'Oh how wonderful life would be, if I had my own little house in a tree!' This one was created for the Urban Explorer Challenge and I loved every minute of it! As a lover of the natural environment I had to draw on where my heart lies so a treehouse seemed a fitting response!
Here is my submission to the 10th anniversary Plushform show at Rotofugi Gallery. I was invited by Shawn @shawnimals to participate in this fun show. He is the creator of the Plushform DIY plush figure being customized by 40 artists at Rotofugi, a designer toy store gallery in Chicago. The original Plushform show was in 2008. I was waiting for their official announcement before posting my final so I could link people to the site for more info. I was told they are working on it and will announce soon. This will be for sale at the show.
Skip James is the man. I’ve been wanting to do something music related. I sketched this a year or two ago. It was fun to bring it into Procreate and add doodles, lettering, color and more elements like the guitar neck. I’m always looking for a way to combine my pencil with color and have it look like it really goes together. This one felt right.
When we help someone there is always something that blooms and grows beyond us. It is an increasingly necessary action in a world that unfortunately is increasingly divided.
@givingtuesdaypt challenged me to illustrate its movement inspired by this year's motto "Together we change the world"!
This day is celebrated on the first tuesday after BlackFriday, calling on anyone to choose a cause that ressonates with them and give back to them however you can. Thus, a wave of massive generosity is created, which can (and should) extend beyond today! Are there any organizations you want to support?
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I believe the future is about connection. Sometimes it seems that technology is making us more alone, but I like to believe that with every post, like, comment, follow, share, email and tweet, we are making ourselves more visible to one another. And together, we can make ourselves heard... Keep it positive, keep it loud, and keep it going forever.
Had a wonderful morning at Perry Lake painting this scene from the harbor. The soothing harbor sounds and a flock of pelicans taking a rest on their way to Texas were my companions. Swipe for a few detail shots. Also... a bonus fly for your nature enjoyment.
Congrats to anyone else who took part in inktober this year! I focused on combining witches inspired by different types of teas and I had so much fun! I’m conquering my irrational fear of side profiles and I think it’s working, I’ve been really liking side profiles lately and finding them easier to do. I experimented on this piece with adding freckles (they’re a feature in all of my inktober sketches but I haven’t liked how freckles have looked when I’ve dotted them in with a pen or brush) and uh, I guess it was kind of a success? Next time I’ll use my lighter shading colour for them, as I used the ink I use for my lines and it turned out really dark and concentrated, but I think they’re cute! (and I have ink sprays everywhere)
A foggy morning opens up to a burnt landscape. I wanted to paint a couple of different environments in one painting but still aim to be refined. I used fall colors and smaller lines.
Drew this for a professor that mentored me on my first research paper! You can also find me on facebook www.facebook.com/sonialaiart for WIP and updates!
I've been so impressed with the ball point pen art that I have seen on this site, that I decided to give it a try. This is a Betta fish (Siamese fighting fish) done in red, blue, and purple ball point pens. Obviously, I have much to learn....but it was great fun and I have ordered some more colors since I plan on experimenting more. I've enclosed a photo of the work in progress and the various reference photos I used. The colors are more true to the final scan than in the flash photo of my drawing table.
More ballpoint pen experiments. This was trying to "blend" colors, using ball point pens in a similar way to colored pencils. I found Layering evenly to be pretty difficult, esp with the pens blotching and very very limited burnishing. The interesting thing is that the paper doesn't seem to get "tired" the way it does with pencils. This is just cheap printer card stock.
It was really interesting to work with depth and hair in this one! This art was made on Xp-Pen Deco Pro tablet. Can't recommend it enough, really solid product!
"There's a North in us all, but my North can't hold me anymore." Oh man, what a day/week/month it's been. Today was the end of first semester, a bit hard to believe half the year is gone, a bit hard to believe we still have half of a year left. The past 24 hours have been nothing less than mental chaos (maybe my coach was foreshadowing all of this when he asked if I was ok last night...) Anyway, here I am, here we are. Llemette on the left (name credit to Josefina), February journal on the right.
Many beginnings.
Beginning 1.
Kitten was very very lazy. She used to hunt slugs but now she only hunted carrots. She was such a good carrot hunter!
* Starting is easy, it's the middle that is often a muddle. And I won't even mention the endings. Here are some beginnings for children stories that flitter through my head.
Really enjoying experimenting with soft pastels. This piece was the first time I used Pastelmat. It's an amazing surface to use with pastels as it takes loads of pastel, the colour stays vibrant, and there's minimal dust
Bic4 Ballpoint Pen, Sanrio Novelty 10 Colour Ballpoint Pen on Archival 8.5" x 11" paper.
A breakdown of the Bic4 pen and No-name 10 colour pen layering that I’ve used.
Drawing in a single direction instead of using back-and-forth movement alleviates some of the blotching that happens when using ballpoint pens. The back-and-forth method usually deposits the gunk that builds up on the tip of the ballpoint, smearing them in unexpected and unfortunate places on the drawing. When using the back-and-forth method, I usually have a napkin handy in order to clean the tip of the pen. Model: Meadhbh (Maeve)
