Monday, December 14, 2015

"he's not a tame lion"

Hello everyone! This is a snippet from a WIP from my design class which I'll hopefully be able to share soon. Adobe Illustrator and I are becoming fast friends, despite my earlier frustration:)

Let me know which background color you like best! I'm kind of feeling the first one but I included the others because I'm trying to get comfortable with creating gradients.) Have a lovely week, wonderful readers!






Sunday, December 6, 2015

mitt hjerte allteid vanker

It might be a little early for Christmas stuff (JUST KIDDING NO IT'S NOT) but today I was at an event we call the Nativity Exhibit where we display hundreds of nativity scenes from around the world at our church building. It's a very special and sacred way to start off the Christmas season for me and one of my favorite things is that you can volunteer to "host" a room (basically you sit in one of the rooms with the nativities and are just available to answer questions, talk to people, etc.) One of my favorite rooms is called the Gallery and it features paintings and other 2-d representations of the Savior's birth. Close this window
This is one of my favorite, She Shall Bring Forth A Son by Liz Lemon Swindle. Isn't it perfect? and I love it-check out her website here to see more of her beautiful artwork Anyway, there is always a different Christmas song playing in each room and the one in the Gallery is this absolutely gorgeous version of Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker by Sissel. I never ever get tired of it. So while I was listening to it I drew this sort-of study of His Name Shall Be Called Wonderful by Simon Dewey.



Sunday, November 29, 2015

[the latest ever] sketches & stats: october 2015

Hello all, I'm back! Just a few sketches from October. This is a very very late indeed sketches & stats, (I don't think I could be much later. . . merp) for which I apologize. But I do have good news: I plan to start posting every week now instead of every other week. Yay! And I have a very fun tag to do for next week because I figure I can use it as practice illustrating :) So here are some of my sketches from last month! I did much better on my goals, fortunately. Thanks Inktober! :)

So, here you go. Very very random scribbles from my sketchbook--enjoy!






sketchbook pages: 80
sketchbooks completed: .8. (SO CLOSE)
finished projects: 2

Friday, November 13, 2015

scorpion

I did this waaayyy back in September but I'm still excited to share it with you guys! It was my first project in my design class, and the first finished piece I ever made with Adobe Illustrator! The assignment was to create an insect or arachnid using only letters and type characters, with several other requirements about variety of typefaces, no overlapping of letterforms, etc. I learned a lot about the program and feel much more confident with it. A really fun and challenging project!


Sunday, November 1, 2015

#inktober day 31: more inkPOEber

Thinking about Annabel Lee. . . some Sharpie sketches. I can't believe I did it! Inktober is done! I'm exhausted, but it was so worth it. I already miss it :) Sketches and Stats post coming in the next few days and a project I finished last month but haven't posted yet. Thanks so much to all of you for coming on this crazy Inktober journey with me! :)






Saturday, October 31, 2015

#inktober day 30: fit as a fiddle

May or may not have been slightly inspired by this. Apologies for the quality-I was at home for all of 15 minutes today in between a piano masterclass and a football game (a.k.a. marching band show with football on the side, depending on your perspective!) so that didn't leave much time for sketching. But I did it!


Thursday, October 29, 2015

#inktober day 29: none of this nonsense please

Two days left! I'm going to miss Inktober but it will be kind of a relief to not post every day when it's done. Have a lovely day, everyone :)


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

#inktober day 28: dragon

I'm not good at post titles today. Anyway, this one was fun! I went a little looser than I normally do and tried to not be so tied down to my original sketch idea.


Tuesday, October 27, 2015

#inktober day 27: poofy dresses are fun to draw

This was super quick because today was a crazy day and when I have zero time, I resort to drawing girls in poofy dresses because, well, they're fun to draw. I'm pretty happy with the dress, not so much with her face/hair/entire upper body. Oh well.


Monday, October 26, 2015

#inktober day 26: berlin 1993

We watched an interesting short film in my German class today so I decided to draw a few of the characters. (brownie points if you can guess what film it is! :) )





Sunday, October 25, 2015

#inktober day 25: a visitor from the night's plutonian shore

"Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter 
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; 
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; 
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-
Perched, and sat, and nothing more."
-The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe

Happy 25th day of #Inktober. . . or should I say #inkPOEber?


Saturday, October 24, 2015

#inktober day 24: STRONGHOLD

A little background: I'm on my school's FIRST robotics team, and last week we watched the teaser video for this year's competition. All we know for sure is the name "STRONGHOLD" . . . but the video led to a lot of speculation and crazy theories about the nature of the competition among our team, and it made me decide to draw a knight! So yep.


oh and also I colored it with magic markers because those are what I could find please don't judge me haha

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

#inktober day 21: the future is now (GREAT SCOTT!)

