The Super Bloom is still going in SoCal! On the trail are poppies, daisies, alyssum and now the mustard grass is in bloom. My process was an iPhone photo, then a drawing with color and then collage in Photoshop.
“It is farmers who are nice to the cows and the pigs and then kill them. It’s even more hypocritical than hunters. At least the hunters don’t flatter the animals”. Do you agree?
Here is the OC Challenge! Start off with gender of your choice. Your fruit depends on your birth month. Jan-Banana Feb-Strawberry March-Watermelon April-Kiwi May-Starfruit June-Grape July-Apple August-Pumpkin Sept-Plum Oct-Cherry Nov-Lemon Dec-Dragonfruit. Give your OC a fruit hat. The eye color is the color of the shirt you are currently wearing. Hair color is the color of your bed sheets. Outfit color will be the color and/or pattern of your favorite fruit. If you are wearing socks give them a fruit staff; if you are barefoot give them a fruit wand.
I collaged "Krampus is Coming For You" together with my own monoprints as well as one of my drawings of Japanese Noh masks that I cut out of an old sketchbook. For the second piece, I had a drawing of Marie Antoinette as an ice cream cone, so I gave her a dress, put a background of my monoprints on her, etc. Then I added more cherries, and the circle reminded me of a clock, so I inked in the arms accordingly.
About once a year I set aside a page in my sketchbook, or bullet journal, to do a marker test. I go through every pen I own including Sharpies, highlighters, Bic Permanent Markers, Crayola markers, Stabilo pens, Expo dry erase markers and everything in between. I document the quality and determine whether to keep or toss the utensil. I find it’s easy to collect art materials, especially when you’re like me and switch mediums regularly. It’s important to know that when I reach for a certain pen or marker, it’s going to work the way I want it to. I do keep a page at the back of my sketchbook open for testing mediums, but it’s an important part of the process of creating art to go with the flow and just draw.
I’m often asked about my Bic pen drawings and how I do them. It starts with a good foundational drawing, the ballpoint pen part is just trying to colour within the lines. I try to do my best to explain the process, but the best way to show my progress is by posting my efforts to master pen drawings over the span of 3 or so years. I have been doodling/drawing with ballpoint pens as far back as I can remember - they were cheap, readily available and always lying around the house. It wasn’t until I was bored during a particularly long team meeting-conference call (around 2016-17) that I started to think about the possibilities of ballpoint pens as serious portrait illustration tools. My first experiments with full colour ink portrait drawings were rather crude, but that’s the point of learning new techniques—as long as the curiosity and the love of drawing is there, you can transfer that skill and passion into any medium. Remember, the most exquisite drawings and paintings you see didn’t materialise fully formed, they started out as failed experiments. Failure after failure after failure. It’s important to remember this when you get discouraged (I've failed spectacularly over the years). The only difference between the accomplished artist and the beginner is hundreds of hours of practice. Talent can only get you so far. It’s the hard work that you do behind the scenes that makes your work look effortless. Keep doodling. Keep learning. Stay curious.
Here's an ink illustration from my sketchbook. The only thing more terrifying than dying of the plague might be encountering a plague doctor. The type at the bottom says "A Black Sun Revolves Around You." It's been distorted and abstracted, but it's derived from letterforms.
