There's always a simpler way to do things. I firmly believe in working smarter, not harder. We turn to custom brushes to help us get down redundant elements like foliage or scales with half the effort. We buy or create stencils so we can get down more accurate shapes without burning out our already precarious energy. Following this logic, this second acrylic painting went by a little quicker than the first due to me already having some paints mixed up from the last one, as well as the thumbnails being done in advance. The composition is similar to the first painting, to boot, and it all whittled an hour or two out of the process. I like it. This is an aspect of the creation process I'm keeping in mind for future work. What are ways I can snip out a little of the grind? How can I reuse past thumbnails or similar ideas for new projects? I've got more .psd files than I'd like to admit stuffed to the brim with spontaneous painting concepts, which I...really should organize into their own folder. That's so much fertilizer for new work. If you've got some old, unfinished art lying around, consider pulling them back out again and giving them a review. You could just have a hidden gem languishing away unseen. If you haven't read my first post for the first acrylic painting, check it out here. This character belongs to Khailed, a fellow illustrator who is currently open for icon and portrait commissions. Without further ado! To the left are a few of the thumbnails I did while working on the first acrylic painting. I was already solidly in the groove and felt like trying my hand at their original character as I let the other thumbs simmer. I adored their character's rosy ombre hair and little heart sweater (already similar to my own fashion sense).
If you can't already tell, they have a knack for simple-and-striking designs. I've noticed how they tend to embody two or three poppy colors and a dominant fashion focal point, like a hat or a top. Really, they hearken to some of the best platformer characters of the 90's.
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I haven't traditionally painted in almost a year. You heard that right. Despite what you may hear in snooty art circles, it's not necessary to draw or paint every day to keep a skill alive. In fact, taking a break can be just as beneficial as hard practice. As it stands, 2020 burnt me out pretty hard. Not only was I running out of steam juggling several gigs throughout a stressful year, I pulled a muscle in my neck and upper shoulder in the middle of a hefty project and found myself bedridden for a week. I was popping Tylenol every six hours, struggling to walk further than my kitchen and, at one point, found myself dissolving into tears of frustration. That injury also happened right when my period started! Yeah. That was a fun week. It's worth noting that digital painting and traditional painting are similar enough as it is, so I technically never fell out of practice. Still, it was refreshing to revisit my old supplies and dip into a well-worn skill. A friend of mine sent me a wonderful custom postcard not too long afterwards, which made my whole month. They're a fantastic illustrator and designer looking to try their hand at packaging design soon (and you can find their portfolio here). What better way to say thank you than with some art of my own?
You just have to speak things into existence. I was contacted by Zero Issue Beer not too long ago -- a Canadian craft brewery -- and was asked if I was interested in doing an illustration for their new seasonal beer line-up. What a coincidence 2020 was the year I wanted to get into packaging design and illustration, particularly for beverages! Even better, the proceeds are going to Sankofa Arts & Music Foundation for black Canadian youth. As you can likely imagine, I was sold twenty times over. I have a short interview that will be appearing on their site here. For now? I'm going to share the creative process behind this piece, from the rough beginning stages to the inspiration behind it all. I'll share some tips I've learned about packaging design, too, for any of you who want to branch out your portfolio. Spoiler: there are harpies.
Been a while since I've done one of these! Indulgent art has always held a high priority for me. Why bother painting or drawing things I'm not invested in? Not to mention I need to show what I want to get hired for, so...kill two birds with one stone. This piece, however, was peak indulgence. Like, a dollop of whipped cream on top of whipped cream indulgence. You have a harpy. You have flowers. You have a ton of colors. Hell, there are even the mildest of vaporwave vibes (pink + blue surrealism) that snuck in without me realizing. Expect to see more of that. This year has been an absolute trainwreck and it's barely halfway over. Soaking in the subjects and styles I love to the nth degree is as self-care as it gets. As a side-note, I'm going to be keeping these progress posts a little brief from now on so I don't repeat myself. I mean, you know I love color. The part where I start phasing out the sketch and start rendering is orgasmic. Yadda yadda. I'll focus more on the unique challenges of each piece and what, exactly, was going on in my mind when making it. It's time to get indulgent.
