Maia Palomar's Uploads

Drawing Prompt Submission

Here are some drawings of various utensils, courtesy of the madness of quarantine. I ended up giving each a name and a bit of a personality.

Fairly recently I was "commissioned" to paint a picture of my cousin and grandmother. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but painting this was a bit of a challenge. There were definitely moments where I stopped painting and completely hated how it looked/became frustrated with myself, and I wouldn't work on it for days. I felt an odd pressure attached to making this... or maybe I'm crazy. 16x20, acrylic.

What started off as a mess up ended up as a cool doodle. I plan on putting it up on my bedroom wall, maybe Walton will feel less hollow since he'll have some good company. I think everyone has a little bit of Walton in them at one point or another..

Drawing Prompt Submission

I've been working on this for a few weeks now, and I'm pretty happy with the result. Full disclosure, this is a school project, and I wish I had more time to really finish it. Curious about everyone's thoughts on this; feedback is always welcome!

"To tempt someone into doing something or going somewhere, to draw in." 16x20 in, white charcoal and pastel on black paper.

Commission #1 is complete. 5x7, watercolor and pen. To whoever will receive this as a gift, happy birthday!

Drawing Prompt Submission

Ah yes, another hand. I never really realized how expressive hands can be, and I've been drawing them a lot more recently. (I swear I won't only draw hands.) This week has been quite the experience and has made me step back and look at certain things. (Who knew physics could be a metaphor for life?) Anyway, hope everyone is doing well, have a great weekend/week.

Close to a month ago, I had found out my design was selected for the Art Stop Program, and, yes, this is mainly what I've been working on since. I've never worked on a piece this large before, 72in x 24in, and I rarely make sketches of pieces before creating the final work. It's definitely a cool feeling to look at the finished board and see how the drawing actually came to life. (The Art Stop Program selects a handful of entered designs for the artists to create on a larger board, and these boards will then be inserted into bus stop benches around Niles, IL.) I can't wait to see the bench this will be in, and I'm so lucky I got to be part of the program.

This week hasn't been great. My anxiety was pretty high for most of it, and it was honestly for no reason. My brain tends to be very chaotic, I suppose, and I have trouble controlling my thoughts sometimes. This was a random doodle I did last night at 10 p.m. I've decided I'm going to add color to it, which will either look good or make everyone's eyes hurt even more..at least I have a picture of this version.

Ah yes, this... It all started two weeks ago when my mom said I could buy this pumpkin if I could carry it, and I did. All 50lbs of it. I kind of had an idea going into this, it got thrown out the window as soon as I started. 6 hours later I present this creature to you.

So this painting began as a simple project and ended up for sale at a coffee shop. I found out recently it actually sold, making it the first official painting I've sold.

Yes, indeed, this is a foot. A foot that has taken up 5 months of my life but here we are. For some context, I'm lucky to be able to take 2 art classes this year (senior year perks, I suppose) especially given the strict scheduling connected to the STEM program I'm in. I'm taking Studio Drawing, and this is my first Bargue drawing. Definitely different than what I'm used to doing (and not the most interesting to look at), definitely mildly infuriating at times, but it's done.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! This year I got around to making various cards and simply sending them out to various family members and friends. (It was also an excuse for me to use as many puns as I wanted.)

A silly watercolor sketch, I know, but there's a lot tied to this little thing. There are so many bittersweet feelings lately. I tend to avoid putting a numerical value to time, I don't like the count-down aspect to things, especially knowing how obsessive I can be with that. It allows me to live in some semblance of ignorance (they say ignorance is pure bliss). There's a lot of tip-toeing around what I want to say and what I'm afraid to say, or even what I'd love to explore and embrace and simply afraid to. It's something I'm not used to. It's taken me quite a while to finally sit with certain things, or even acknowledge them, and it feels like there's so much more I'm now realizing. It's odd to be so frank to some and worried that others may find out. There's a lot of shifting again, goodbyes coming soon, complicated feelings and situations.

Another progress photo for your viewing. Hopefully I'll have this finished soon, but I'm very much enjoying drawing this while listening to my records... (Feedback is very much welcome!)

Here's a quick sketch of myself. (The perk of messing up a drawing of yourself is that you can't offend anyone else...)

The past two days have been interesting, to say the least. My anxiety kicked up again, yielding two more panic attacks...oh joy. There's an increasingly chaotic external environment: COVID-19 positivity rates rising, looting, SAT nonsense (thank you College Board for not giving anyone information and for being very uncooperative). Am I angry at people in the world? Yes, and I know that's a generic, over-used phrase, but I truly am. I'm tired of all of this. I'm aggravated with the current state of the U.S. There's moments where things feel fine, and others when it feels like things are closing in. No one knows what the next few months will bring and tensions are high. Will things work out? They will eventually; they better. But, at the same time, what the heck is even going on anymore?

A piece that coincidently fits the prompt for InkTober Day 27: music. An anxiety notebook doodle based on a song that I cut up out of frustration. It ended up looking better, in my opinion, now that it's rearranged.