Guess what today is? That's right, ladies and gentlemen. . .it's the day Marty McFly comes back to in the future!

I'm very sad that we still don't have commercially viable hoverboards available for consumer purchase. :( Oh well, I can draw hoverboards even if I can't ride them (yet?)

I've been pretty busy doing a lot of work for my design class (our first client came in and we have a lot of work to do. . .) and doing a lot of master studies to help myself improve. I'm learning a lot but it sure is time-consuming. Still, I figure that because I find time to do the things I don't really want to do but should, I can make time for drawing that I really DO want to do!


I'll even settle for a little pink hoverboard like this one! 


(I'm glad we don't dress like this in 2015 though!)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

#inktober day 20: baymax

"I fail to see how flying makes me a better healthcare companion."
"I fail to see how YOU fail to see that it's AWESOME!"


Monday, October 19, 2015

Sunday, October 18, 2015

#inktober day 18: "he'e" + guest artist

I have a friend who is on an 18-month mission for our church in Hawaii and in one of her recent letters she mentioned that the Hawaiian word for octopus is he'e, which means slippery. Isn't that awesome?


Did the shading ruin it? Is it better this way? Who knows?


Also, my awesome little brother wanted to do some Inktobering with me so here is his picture too! (It's a jack-o-lantern) :)


Saturday, October 17, 2015

#inktober day 17: Captain America

Captain America, as promised! :)

I did some more experimenting with shading techniques here. Capturing a wide range of values with only black and white is challenging, but I'm getting the hang of it a bit more every time I practice. I also worked a bit larger with this one than normal. It's a big step for a person who did most of her drawing in the margins of various worksheets and notebooks for years; I like drawing teeny tiny. Using a whole page for one drawing is still a little scary. But I DID IT!


Version 1


Tried to draw the shield on his back and it didn't work out so well. . .


. . . so I turned it into a star and I feel much better about it now.


Friday, October 16, 2015

#inktober day 16: hulkbuster

One of my younger brothers wanted me to draw the Hulkbuster suit from Age of Ultron. So I did, because although I will always a staunch supporter of Team Captain America (BEST. SUPERHERO. EVER.), I have to admit that the iron man suits are way cool! (that said, there may be some Captain American art in the works now because I refuse to let Iron Man be the only superhero on this blog when I love Captain America way more :) so stay tuned for that. . . )

I don't have a ton of experience drawing robotic mech-type things so this helped me figure that out more. Robots are cool, guys :)

I did a plain outline version and then in a moment of bravery I decided to shade it. Shading with ink is not one of my strengths so although it's not everything I hoped it would be, it was really useful to do and I think it's an improvement from some of my earlier stuff which will hopefully never be seen by human eyes. Anyway. Happy Inktobering to all!



Thursday, October 15, 2015

#inktober day 15: almost halfway

This post brought to you by a depressing lack of time to draw and sleep. But I'm glad I'm doing this so I don't mind too much. Keep going, fellow Inktober-ers. Almost halfway there! You can do it! Hope you all have a lovely day. :)



Wednesday, October 14, 2015

#inktober day 14: Pavlova & a random lady

I started with this one of the great Anna Pavlova, and I didn't love it. . .


. . .so I made this, and I didn't love it either. . .


. . . but sometimes you just have to call it a day and go to bed.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

#inktober day 13: bruin

BEARS! I wanted to try this new idea for shading that I had.



The pre-shading version. 

(One thing I'm noticing about Inktober is that it's increasing my ability to crank out super quick blog posts. . . whether that's a good skill or a bad one I can't quite decide. . .)

Monday, October 12, 2015

#inktober day 12: la luna

Shading with only black and white is HARD! How did Dürer do it? Clearly with a lot more practice than I've done at this point, and there's only one way to fix that: keep drawing! :)


Sunday, October 11, 2015

#inktober day 11: step in time! UPDATED

I love Mary Poppins! And this shot in particular has been just begging for me to do something with it. So. Chimney sweeps :)


The colors on this are much, much better in real life. And the background is less grainy. But the silhouettes came out pretty nicely, I think!

10/14/15 update: messed with the colors digitally so here's another version with a bit nicer colors!

Saturday, October 10, 2015

#inktober day 10: trees

Inspired by the woods behind our house. I love my town in the fall!



So I tried making a process gif. . . didn't turn out great but still fun to make.


Trying to figure out colors.