#astroapril

Hi, it’s me - Eliza! I decided to draw everyday for 2018 and posted the process in instagram. Each month I did a drawing challenge and each month I tried out a new medium.

January

Creatuary: Mythical Creatures. I was lowkey doing the Creatuanary challenge created by dibujantenocturno, joshuacairos_art, and rafater_official. What’s fun about Creatuanary was that they tell you what the prompt for the day only so you can’t really pre-plan and just have to do things on the spot. I think it’s a really fun exercise. The medium I used for this month was the Zig Brushable Markers. They’re for calligraphy but I like doing art with them, they’re super nice. I highly recommend them to anyone. They’re kind of my go to markers. Though, I haven’t actually experimented with TomBows or the Prismacolors or Copics at all so I’d take what I say with a grain of salt.

February

Faebruary: Fairies! There’s also FaerieFeb hosted by archibald.art and maxineart. This was super fun. This was one of my favourite challenges. I don’t know if it was the medium I used or the subject matter - probably a combination of both! I used watercolours - a Palette of Prang - and I really enjoyed it. I hadn’t used watercolours since I was in high school and I remember not exactly enjoying the experience overall but within three days of painting fairies I’ve gone aboard the watercolour boat and I don’t wanna get down!

March

March of Robots: Robots! Created by chocolatesoop - MoR is super bomb. I used Stabilo Boss Highlighters for this month and my big take is HIGHLIGHTERS DO NOT SCAN WELL. Or at all. Also, I hear they fade. So, it’s not really a medium that has ‘archival quality’. However, it was super fun. I love using bright obnoxious colours. Everything just pops! Also! They give away brand spankin’ new wacom tablets to five lucky participants regardless of skill level! I highly recommend anyone join this!  

April

AstroApril: Constellations and planets! I couldn’t really find a monthly drawing challenge I wanted to do this month so I decided to make my own with AstroApril! I love the stars and galaxy art is always great so I figured why not? And - I decided to use coloured pencils - I got a pack of Prismacolors. Two things - one Prismacolors are the best coloured pencils I have ever used ( I’ve only used student quality sets thus far so I might not have the best grasp of the best coloured pencil sets) - they blend well and are so so creamy it’s such a dream! Two - I don’t recommend using coloured pencils when doing galaxy art. It was fun sure - and I have a deep relationship with coloured pencils now that I have never had before but in terms of efficiency, specially with the subject matter - I highly discourage it. It took me a very long time to create each piece. I guess that’s just the way things are with coloured pencil but you can get the galaxy effect very easily with paints.

May

MerMay: Mermaids! Created by tombancroft1 - mermaids were fun! You gotta play with fluidity and it was a fun challenge trying to figure out which pose to do. I also considering it was May - Star Wars Month - enjoyed drawing star wars characters as mermaids. I used gouache for this and wow is gouache great! If you’ve never used gouache before, just imagine what would happen if acrylics and watercolours had a baby. I used a reeves set that was gifted to me. And considering its a student quality kit, it gave me a very nice taste of what could be accomplished with gouache. I’m highly considering investing in a more heftier set of gouache.

June

Journey June: the hero’s journey in art challenge form! This was great because it introduced me to a lot of cool new things like Creative Twitch Streams and the process of conceiving a story. Better yet! It introduced me to cloverkin and galvosaur the pair who created Journey June. They’re super cool hoomans and I recommend you drop by their stream. Also! I made a story! It’s about a hornless unicorn and he goes on an adventure to try and get a horn. I used mechanical pencils with coloured lead to draw my illustrations. They weren’t the greatest to work with considering the lead broke easily. I’d probably use actual pencils for this next time.

July

Julycanthropy: Werewolves! On the high of making a story from Journey June, I thought it would be fun to do another one for Julycanthropy. I used black paper and white charcoal/white coloured pencil for this. White charcoal is more vibrant against the black but white coloured pencil doesn’t smudge. It was a fun challenge to think in reverse and only colour the highlights instead of the shadows.

August

Smaugust - This is probably my least favourite drawing challenge I did this year. I used pentel oil pastels which I liked well enough but I just don’t think dragons are my thing. Also, I wished my country sold oil pastels per piece. My white oil pastel is very very smol.

September

Sketchtember: Sketches all month long! I sketched out hoomans! I’ve always wanted to draw humans but I’ve always been somewhat intimidated. I’m not so sure why anymore, they’re fun! I’m a little bit addicted. I used graphite and this little pilot lead holder - very fun, highly recommend.

October

Inktober: Inks all month long! Does Inktober really need an intro? Made by jakeparker - it’s just all about practicing your inking skills for the month. I drew more humans for inktober - this time with pet familiars! I used faber castell ecco-pigment and I used this fancy bristol paper. This was amazing. A pair made in heaven. I think I’d like to use maybe a brush pen next time to cover up larger areas but all in all no regrets!

November

Huevember: Colours all month long! I used Stabilo Chalk Pastels on Pastel paper! I decided to do the greek gods and goddesses and zodiac women. I’m not sure pastels are my forte to be honest. They’re fun but I guess they’re just not my thing. I really like the pastel paper though. They’re a bit pricy so I shouldn’t really be so surprised at how well they held onto the chalk pastels. However, because the pastel paper I decided to use was multi-coloured it was really difficult to tell the colour gradient between each piece. Kinda ruins the Huevember effect - Still a fun learning experience over all though!

December

Drawcember: Free Draw! There’s no particular prompt list for this monthly challenge it’s just free draw - which is a lot harder is some ways so I decided to make my own list again. I was inspired by the theme of demons and angels. I thought because of the free draw nature of the challenge, to use mixed media. This was very difficult for me. I ended up just doing portions of ink and portions of paint separately but ideally I wanted a more happy marriage of the two. I definitely need more practice in mixing the different mediums. But on the flipside - I was definitely pleased I was painting again. I enjoy painting a lot. Though - skin tones - very difficult to get right. It wasn’t too bad when I was painting demon skin or angel skin - but human skin has a lot going on.  

General Thoughts

I honestly can’t believe I managed to do 365+ drawings throughout the whole year. It was both easier and harder than I thought it would be. You have good days and bad. I think for anyone planning to attempt this, take advantage of your good days - pop as much drawings as you can out and go easy on yourself during your bad days - you can always always catch up. Sometimes you just need a little break and that’s okay.

I learned a lot, made a lot of pals, and I’m definitely looking forward to next year.

Woo!