Digital Painting Practice

I have been digital painting for a few years now. From what I can tell you, digital painting is naturally learning like a new medium whether that be oil painting, watercolor, acrylics and so forth.The same theory applies such as anatomy,color theory and value. Till this day I still have painting problems that pop here and there.

So over the years, I have been experimenting different methods on how to paint. Since drawing digital has  such a different/flat feeling compare to watercolour painting. So far I believe the best method proven to help me is to try and treat it in a classical oil painting approach by starting with a sepia/brown tone background. Than slapping some flat colors just to get the feel on what your trying to approach. After that, slowly render your idea with subtle changes of volume, I try not to get carried away in this step since I tend to try to go high value contrast with out getting the middle value in first. Which can make the painting process feel very choppy and frustrating.

Overall I had a good experience with this painting, I have also learned to have a sense of patience and that painting a picture takes time to evolve into a finish product. You cant rush it, and if you get frustrated take a small break and away from  your painting and simply come back to it with a fresh set of eyes.

Sending Package Mail Outside the U.S

I was very surprised today that I received back the mail package that I sent out 2-3 months ago during Christmas holiday to a friend in Spain.

After 20-25 days of waiting, my friend contacted me saying the gift package has not reached hes home yet, we naturally grew concern and did everything in our power to figure out why. After a long period of wait, we best assumed that the gift package either got lost/stolen/misplaced. During its travel from the U.S to Spain.

Untill this morning, my mother notify me there was a box for me. and, to my surprise it was the gift I sent many months ago!

So why didn't it ever reach my friends home? Well I read a stamp on the box saying in Spanish "insufficient address". Not enough information address for the mail man to carry it out to my friends place. Apparently my friend didn't provide enough information to hes home address, and I dont blame him because he gave me a casual address that works in "spain" but we didnt realize that the address has to be explicitly detail for the mail system to work out where the box should be heading, but instead it probably ended up being stuck in the sorting system most of its time, unable to pin point where it should go.


Lets take the time to learn from my mistake! If you ever plan on sending a gift/mail of any sort outside the U.S whether that be in Spain, china, Thailand any foreign country outside the U.S. Be sure to write down as much address information as possible, even the home phone number of where the mail is going! It will increase your guaranteed chances that the mail will reach there within reasonable time. also a good but common sense  tip, avoid shipping gifts during the holidays, your package will most likely travel at a slower pace. Send your mail items 1 month ahead if possible.

The sketch above was done today and inspired by the whole mail event that happened today.

The Chrysanthemums and Drawing Everyday Challenge

I have been really been busy with my english papers. We are currently reading a short story called the "The Chrysanthemums" by John Stein back. Its was a interesting story, just writing your critical thoughts is another story and challenge. I have also challenged myself to draw something everyday. That can be anything, from sketches to finished pieces. and, they either can be studies or silly cartoon sketches. I am curious to see how I pull this off! and it has to be everyday till the end of the year!  I will  post any interesting drawings that I get while doing this challenge.

The importance of backgrounds.

When ever I draw anything, especially character related. I always remind myself to try my best to add a background of some kind. When you don't add a background and just leave the character floating in white space. The viewer cant really get much out of it on whats going on. In other words the picture lacks texture/space/idea. People will naturally ask in there head, where is this character? where is he going? Why is he holding a box of items?Where did he get the box of items? With no clues to indicate, the viewer is some what forced to used there imagination. which is okay, but with out any small clues. The viewer may get bored and eventually say its "just a character in blank white space" nothing much.

Now what happens when you take the time to add a background? You establish a sense of space. The character now exist somewhere that people might familiarize themselves. I also decided to add a variety of few random items, in a some what disorganized fashion. Hoping to give viewers, that the character is "moving". it can go both ways, moving out, or moving in. I purposely left it that way for viewer to decided on that. Although if I did wanted to show a character moving out. I would of tried drawing a different scenery, maybe a character packing the last item on a truck. for a character moving in, a character in a empty room setting up a poster and furniture. there are many ways to go with this. But I always found adding a background is a essential compositional tool/ingredient to helping expressing your story/idea.

New Paint Tubes!

I recently visited the art store to buy some new watercolor paints. As I paint more in watercolor, the inevitable happens of running out of a certain essential color. So I went to store, and bought me 3 colors.

Top priority that I needed was lemon yellow, one of the main primary colors I need for essential color mixing. and 2 extras that I have been interested in buying.

Ultramarine violet, a nice straight forward violet since its can be difficult to achieve a pure violet thats may have too much red or blue.

Last but least, Opera rose, a very saturated bright pink (like a typical bright pink rose color, you see in rose gardens). I bought this paint sincee there are time I really need to add a punch of saturation to my reds or I simply need a bright pink. Since to get "pink" in watercolor, you need to add water, which make it a very tint/light pink. which wasn't working for me. Here are the tubes of paint I bought, they are 2 in a half inches long, and about a 1 inch in width.

Since I am serious about making watercolor painting one of my main working mediums, I took the time to invest and buy the "Professional Quality Paint" and not student grade. As my art teacher says, if your serious about a medium, first buy the cheap brands to learn it. Than slowly replace your supplies as they run out with better/higher quality brand. These little paint tubes were almost about 12-15 bucks each! 30-35 dollars in total! but its worth it in the long run if your a serious painter.

Here is also some quick small scanned paint test I did. The paint tubes contains high amount of beautiful saturated hues. I look forward to using these paint in future paint projects.

Watercolor Sketches-Doodles

I didn't have much to do this week's  watercolor class! So I sketched a few characters/ideas that I can possibly use for future children books. I keep my ideas very simple and just have fun with the lines and colors, only problem I saw is I spelled "Apprentice" incorrectly! but no worries just for fun.I like these ideas so far, "The Baker" and "The Apprentice". I will definitely have to look further into this concept. I am not sure what the character on right is, by the looks of hes color, makes me think of a Santa helper or something.

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Testing out Blog

Currently playing with my blog settings to figure out how the customization works and such :)! Will be posting more soon!