Doodleee

Sundays are usually pretty slow, so I doodled this on the back of a specials card. *__* Thinking of adding some quick whites to it with ink and uploading it... Bringing art supplies every time from now on. :P

DPAL happenings; project for March

Getting a bit bogged down by some small things recently, it seems. Luckily, my brain knows better, even though my emotions/energy level are being pulled downward. :P

Last week, I went in to model for a class at the DuPage Art League, and I will be going back for a second session tonight. During the five-minute breaks, I would go out of the room to walk around the main gallery—to check out other people’s entries for the February exhibition as well as to look through the teachers’ portfolio binder that was set out by the entrance.  As I was making my way around the darkened gallery, the space being lit up mostly by the light flowing out through the classroom door, some sort of heavy feeling sunk into me. I was struck by how literally the other submissions seemed to address the theme, by how straightforward their interpretations seemed to be. I also noticed that close to (maybe even over) half of the entries had gotten some sort of ribbon (DPAL gives out a few small prizes and some merit ribbons for every exhibition). Not having a ribbon seemed to be the exception, the minority, and my two wood panels were in that minority (at least they hung them together, unlike last month XD). That itself didn’t really matter, but it contributed to that feeling of isolation that was already creeping up on me. I felt like this was a world I wouldn’t ever belong to, and while I was thankful for that, it was still a lonely, miscast kind of feeling.

That said, doing something monthly for the DPAL is a good exercise. This month, I am finally getting to paint an original idea that I actually want to work on, as opposed to doing something that is either quick or a recreation of a previous work more for the sake of practice. The theme for March is “Green,” and once I thought about it for a bit, I realized that green is a color I almost never use. So I thought I would try to use it to symbolize/express a combination of envy, decay, and growth.

Currently, I’m just a little farther than this:

Next month, I’ll be sure to start working right away instead of waiting until the middle of the month. :P

Assignment 1...

Something that I said I would probably share once it was done is this:

When I visited Coey & Shy last month, I did some thinking about where I want to go with my art, most likely because I was confronted with two people whose work I admire so much. *__* I felt more strongly than before the pressure of needing to push myself artistically, to keep developing and moving forward. Shy and Jing had recently decided to do weekly assignments, in which they would take turns thinking of an art exercise for both of them to do within the span of the week. It seemed like a really good idea, especially because the other person could push you to draw things you might not otherwise tackle and help you develop skills that would otherwise remain undeveloped.  I thought that maybe Jackie and I could try something like that out, until I thought about it more realistically and realized that student teaching leaves her with no time for anything like that. :(( And then Coey offered to be my art buddy. XD ;__;;; ♥

So far, we’ve only had one assignment set—to redraw a still from a movie you like in your own style. At first, I thought of drawing something from one of the Alien movies, but I decided to postpone something like that until a bit later, when I could spend more time on it. After digging out a bunch of potential movies, I went with Strange Circus and worked from the following screencap:

Some progress shots:

In the end, I was kind of annoyed with the final product. I felt that I hadn’t “stylized” it enough and wished I had taken a bigger risk with stylizing the face in the background instead of trying to stick to the reference. D:> Somehow, the final product looked childish to me and I still get that impression when I look at it. XD I liked Yuuji’s almost completely silhouetted figure and the opaque effects of the bright blue ink, but felt like I had screwed up overall, oops. Learning experience. :P

Cinder + new ink/watercolor

Silly cat. *__* ♥
On the top is something that will eventually turn into my painting for the March exhibition; on the bottom is a shorter-term assignment/project I will share later as long as it doesn't turn out like crap. XD

As a post-Ohayocon art present to myself, I bought these:

So.... convention-going supporters, this is where your money goes. ♥ That and bills. ;__;; I've been contemplating either getting a set of inks like this or a set of watercolors, but decided to go with the inks after all. Partially because Blick was having a nice sale on them. :D

Also....... I found these at Target:

Gypsy is pretty jealous.