This is one of the days where I reserve my last energy for writing my monthly reflection, so I figure this will be a bit of a ramble, but who’s there to stop me? òvó
This was by far the most artsy month of the year so far: I finished 3 bigger projects and 12 smaller portraits + one digital gift for my boyo. And Art Fight certainly helped – like every year!
The full page marker thing I had going on last year was overkill though. I decided to small it down to A6 but keep the markers because I haven’t tried them since the very start of the year and who would’ve guessed, if you adabt to a more relaxed mindset with picking colours and just get in the ballpark of the reference, I was quicker with them than with my watercolors. At first, I wanted to make very crud paintings without lines, but as the first attack formed much to my liking, the layout and structure was always to draw a frame around the figure with some way of it overlapping the border to get a more dymensional feel – that kept things fresh and interesting. Additionally, I wanted to keep things in a summery vibe with colours and perhaps dressing and set pieces which I like very much of course c:
And with these, I had some room to experiment with. I must say compared to my digital artworks, these fade into the back of my head but to think where I stood last year where one piece took a whole weekend and robbed me of the fun I had with markers, here I had fun all the while and I still like the result! So yeah while I kinda miss the results of my digital drawings, I have kinda lost all fun with the process of working digitally. Which is something I believe I was afraid of at the end of last year but now that I’m here, it’s not that bad, I mean, I’m still having fun and I’m motivated to learn, improve my skills and am able to offer my works much more directly. I can assure you, every one of these looks much better when you have them in hand and therefore – of course – they feel better as well.
When I think of it starting with just pencil sketches 3 years ago, then switched to black and white on brown paper, then marker drawings and now my watercolors with acrylic and sculpting on the way… I must say I’ve come far within the traditional medium and I’m more than eager to continue with it!
But ya, once more I wished Art Fight would last longer but that’s always good, you keep a sense of longing for the next year, and heck, I always say I have barely any time and then it still grabs me and motivates me to keep doing attacks and revenges and I’m happy that some found it fun to draw my characters as well ^v^
A big chunk – as I mentioned – were the 3 main projects this year. The first one being my first traditional commissioned piece outside of cons and one that I’m very proud of how it turned out. I still think it illustrates well where I am with watercolours and where I see room for improvement.
First off: You cannot achieve dark colours. The darkest I can get is still several levels brighter than my ink pens, that’s why I have to play around a lot with higher values. Here, I still managed to get a good value range though I do struggle still with blending them together to achieve soft forms. I don’t exactly know how to combat this… for now, I just apply more water and wash out the forms. It’s a back and forth though and esbecially when I’m uncertain about a form, that can mean a bit of back and forth until I’m satisfied.
I had to finish up one more piece for Awoostria’s Art Showand went with this… awful idea that I have to censor now to be able to talk about it. This was going to be my first real scene with multiple characters, layers and perspective and I’d say I pulled it off real well, yeah. In the picture it looks very detailed also which I’m quite happy with. The actual painting process took about 3 days with one more for polishing but was actually quite straightforward and not at all as intimidating as first expected. That gave me the confidence to perhaps tackle things like this in the future. The main thing I struggled with though was finding the right colors for the main actor and the… object. Turns out rendering gold-like material is quite hard if you can’t revert to using air brush and color dodge…
The final one was finished just yesterday, and here, I really feel bad about giving it away to an auction because I think it turned out really well.
I did an additional stage of presketching it on my tablet and then copy it to my canvas. I did so because I was unsure about the composition and pose and am glad I did this step to find the right thing. After I’ve applied my sketch to paper, I then also took a photo and precolored it in CSP, which yielded some very very nice color variations… just to remember I had already used a green pencil for sketching… ah yes, I forgot to mention that I returned a pencil collection that I got ages ago to spice up the colors of my sketches, which help a lot with coloring and keeping a more lively feel. Because I realized, I revert to using my ink pen for lines when I think the forms and shapes aren’t readable enough. Here, I wanted to focus on strong outlines without using any black lines (exception being the pages of the magazine because white doesn’t accent well).
And I believe that’s also a big reason why I’m so happy how this piece turned out. But yeah, still gotta give it away I guess. Well if you’re a fan, come by the Art Show at Eurofurence and bet a hell lot of money on it! Because I need to fight my insecurities after Awoostria… ahh good segway!
It was my first time going to Austria actually and I must say… I wasn’t feeling any different than in Germany. Sure, language is mostly the same, you can read street signs and the menu but also from the buildings and streets… but well don’t take my word for it, I’ve only been sightseeing on 2 days and that was just Vienna, I’m no expert, I’m there for a furry convention >v>
Which was very nice! At first I was a bit sceptical about having two venues, getting NFC flashbacks but it’s actually super manageable and you don’t need to fear for freezing winds to blow you off a bridge. Nah it was nice! Despite it officially being 1700 regs, it really felt like half of it, not crammed at all. The venue was dressed up super well and you clearly get the feeling that everyone is having a good time. My only grime was that there was no artist alley and no (official) dedicated drawing corner, but it also had one of my fav memories where I was just sitting at a bar with nice music, great vibes and drawing in the middle of it. It had the downside that I couldn’t break even with my Art Show stuff. I had entered 4 pieces of which 3 were sold. One for more than expected but the other two for rather less. Whiiich makes me a little anxious about Eurofurence. Considering doing commissions to be much more profitable than my experience with AS so far, and how everything seems to have serious ups and downs, this is pretty much the last opportunity to decide how I can afford cons in the near future. I have only been able to do Awoostria because my dear Varis has let me sleep in his apartment – which was lovely by the way, I really enjoyed being around the group of furs every day and night! But if I want to do it again next year, I fear I’ll have to drop NFC, so, in turn, I can do a bit more smaller German cons – yk, since I’ll have my suit ‘n all.
Oh damn, I started losing my track there for a minute. Uhm ah well there isn’t really much more to talk about.
I did feel a bit bummed how I sat in my flat for most of the month. I wasn’t really going out much, partly due to the heat that’s still going on here in the south but also well, my motivation for it, been playing too much video games even though I’m not really in the mood for new stuff, just occupation. I’m doing less activities also, don’t hold up my daily workouts and ahh, just need to get back in a good habit. I have a feeling, though, that after EF, I’ll be more able to structure my days. With my bachelor knocking at the door, I more or less have to. I ordered all the supplies needed to get into it, just need to finish up the model for the base and make some test-runs. Also I’ll be able to use some for my personal means, like the aforementioned Acrylic Paints but also sewing material that I wanna use for one AS piece or whatever else will come up.
Also late August, start of September should be an ideal time to get to my fruit hat piece. It’s been long overdue but I’m still looking for ideas on what exactly to draw. Something will show up I’m sure c:
Until then, I will be back for my reflection at the end of August
Have anice time!
~ Souvillaine