Experimentation and new materials

November 22, 2021November 22, 2021Leave a comment

Looking at my instagram feed, I can’t think of any other word other than experimentation for my posts from August 2020 up to November 2020. I was lost on what to do next. The previous months had “themes” that I could write about. This one, I played with my other art materials – gouache, color pencils, markers, gold foil, and a bit of watercolor. For the first post on this series – I’ll write about gouache.

I brought out my Himi Miya gouache again for experiments. I had a bunch of old watercolor paper in stock and thought I could use these for practice. They were a bit dried out but was revived with water and a lot of patience! This was also the time that I had no motivation to scan most of my works, so I relied on my phone photos for a while.

All of the artworks that needed to be scanned that time

I also attempted to do gouachetober using the back of old watercolor papers

More gouache and old watercolor paper works

Got tired of doing gouachetober on day 3, so I did ink on day 4. This is a representation of “I’m tired of fighting for our profession, but we must fight because who will defend us?” face that we were experiencing that time.

Since I made a portrait, I had to make 2 more for a set of 3 for my instagram page. Pencils and gouache flowers for these.

My entry for a Paperaicashop’s DTIYS contest

Look at that gold ♥

I also remember feeling resentment and bitterness during this time. I dedicated my time on our group’s website layout, blog posts, listings, accounting, and even promotions. It was my usual phase of being tired over initiating conversations with people and following up on on each other’s tasks. I didn’t want any of that anymore. So after this, I stopped initiating. Below is my contribution to our monthly sticker collaboration of sorts.

Places you want to be

The last photo are more gouache experiments that are coffee themed. It looks cute! Would love to turn this into sticker sheets some day. ♥

The golden phase

November 15, 2021November 15, 2021Leave a comment

Now from the bit of gold on my pink poppy, to ink paintings, then to lotus watercolor paintings lined with gold poster paint, we are now here to fully gold paintings. I thought orchids would look great in gold, and it does! These look sooooo sparkly and shiny in real life.

I used the same gold poster paint for all of my paintings. But it looked like I didn’t matched the colors on of all them. Oops! The middle one is a phalaenopsis and the first painting that I made. The right most is a cymbidium, and the second painting. I realized that since I used poster paint, I could water down the lines and attempt to make a gradient of the gold. The left most – also the third, shows a more watered down look. This is also a phal, and the white versions are usually the preferred flower of interior designers due to their structural and elegant nature.

The next set of paintings are in the correct order. Left: I wanted to paint the pattern on the petals. Middle: Another phal accompanied with buds. Even if not all of them are fully bloomed, they still look aesthetically pleasing to me! Right: After obsessing with phal orchids and gold, I thought it was not time to research about the other varieties. This is a slipper orchid! (or Cypripedioideae, thank you Wikipedia lol). Very interesting petals. Will have to study more of this to get the petals right.

Left: This is the Dancing Lady orchid (or Oncidium). They’re small flowers that really look like ladies in gowns. We used to have a bunch of these in our garden. Mama bought 3 and managed to multiply them lol. Middle and Right: I forgot what these are, but I got these from a reference photo group.

The last of my gold obsession – cattleyas! Beautiful and fragrant! Mama’s room always smells so good whenever a cattleya blooms on her window rack. Even our dog – Nori, loves smelling the flower.

Also a tidbit from this collection – around November last year, a typhoon hit Metro Manila and its surrounding areas. A lot of people were affected, including acquaintances and officemates. I offered 15 paintings to be sold by our office charity group were I have 100% of the profit to the donation drive. I’m very happy to announce that my bbs sold out and some of them are now shipped to their new homes.

Some of my artworks are uploaded in Society 6, Red Bubble, and Inprnt

After poppies, from ink to gold

November 13, 2021November 13, 2021Leave a comment

Continuing from my last post and artwork. Painting with gold paint reminded me of my previous ink and gold works. So I experimented with these next:

The poppy that started it all

Flowy ink and gold accents. These were enough to satisfy my curiosity.

