Home Concentration 5

For this piece, I thought it would be fun to have an interactive element. I came up with the idea to draw Grinch with a thoughtful expression in front of a background of gears because he is an inventor in the movie. It was also a play on the expression that you say when someone is thinking, "I can see the gears turning in your head." 

At first, I wanted to have the gears overlap each other without a set pattern, but changed that idea upon making my stencil. I thought it would look better if the gears appeared to be connected so you could envision them all spinning at the same time. I chose to add the two gears on top because I wanted gears that would actually spin. 

This piece also gave me the chance to use my metallic Prismacolors since those tend not to make their way into my pieces. I used silver and gold to outline the gears so that they would have a little shine to them. I also wanted to create texture by lightly going over some areas with the Prismacolors to bring out the tooth of the watercolor paper. 

Home Concentration 4

For this piece, I wanted to try something new that was a bit abstract. I had watched a video by Valerie Flynn talking about what doodling has taught her and got inspired by that. I took my time and built up my painting swirl by swirl until I got a result that I liked. I'm happy I chose to paint the background black because I think it's a great color to serve as the negative space because it makes the colors pop. This piece also makes me think of Wicked whenever I look at it because of the line, "Pink goes good with green." 

Class Concentration 4

This piece was my take on the art challenge that has been going around YouTube, the Crayola Marker Challenge. It truly was a challenge to only use Crayola markers because they are water-based inks and don't tend to blend very smoothly. I didn't have a whole lot of leeway if I made a mistake, so I had to be very careful with my strokes. 

I used the Crayola Supertip markers as is for the hair and for some accents throughout the piece. For the majority of the piece, I scribbled some of the ink onto a plastic lid and used it like watercolors. For the most part, this worked really well. They just had a tendency to bleed and dry in a weird way. 

Inspirational Artists

I have taken a great deal of inspiration from artists I've discovered through social media. The main place I use to discover new artists is Instagram. Some of these artists also have YouTube channels where they post a range of things from art challenges to art tutorials. I've taught myself a lot of techniques that I apply in my art through watching these videos and analyzing these posts. 

One Instagram artist that really stands out to me and inspires me is Maxx Stephen. He is an artist that primarily draws Disney Princesses, but he draws them in his own style. His work is almost entirely done with Prismacolors, but he also does some Copic marker illustrations. His work is easily identifiable because he almost always uses Strathmore gray-toned paper and Spica glitter pens to add details. Though I haven't added any glitter pens to my collection of materials, I did get a gray-toned sketchbook because of Maxx. He said he prefers working on the gray because he feels it makes the colors pop. 

His greatest strength is his wonderful use of the Prismacolors. I'm amazed every time he posts a new picture because everything looks so beautifully blended. Though I'm unsure as to what his blending technique is, I've studied his work-in-progress pictures to try and get an idea. I just love his work. He has greatly inspired me to continue to use Prismacolors and has made me appreciate the medium even more. 

Someone who fits right into my concentration is an artist on DeviantArt named Inubaki. I found her artwork several years ago and I still really love what she's done. Grinch-related artwork that's similar to what I've been doing is pretty hard to come by, so it's great when I can find someone else's take on the subject. Though stylistically our art differs, I really do appreciate her point of view. Her style falls more on the anime spectrum. Though there was a time when I toyed with anime, I have no desire to try and create art in that style. I really appreciate the look of anime, but it's just not my thing. 

I think there's a sort of charm to Inubaki's simplistic coloring style. Greatly due to Maxx, I however prefer rich colors and a whole lot of detail. I also like how she sometimes takes elements from the movie and puts her own twist on it, such as changing the skirt on Martha's dress by adding layers of ruffles. It gives her illustrations a lot of character. 

Class Concentration 3

Though the major draw of this piece is the background, my goal for this piece was to continue to experiment with movement and coloring fabric. 

I used a still from the movie as a reference for the background, but I came up with the clothing design because I wanted to practice drawing clothes with folds and bunching. I found it was much easier to color these folds using lighter colors as opposed to the darker colors. I also like the look of the blue jacket better because you can really see where I added hints of yellow and pink to complement the sunrise. 

Home Concentration 3

For this piece, I wanted to try something new. I stumbled across a channel on YouTube that creates pixel are using painted backgrounds and perler beads. After watching several videos, I got inspired to make my own pixel artwork. 

I started out by creating a pattern, but soon found out I would create a lot less headache for myself if I just free-handed the design using the masking tape method. This method is done by placing the beads onto the sticky side of the masking tape so that they stay in place while you iron them. I really liked this method, though it was tedious. 

For the background, I chose to do a somewhat abstracted staircase using the sponge technique I've used before. I didn't want to have a background that was too detailed due to the fact that the focal point of the piece is pixelated and had details omitted from it. In the end, I actually like that not all of the beads fused together to close up the holes. This allowed for me to place color onto the background so it could show through the holes once the beaded piece was glued to the background.