I guess it could also count as my composition blog post for this week, so here it goes. 

This image is based off of a photo that I’ve always liked of a model. I love the way that it tells an eotive story, even with the subject’s face turned away from the viewpoint of the audience. 

October 24, 2017

Inktober 20-24/31

Inktober 20/31

October 19 2017

This week we were asked to look at composition. We also looked at Malika Favre and her wonderful style. I’ve been focusing a lot on just drawing faces these past two weeks with Inktober but it was fun and a wonderful break to go into illustrator and draw completely in there. I didn’t have to trace anything or scan anything in, it was just working with simple shapes. It felt comfortable and good in every way and I feel like I’m really beginning to settle into illustrating with design, which is amazing because in first year, illustration was horrible and I knew I’d never be an illustrator. 

It’s a refreshing feeling to not absolutely hate drawing for once, to not fear what the outcome will be and to just do.

The idea for this piece came when I drew a random shape with the pen tool and after staring at it for awhile, I thought it could be the neon sign to a cheap diner along the highway, in the middle of nowhere and open 24 hrs for truckers. The rest of the image just flowed out after. I played with th elayout of the image for a long time, it began vertical then it went to horizontal and then back to vertical it went.

October 19 2017

Inktober 18+19/31

Yesterday was tough for sketching because I was trying to finish a website and a presentation for the morning. However, I really wanted to get at least something in, so the messy face happened. Can’t really say I’m proud of him, then again, I don’t think he’s proud of himself either. 

October 17 2017

Inktober 17/31

Took some time out of my night of frenzied coding to do my Inktober for the day. I love how this is becoming a routine now. I feel so much more comfortable with a pen than I did even a week ago. I know that I’m still finding my style, still learning so much, but it feels really good. It’s like I’m making a dent in something intangible. 

October 15 2017

Inktober 15/31

Woah, we’re half way there, woah living on a prayer.

I think that I can cautiausly start assuming that maybe there’s a difference in my style from when I first started this Innktober endeavor. I certainly feel less fear when approaching a sketch book. (The trick is to go at it from behind and surprise it with a pen to it’s spine.)