Colorful lotus with an ink background

Experimenting with the thought of “How about I make a colorful lotus as a focal point of a monochrome background?” And so I did! Its a bit messy, but I liked the finished outcome. I believe you don’t need to have second thoughts in your concepts and wants. Just make it. If you don’t like it, its okay! At least you’ve indulged in your curiosity and experiments. And you can always try again. ♥

Copying what I wrote in my Instagram posts:

Another experiment. I didn’t want to pursue my ink paintings anymore, but now I wanted to paint lotus flowers. My hand wasn’t in the mood to paint that day, and I hated that I didn’t sketched properly and even painted this freely. The next day, with fresh eyes and another look at the painting I thought “Hmm, this needs gold”. Now I sorta like the outcome? Hahaha.

The next day of experimenting, someone shared another gorgeous lotus photo in an FB group. And I couldn’t resist painting it! (that forgot to sketch lololol). I can’t seem to get the style that want – a balance of light with hints of color but very detailed in the petals. I know that I lack the patience to do it haha. In the beginning, I used to splatter white poster paint on my artworks to make up my lack of experience with the medium. This kind of reminds me of those days – except this time its with gold. I’m happy with the piece, but I hope I can achieve the style that I want in the future – just need more practice.

The last of my gold lotus experiments. This time I tried to achieve simpler colors and lines. I think it looks great!

What comes next after all these experiments? Find out in the next post!

2020 World Watercolor Month and my obsession with poppies

November 13, 2021November 13, 2021Leave a comment

I find it funny that my recent blog post titles are long! Just like the trend with light novels and manga nowadays. After portraits and gouache, it was already July 2020. Which meant it is now World Watercolor Month! From their website:

World Watercolor Month was founded by Charlie O’Shields, creator of Doodlewash®, in 2016. It’s a month to inspire people to paint with watercolor (watercolour, aquarelle) while raising awareness for the importance of art and creativity in the world. Take the ultimate challenge of 31 watercolors in 31 days, or simply post when you can! Anyone can join the celebration from master watercolorists to artists just starting out with watercolor! Simply tag any art that uses watercolors (or gouache) with #WorldWatercolorMonth during the month of July!

I joined some FB groups that shares free reference photos from photographers and hobbyists that artists could use for free without any credit or permission. But of course credit is appreciated! July was also the start of spring in other parts of the world, which meant a lot of poppy photos were shared. I got obsessed with them! The simple flowers with a lot of folds in between… irresistible! It was so much fun painting those ruffles.

So many poppy colors! ♥

I really love this one!

The process of the blue poppy!

Aside from poppies, I also painted other flowers as well. ♥

This is a cactus flower. The colors are gorgeous!

Funny story, this rose was “reviewed” by print on demand sites due to pornographic material. Uhm..!?

Waling waling, an endemic orchid of the Philippines. | Poppies during a virtual art tambay

I also practiced with white flowers! Really loved the middle painting. ♥

The last poppy that I made was a pink one. I was looking for the remaining poppy colors that I should paint individually. The winner was pink! But I felt that there’s something missing in this piece. So I added gold in the middle and I loved it! This was the start of my gold phase! Next up are the experiments and downward spiral of my sparkly addiction.

Some of my artworks are uploaded in Society 6, Red Bubble, and Inprnt

Return to Gouache

November 9, 2021November 13, 2021Leave a comment

After drawing 50 portraits, I liked the change of pace from watercolors. So I switched to gouache this time. I remembered that I have a Himi Miya Gouache somewhere and looked for it. They said gouache is better when the paint is still wet since its easier to blend. The Himi Miya can stay wet as long as you check every other month and spray water on it. I did not do that (oops):

The state of my Himi

This is fine, though! You can still revive dried up gouache. I poured water on all pans and mixed it with a chopsticks to try to re-wet and revive it. It worked! I also bought a new watercolor pad to try out – Daler Rowney Aquafine pad from Art Caravan PH.

Hydrangeas = Rainy season! ♥

Details

Since I was still hang over from doing portraits, I thought I could do portraits in gouache as well. As you could see in the first photo, I got bad sizing paper from my pad. Its a good thing that I can cover this up with gouache!

Anemone Girl in Inprnt

Hydrangea Girl in Inprnt

50 JuiceHeads in 10 Days Challenge

November 8, 2021November 8, 2021Leave a comment

A friend invited me to create 50 portraits in 10 days. I didn’t finish this in 10 days, but I completed it! With every challenge whenever applicable, I always start with a self portrait. The rest of the portraits I’ve drawn are from officemates, and the rest I referenced from Pinterest.

