A Process Update
I’m writing this for my email newsletter that I told myself I’d send out at least once a month… Well a month has gone by quickly and I don’t have a finished piece! I have many, many, many bits and pieces of art, though. So I’ve decided to show those with some more in-depth commentary than I would on social media.
This large drawing is a transformation of the collage on the right of the notebook. The collage on the left has already been created in a smaller size here. I’m super excited to translate the dark yet magical feeling of this one. It seems like the girl is running from a dark tower yet has the Bible at her side to guide her steps. In my last large drawing, I used markers for the wisterias background to help give it a different texture and style, with less detail than the portrait in front of it. I’m still trying to decide how I want to treat the trees and rocks in the background of this one without getting into too much detail. The idea is to only suggest the landscape, letting other subjects in the foreground stand out with more detail and attention.
This is my little wall of collages in my studio. I’ve gathered so many paper images to use for collages, I might have more than I can ever draw! And it’s made me think, what if some of these can stand on their own? I mean, who says I have to draw everything? (My inner voice…) But collage is an art form in itself. I could view these as more finished pieces if that was the intention - right now some of these are only made with the idea of drawing, so there are some things I’d do differently if it was intended to be its own piece rather than a reference. There may be coming some cards or mini original collages for sale…
A sneak peek of my sketchbook where I am just “translating” these sticker imagery pieces into my style of drawing. These are intended to be added to my Design Your Own Artwork as choices for the collages.
Violet Baudelaire has been slowly inventing her way into my sketchbook for a while now. I have always loved this character since reading A Series of Unfortunate Events when I was younger. Violet’s care for her siblings yet resourcefulness and creativity is admirable, and the beautiful costuming they gave Emily Browning in the 2004 movie just made it even better to me! The layered, gothic charm of the black dress has captivated many.
This little owl over a blue stained-glass window was a prompt given to me on TikTok when I was drawing 3 words from other users. This was “owl stained glass.” I had already created a series of sketchbook pages but thought about continuing and let it kind of drop off. However, I definitely want to finish it eventually with more detail and contrast because I love it so far!
This sketchbook page is referenced by a collage, but in a very loose way. I didn’t set it up like I did for some other drawings, where everything in the composition is laid out very close to the collage. I let this one be freer and more impulsive, intuitively copying the shapes over to surround the portrait. And because the portrait is a magazine photo of a well-known singer, I didn’t want the face to match exactly either. It’s more about the symbolic mood than it is about the celebrity.