A couple of days ago I finished a commission to wood-burn hangers for a wedding party. From left to right is the date, name and role in the wedding. I penciled out the numbers and words but did the little ornamental work by the name free handed. Before starting this, I was afraid that the writing would look amateurish since I didn't have a fancy wood-burner but eventually I just didn't think about how it should look and focused on how I can make it look. Its a little confusing, I know, but what I'm trying to explain is that I didn't let the pretty, polished examples on Pinterest intimidate me. I embraced my skill set and tools knowing that I can still make the hangers just as pretty.

This is a watercolor that I made last year. Its a still life of these random vegetables that my instructor brought. I wanted to create a narrative with these guys by setting up an interesting composition. By doing this, I was hoping that the viewer can create a story by personifying the inanimate objects. For me, I pictured that the pepper and tomato are gossiping about the onion, but that could just be me. Others could look at it just as a still life. Its up for interpretation!

Took this picture last year on the drive home. I thought it was a cool looking sunset with the contrast of the heavy dark clouds. Not a lot to go off her about my process. I just saw the sky and wanted a photo for a keepsake.

Made these posters of old, classic movies. Each one was finished on Adobe Illustrator. I had fun coloring and designing each one trying to set the mood from the movie. If you haven't seen any of these movies I highly recommend them. If you are looking for a quick watch, I don't recommend Ben Hur. Its about four hours long but totally worth the watch!

I did these doodles during my library shift. They were done on a 1 x 1.5 in piece of paper. I drew on both sides of the tiny piece of scrap paper. 

I made this Illustration back in high school for one of my concentration pieces. I thought it would be funny to see what it would be like to have a dragon as a pet. One of the things that occurred to me was bath time. So I had this picture in my head of a dragon hiding in a tree, too scared to face the tub.  The medium I used for this was sharpie and watercolor.

Earlier I know I posted the first hand illustration but I just wanted to show the complete set, together. I had to create a narrative in five illustrations using hands and paper. The medium I used for each was ink and pencil on an 8" x 8"piece of watercolor paper. Each illustration took me 2-3 hours to complete.

I did these sketches during a history class. I was playing with the different poses and gestures of a deer making it express emotion with body language. 

Had an illustration project where we were supposed to illustrate given food items. With these food items, we were limited to a color pallet which consisted mostly of pastel colors. Each square I hand drawn and painted individually on a 4" x 4" piece of sketching paper. It's a bad habit of mine to use whatever paper is lying around for watercolor. When I don't use watercolor paper, the paper tends to curl which can be fixed with a couple of large heavy books. It's not terrible but it makes the process longer. When I finished, I scanned the illustrations into Photoshop, shrunk them down into 1" x 1" squares and then put them all together.

First of a series. For my figure drawing class we are supposed to create five illustrations that include hands and paper that tell a story. I used ink for this piece on a 8 x 8 in watercolor paper. I recently discovered this new pad of watercolor paper that is sealed on two sides to prevent wrinkling. It's amazing for those who love to use water based medium.

Last Christmas I painted shoes for my nieces. Unfortunately they outgrew the shoes faster than I would have liked. This photo was taken before I finished and I couldn't find one taken with the last pair finished. Each pair took me about 5-6 hours to paint.

This is a gesture drawing that I did for a figure drawing class.

More watercolor/building studies! This one turned out different from what I expected, which is ok! You have to just work with the changes and hope for the best. The pen I used to draw out the buildings turned out to be washable. So I carefully water colored around the lines which didn't work because they somehow still ended up bleeding. Then I started to play with the bleeding ink and tried to use it to define depth or shadow. Once everything dried I went back over with the pen and redefined some of the lines. I'm actually happy with how it turned out and hope to use this technique again. The original dimensions of this painting are 5.5 x 6.5 in.    

Years ago I made a couple of designs for a stamping company. Unfortunately we had a fallout, so now I am stuck with these designs that I'm still proud of. This one I loved because I used a teapot instead of a vase. It was fun creating the design because I could play with line work. For example, some areas the line got thick and dark while in others it thinned out. This helped give the overall picture, character.