Which artists deserve credit and which one's don't? Trick question! All of them do. So, I came across a job posting for an illustration gig the other day that had my higher brain functions in a bit of a fit. I won't go into the specifics, but it's one that interested me on several levels. I ended up not just skipping the application, but walked away with inspiration for one very annoyed, very specific blog post. I'll start this off with a nice, easy fact: artists deserve credit for their work. At the risk of sounding blase, there would be no work without the artist. This seems like a simple nugget of wisdom, yet, unfortunately, we live on the planet Earth. Here we have Twitter users reposting other people's work without credit (or giving credit in the second, less-viewed comment), shady online sellers making profit off of stolen designs and potential clients haggling down professionals. The job application I came across was more insidious, appearing perfectly professional on the surface with its highly specific rundown of the job and all that it would entail. That is, until it came to the pesky subject of due credit: this would be a work-for-hire position that would see all copyright going to the owner. As a working professional with over five years of experience, this is nothing new to me. ...Until I got to the following stipulation: the artist may get credit...as long as they are high-profile. Ha ha. Yikes.
No Freelancer Is An Island: Five Free Or Low-Cost Freelance Resources That Have Helped Me Greatly1/21/2020 Being a freelancer is rough. Thing is? It doesn't have to be. Take it from someone whose instinct is to try and do everything on her own: don't. Not only will you run the risk of burning yourself out prematurely, you can set yourself up for failure by missing important legal details or drastically underpricing. There are free and affordable resources out there that can take the sting out of the freelancing process. Pricing, marketing, state law, copyright, portfolio direction, you name it. You can't create a piece of art without tools, right? The same goes for running a successful business. Below are five resources I use on a weekly -- sometimes daily -- basis, useful for both experienced freelancers and budding professionals starting to dip their toes into the working world. Without further ado:
Sometimes you need to start over fresh. There's no shame in it. Why waste effort picking away at something you could just re-do in half the time? Other times, though, you'll need to bite the bullet and push through. Knowing which one of these to commit to is part of being a productive artist. I've talked about it before and I'll repeat until I'm blue in the face. It's a gamechanger. Now that that's out of the way...let me start this by saying I wanted to drop this piece like a cheap vase. Even worse? This was one of my favorite sketches in my sketch batch. Talk about artistic whiplash. It didn't help I was winging the color scheme and many of the supporting details (a habit I've developed since color theory is one of my strongest skills). I had a vague idea I wanted blue and gold, that I wanted everything fancy and dream-like...and that was about it. For once, my guesswork backfired and made me fudge around more than normal. This doesn't happen often -- I've winged crazier pieces than this -- but it cost me several hours that could've been saved if I fleshed out the draft stages better. This was a good reminder of how badly a piece can backfire if you don't have the basics down. I thought of throwing my hands up in the air and outright moving on to another sketch, but something about this one told me to keep going. 'Make it work' is a phrase made famous from Project Runway and one I've adopted. It's a saying that tells you to work with your mistakes and find a way out of the hedgemaze you've built for yourself. I might just have to do a post on all my personal quotes one of these days. (If you're curious about other pieces I've done, check out my recent post on the progress of 'Yasar'.)