The only watercolor portraits: Myself, my officemate’s babies, and our Managing Director.

The middle sketch made me realize that I wanted to draw hair. ♥

Left: Yes to more hair | Middle: I was experimenting with the head sizes for this one. Should I make multiple portrait sketches in one page? Should I combine them? The good thing with having one portrait in one page is that I could detail it some more. For the multiple portraits, not so much. But I could generally practice getting the proportions right. | Right: Really loved the bottom sketch!

Left: Raina Hein ♥

Experimenting with hair hatches ♥

Gushing over the hair details

Around this time, I ran out of mechanical pencil refills so I had to use normal pencils. It felt weird since I was so used to the line consistency of mechanical pencils.

I’ve learned a lot of things during this challenge: I rarely use my eraser (need to fix this), I still love sketching hair and making hatches, proportions are hard, fundamentals are important, and the only way to improve is to keep on drawing. ♥ 50 portraits is not enough to master this, but it was a nice change of pace!

Van Gogh Sketchbook

November 8, 2021November 8, 20211 Comment

For my birthday a few years ago, two friends both gifted me the huge Van Gogh notebook usually seen in bookstores. Both of them said that sunflowers reminded them of me. One is kept in my office pedestal, while Aira’s gift is here at home. During the early days of the pandemic, I tried out watercolors on one of them out of curiosity. I never know this could take watercolors!

The same Van Gogh sunflower painting! ♥

Here are some of the post-processed artworks that I did! In real life though, the paper is wrinkled because of too much water. Its a good thing that I invested in a new scanner so I could scan and clean my works. It was a nice change of pace of just painting, without any pressure of making good art.

Van Gogh inspired sunflower | Delphinium

Sakura, I think? | Peonies in a vase

Sunflower bouquet | Snapdragon. Not sure if obvious but I remembered feeling sad and angry when I was painting this.

More watercolor practices! Look at those wrinkles lol

I also treated this sketchbook for its true purpose. Which is sketching! Most artists get pressured into creating that perfect, complete, and professional sketchbook. Not mine though! I also spilled coffee on the side and most pages are stained hahaha.

Theo and Philo , a local chocolate brand, also held a wrapper design contest that year. The winner will get chocolate! I love their unique chocolate flavors so of course I joined. It was my first time combining traditional elements with digital items. I didn’t win though! But I got to experience something new, and helped me with my photoshop skills.

Concept 1: I think this was supposed to be banana leaves and ube color? | Concept 2: Sunflowers, gold, maroon color for UP

Concept 3: White orchids on yellowish background | Concept 4: Underwater themed

My contest submissions ♥

Some of my artworks are uploaded in Society 6, Red Bubble, and Inprnt

Art Trade with Little Miss Marikit

November 7, 2021November 8, 2021Leave a comment

I also had an art trade with Maia, aka @littlemissmarikit last 2019. She requested some pansy artworks and I requested sunflowers. I love it! Thank you for doing an art trade with me! ♥

Her reference photo

Her business card! So cute!

I made two paintings for her. ♥

Happy Mail

November 7, 2021November 8, 2021Leave a comment

I even found photos from 2019 HAHA. I received this happy mail last 2019 from an artist friend of mine: Margaret Morales Art. I’ve been a huge fan of her for a long while now! When she opened her online store, I ordered the greetings cards and got a lot of freebies. Once again, thank you so much! ♥

The first ECQ and painting my cravings

November 7, 2021November 8, 2021Leave a comment

Browsing through my photos made me realize that even though I’ve been working from home since last year, I’ve done a lot of things that are still worthy to blog about. Or maybe I’m just in the mood to write? I’m currently sorting and editing through 2020, hopefully I could get a lot done before 2021 ends. (And then 2021 posts on 2022? HAHA) ♥

First thing that I should write about is the first ECQ. (What number are we in right now anyway!?) Everyone was required to stay home except for our front liners. Most restaurants closed down at that time. Delivery was the booming back then. I painted my cravings away during those days:

Chirashi don!

There was a time that coffee shops were closed! I had to survive on instant coffee for a while. I used my Canson XL watercolor paper for these. I love the effects it made on very wet on wet style. Look at the iced americano!