Whew!
I’m sweaty, sitting in the bright glowing sun under my roof, it is getting hot and I can’t wait to head out after writing this journal!
April has been crazy with work. The last weeks in particular, I’ve barely gotten time to relax but what can I say? There’s just so much to do now…
If today wasn’t a national holiday, I would probably be working at uni now, doing an animated version of one of my artworks. Perhaps I have time to finish it tomorrow, we’ll see!
But disregarding my simultaneous work projects, art-wise, it has been a wonderful time I think! ^v^ Let’s see if I can recall all the events…
My first finished piece this month was a personal project I started in February (I think) and that I touched every now and then when I could. At first, I wasn’t sure which character should be in the centrepiece, the sketch was ambiguous enough to design a new character with it but having to design a new one for this was not fitting in my timeframe. So I decided to put my sona in there and it developed fine from then on! I had a lot of fun using as little layers as possible and making this more of a traditional painting process had a calming effect. Especially working out the little details: the plants and rocks and li’l creatures was so very relaxing to me. I’d love to continue using this style and flair for future artworks to help me with some serenity in my artworks.
Througout the month, I started working on our uni’s private film screenings, also assisted in the production of some posters too. I also again worked for the trickfilm festival and did some designs there, but I won’t show these, not particularly because I dislike them, I actually got some praise for them so far ^v^ – but of uncertain legality reasons. But better have them mentioned here ^v^
I ventured on to do another smaller project in between commissions and – well because I just felt like it :3 The motivation was to finally show a character I had in mind for the island setting from the very beginning but couln’t decide on a design yet. I figured just drawing him would give me more motivation than doing some designs first and I think it worked! ^v^ This is my favourite piece this month, albeit it being rather rough on the edges, I really think it’s a great portrayal of the character and I’ve left enough features hidden to give me more space with the design later on. For example: I hid his scale patterns underneath the shirt, closed his eyes and well, just made a halfbody portrait instead of a fullbody one.
I approached this with the same limited endeavour of the last artwork, though I felt the limits weigh down on me when it came to putting this together. Especially the wet texture of the shirt was very hard to pull off but it is my favourite thing about this. The theatrical, romantic pose, the soft light and the wounds with gentle bleeding. I remember it was harsh for me to add blood here, something I didn’t feel before. I had find the right balance of intensity to the blood stream so it wouldn’t feel so morbid, the reds here are very desaturated considering my first idea of this would be a more surreal depiction of this character floating in his own blood. I’m glad I settled with a more tame version. I am very thrilled to do more with him, I think he’s a very interesting character and will pose for some great moments. Also I think I settled on a name. I will call him Marín Álvarez…
I wanna talk about one more artwork before I have to head out.
I kept it up working on various marker drawings on the weekends and I think I’ve already come a long way of getting good at composition on this oddly narrow layout of the paper I use. This here is for a drawing challenge set by us admins in our discord server Ringside. The aim was it to draw out characters in a state of preparation for a fight. The idea crept in to feature Zavi there being pressured somehow by someone forcing her to go down in a certain round to control the bidding revenues and her conflicting thoughts in this situation. Only in the last hour or so, did I decide to add the letters of he rinner monologue on the artwork itself rather than in a description. It is rough but I like it. Very well captures the chaos and anger and need tocontrol that’s waging inside her head.
I’m also trying to adjust to my white acrylic markers getting more and more bleh. Instead of adding them in after the fact, here, I work around the white outlines and create a negative of sort, which saves me the hustle of being extra super careful not to spill anything with my acrylic markers… perhaps it’s time for new ones.
Oke, I really wanna head out now. Last thing to mention is that I had a nice little Easter despite not making it back to families due to constructions sites blocking railways to my hom…and the lack of time. I still had my mother to visit which was super nice ^v^
Next week, I’ll be going to the trickfilm festival… as a visitor – as well as a worker and I’m already very excited ^v^
See where the see will guide us. Have a wonderful May and enjoy a hopefully good weather!
~Souvillaine