Tl;dr: fashion is life. Long version: sometimes it's hard to believe I went from a gangly kid who religiously wore the same grey hoodie, old sneakers and side-braid to a woman who experiments with nearly every look. It's like a Pokemon evolution, only a lot slower. When I really think about it, though? It makes perfect sense. I had my time to be awkward (and sometimes outright disdainful) of how I look. I had the space to explore what I liked, what I didn't like and what I didn't quite feel ready to try out. It's the same logic around any unpleasant or disappointing experience: as Ava DuVernay likes to say, "It's not happening to you, it's happening for you." That hurdle of mine is well over and done with. Life is just too short to not celebrate your appearance. In the future I might just do a fashion retrospect, with each drawing representing where I was at major turning points (young child, teenager, young adult). For now... I compose my looks not unlike how I compose my paintings. I take into account the theme, such as cute casual or 80's nostalgia. I make sure colors and patterns are balanced. Got a lot of warm? Contrast it with something cool. Got a patterned top or leggings? Pair it with something simpler. It's hard to even come up with a name for my style, because I love to dabble in everything. Magical chic? Contemporary nostalgia? Flowery fatale? These are starting to sound like music genres. I'm not complaining. the term boho can go to hell, though. even though many of my looks would technically fall under that category in fashion SEO, I hate that term with a fiery passion Why did it take me this long to embrace the utter power of the tunic dress? Seriously, come to my TED Talk. Let me tell you about how easy it is to mix and match these wonderful things, with the big fat bonus of skipping a step (shirt + pants). I had a tunic dress or two back in high school, but had no idea how to wear them. I'd actually tuck the damn things into my jeans so I wouldn't look 'weird'. There goes the point!!!
I figure now's a good time to talk about why I've learned not to make New Year's Resolutions. I understand the appeal. The desire to just...rinse off all the bad, keep the good and glide into the future with a lighter spirit. The socially acceptable ritual of drinking like crazy and waking up with a New Year hangover? I certainly feel the urge in my bones, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet! I won't be doing it, though. I haven't for several years, in fact! I've learned New Year's resolutions tend to be, at best, dramatic declarations with little (if any) long-term payoff. They feel great in the moment, but once it comes down to keeping pace with your ambitions? Resolutions are a recipe for failure that shows in every deadline missed, personal promise delayed and mediocre result gained. So I skip it...and instead focus on building good habits instead. This is a subtle, yet hugely life-changing mentality that I've picked up from B2B writing/content marketing spaces. It makes sense, since the nature of that skillset is about crafting progress in bite-sized increments. Whether or not you're a freelancer, I highly recommend checking out Ed Gandia and BlackFreelance. They have several wonderful pieces that explore the benefits of shifting your mentality with smaller gestures, rather than going for a 'cold turkey' approach that has you falling back on old habits. Good habits are just as hard to break as bad ones. For example, I brush, floss and rinse every single night, and missing just one night? It has me all out of sorts. I extend this same minimalist logic to other things, working backwards from the goal. Instead of just saying I want to lose a certain amount of pounds, I instead signed up at a local gym with my roommate for two sessions per week (as well as fewer sweets). Instead of just saying I want to wake up earlier, I instead push myself to go to bed an hour sooner. When it comes to art? Well, I want to improve my production, quality and outreach. But what do I have to do to get there...and will it be small enough to incorporate into my everyday life without a drastic overhaul? For now...I'm focusing on traditional sketches. They're the foundation of most of the work I do and take the most effort from me. All those big goals of a shinier portfolio and fleshed-out projects? Those come later.
Experimentation isn't always going to be social media ready. It shouldn't be, actually. How does an artist learn through mistakes...while being too afraid to make them? One of my favorite painting processes is just throwing whatever at the wall -- or canvas -- and seeing what sticks. Even that dynamic foundation can be shaken up a little. While playing around in Photoshop the other night I slapped down some complimentary colors and fooled around with the smudge tool. Didn't have anything in particular in my head. In doing so, I discovered something I've never seen before: an iridescent finish caused by the smudge tool's blurring effect. Frankly? It looks fucking awesome. The painting itself is...meh. That's fine! I learned a fun new way of creating a foundation in my speedpaintings and discovered some neat tricks to add more depth to my work. All with just a few smudges. That's more than enough success for an hour of fudging.
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AuthorHere I post WIPs, sketches, speedpaints, thumbnails and anything else thrown into the veritable stew of artistic process. Archives
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AboutCommercial illustrator and designer currently available for short-term and long-term freelance work.
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