This was a quick watercolor I made a day ago. I was playing with this new brush I got from Blick. Its a really cool brush that holds the water in the handle. Say goodbye to water cups! Anyway,  I was looking at all these messy watercolor buildings that people made in their sketch books. The watercolor was quick, effortless and sloppy but beautiful all at the same time. So I wanted to take a crack at it and voila! This isn't an illustration of any particular space. I was using different photos for reference and combined a couple of them together. I want to get better at defining space with color so this was more of a practice run. Hopefully I will get better at drawing buildings too.

This is an illustration I created for an assignment. I wanted to focus more on the background because lately I've noticed that my drawings tend to float in space. This allowed me to explore the details that hide in plain sight. Details such as the wallpaper, wood paneling, and furniture helped me define the space that the dog was in. Eventually the background, alone, started to tell the story. In the future, I hope to push myself into creating more spaces for my characters. The medium I used for this piece was watercolor and micron pen. 

Another sketch book page! This was created last year. I was playing with colors schemes and superhero costumes. The medium I used was watercolor and pen. 

This is a sunset that I painted over the summer. The picture is the actual size of the original. The medium I used was gouache which is similar to watercolor but has a more opaque look to it.

My dad requested me to paint a picture of his office. In return, he has to buy me breakfast. He still does today. He used this picture on his website because he hates how other dentists used the tacky, smiling models. He said no one is ever that happy to see a dentist. The medium I used was watercolor with pen/ink. the size of this painting is about 8 x 11 in.

This here is another wall mural that I painted, but this time for my niece. I approached this project the same way as I did for the Peter Pan painting which was that I focused more on my own adaption of the Disney characters than replicating them. This painting (as well as the Peter Pan) I painted free-handed.  This means that I didn't use any pencil or tracing materials to outline the picture before applying the paint. The reason for that is because one of my biggest pet peeves is that I can see the left over pencil marks after I painted the picture. Even if people tell me they can hardly see them, I can. I know they're there because I put them there. Plus when painting with the paint alone I had to learn to trust myself and work with each stroke. Does that mean I make mistakes? Yes. But I learn from them, fix them, make it work and move on.

This was a wall mural that I painted for my nephew's bedroom a couple of years ago. They were really into Peter Pan at the time. Although I was excited to paint Disney characters I knew it would be difficult to replicate. So for this job I took a bit of artistic liberty and just went with it. Not minding that they would look different from the movie was beneficial to the process. It gave the characters an illustrated look as if they popped out of a children's book.

A shot of one of my sketchbook pages. This, here, is a character I made up named Madison. I don't know her full story yet, but I continue to sketch her whenever I can. I'm thinking that she is a girl of action. One who is ready to tackle any obstacle that is thrown at her. And if she doesn't know what to do in a given situation, then she will fix that by doing her homework. She is stubborn, persistent and slightly awkward around others, but has a big heart. I used pencil, watercolor and pen on a piece of 7" x 11" mixed media paper.

This is a woodburing of a peacock I made for my sister last Christmas. I was still trying to get the hang of a wood burner.

Jack Bauer wood burning. I made this for another older brother, Kyle, in return for using his Netflix account. He's a fan of the show 24. I haven't met a guy who wasn't.

Feast your eyes on all that's left of a painting I did for my older brother. It took me 7-8 hours total to complete. Today he told me that he lost it during his move. Lost it! I was so proud of myself how this painting turned out. And what makes it better is that he had the nerve to ask me to make him a new one.
"Another one!?" I said.
"Yeah. maybe the other half of his face just in case I find the first one."
I wanted to thump my head against the wall repeatedly. The size of this painting was roughly 20" x 30". My feet were caught at the bottom of the picture for scale. If it helps, I'm a size 7 in women's.

 

This is a little illustration that I created for a class assignment. It took me approximately 3-5 hours. I don't know if the picture is clear enough but the story behind this assignment was that we had to pick a time in history to answer the question: WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? I chose Paul Revere's midnight ride. I'm not sure why, but I just had this chaotic image in my head where the chicken is being chased across the road and Revere's horse is about to run him over. It sounds kind of grim but I wanted it to take on a more comical look. The medium I used was mostly ink and watercolor with a touch of colored pencil.

Here's the scoop

Hey! I'm going to do something new and upload my artwork to this blog that I just started. Notice how I don't say "try." Haha, yes, as a master once said: "Do or do not. There is no try." This is to help me not to back out or give up on this little project. I am promising myself to go through with this and keep it up to date as much as possible. So be on your toes readers! There is a new blogger in town.