Letting Go

I usually don't draw the same image twice. It's a rare occurrence for me to redraw a piece and so far I've only ever done it with The Tree of Dreams. But this is starting to change as I begin to open myself up to explore a particular image in different perspectives. This change was a result of my interest in sustaining a series of work that has a unifying theme! Letting Go was a small pen drawing on card coloured with colour pencils. My intention was to capture a moment of release, to let go of burdens and be carefree. The first instance of Letting Go had a little girl in a mushroom and toadstool grove and a sleeping cat and was created in 2010.

I was not fully satisfied with how the first drawing was finished and felt it would be interesting to revisit the drawing again in 2014. This was one of the first drawings I worked on since moving back to Penang in March of 2014. Instead of smooth card the second drawing was done on 300gsm cold press watercolour paper. I've placed the composition in a circle as I found it easier to contain the composition in this manner. The toadstool grove has grown, and a sleeping cat, little frog and steampunk seahorse now accompanies the girl. She has also grown up somewhat!

Sketch and the beginnings of inking.

The inking was done using Staedtler Pigment markers 

which was also used to ink the first drawing in 2010.

I had begun to work more with watercolours since 2012, and have gradually improved my skills. I would build up colour through many layers of wash and the cold press paper made it possible to do so. For this piece I used a 24-colour watercolour set by Schmincke for the first time. I liked this set for the way I am able to get a brilliant finish with the colours.

First wash tends to be very light as I begin blocking in colour.

Colouring is a slow and painstaking process in order to ensure the composition

stays balanced and stands out at the right places.

As each spot is filled up it becomes easier to choose the remaining

colours to fill in the rest!

I enjoy a saturated colour palette and placing complementary colours next to one another!

The finished piece!

The drawing was begun around March 2014 and completed in November 2014. Compositionally I feel this piece is stronger than the first drawing as the circular format really draws your eye into another world of fantasy and make-believe. Perhaps I will draw the same image again at a different time of my life and see how the picture has evolved! :)

The Adventure, Pixie Storytime and The Dreaming Treehouse

It's been a long while since the last update... I was caught up with completing my thesis on painting style in Brunei. Now that the writing's been done, I've finally got the time to reconnect with my drawings once more!!! It's the most beautiful feeling ever :)

'The Adventure' is based on how I'm feeling with my life becoming more of an adventure than being stuck in drudgery. Though I'd love for my life to be like my drawings, I've learned to accept this reality for what it is and still carry that spark of the other place within my heart constantly. This is what keeps me enthusiastic and inspired for the next day!

I've always wanted to draw a scene where you are led from a hill in the foreground to the wide ocean in the distance. The possibilities are out there!

Closer look at the girl and the jaguar. These characters are inspired by the people I meet in my life :)

'Pixie Storytime' is a small watercolour piece in progress. A peaceful moment in time.

Lastly it's 'The Dreaming Treehouse'! Drew this a while ago, finally getting on with the colouring! Sometimes I'd find this one colour, texture of background that can get a drawing rolling and it feels awesome when things fall into place :)

Whuh?

Sometimes I go through these periods of frustration and confusion, usually brought about by becoming stuck in just doing lol. Means I become stuck in not having enough time and having too many things to do! I don't have time to relax or chill or have fun! 

Well...that tends to happen to me a lot. Learning to deal with it, or accept it and move on. Why a rant before the drawing? Cuz the drawing has everything to do with what I just went through, it was a moment of getting myself back to equilibrium again. My own space, my own life! :D I've no idea how the image came about lol, just felt a really urgent need to sketch and the first thing I drew was the girl's face! Aaaaand then she's caressing something! Which happens to be an oversized Neptune head...yeah. It was drawing on the go hehe! :P No pre-planning just go with the feeling~

 Square drawing this time around. I think it is working out really well! Trying not to go overboard with the lines because it is a small piece and and easily get 'hairy'.

Closeup. 

Music listened to were soundtracks from Sucker Punch and We Bought a Zoo. I'm lovin' it! :D

The Spider Cafe - con't

The Spider Cafe has been crawling along for a while now. I begun this piece end of September. I got stuck with the bamboo grove. Once I got over that things began to roll along nicely! :)

 Getting into shape! Still not too sure what the background will be, this is how things usually work. When I get an idea I don't have the full composition in view. Just bits of it. And I'll fill in the blanks as I go :P This is more common for the A2 sized drawings than the smaller ones.

Close-up of the cafe. I love how the different textures turned out! And the pots and pans, various vegetables, that creepy cook and the clouds reflected in the fragmented glass on the top.

The Spider Cafe (W.I.P.)

Hmmm...

HMMM.....

So what is this about? I have no idea :P Suddenly the creaking image of a walking restaurant shaped like a spider came into my head. And it is making Teh Tarik (literally, pulled tea) lol! There is a menu tacked onto the wall of the cafe, some of the food offered are local fare and some are just plain made-up. The spider has some funky designs, that speak of grander days but have been outfitted to serve this purpose now. Not like it minds, it is simply content with preparing the special tea for its customers!

The cafe has stopped in a glade carpeted with low mushrooms that the customers can sit on and enjoy their meal and drink. Some wear bibs to protect their suits from getting food on them. The bowls have a spiral on the as do the bibs, with 8 legs radiating from it. That is the logo of the spider Cafe. On the right is a bamboo grove, and I have not decided what to do for the background yet. Interestingly enough, there are no humans in this piece. Only a snoozing cat :P

The shape of the Spider Cafe was inspired by this cool spider here! There is such an abundance of inspiration from nature :D

The Fable Reader / Telling Tales

This is progressing well! I actually began this one before the Meeting and Tree of Dreams but it got stalled for a while. Didn't get the feel of it until now, but that's the way it is :) I do have a few pieces that are stalled indefinitely (like At the Threshold) mainly because I've lost the story of the drawing. Well, sometimes it comes back, I just have to have patience! :P

The Fable Reader (in Progress)

This came out of nowhere...I sat down with a pen one day and just drew. Made up the creatures as I went as well :P

Been reading the Amphigorey books by Edward Gorey, I just love his use of lines! :)

Blessed Sakura - cont'd

For now I'll be posting more of the progression of this piece on my FB page instead: Yün. The Sakura is coming along very nicely :)

Blessed Sakura (W.I.P.)

My second take on the Sakura theme :) I had another sketch drawn up on my computer last month, then my HD crashed and I did not back it up >.< Thankfully I had the whole system on Time Machine :) That's why I love my iMac...full system and preferences restore took a little more than 3 hours! But anyways the lost sketch made way for a new one to begin! Can say I'm more in tune with the feel of this piece now...so hopefully, an acceleration! :D

Untitled (Big Fish) Work in Progress

Drew this little drawing two years ago on a memo pad paper. Something about happily sitting on a buoyant jellyfish lol :P Now after two years the image comes back again and I set out to draw it on huge paper. Yes, this is another BIG drawing! :D

Vastly different from the original sketch, only thing I kept was the girl on the sea jello :P That is what a difference of two years can do to a piece!

Haven't drawn for a while so feels a bit rusty...

The big picture! Starting to get the hang of all those lines!

The fish is a lot more ornate this time...my attempt to channel steampunk lol. I do love my cyborg/mutant/hybrid creatures. Let's see where this drawing can go!

Misty River

Tranquility.

Lord Nevermore - Sketchalating

Lines lines lines! Blacks blacks blacks! Hehe and lots of clutter, fusty wallpaper pattern...makes me a very happy person :P

The subject of this piece is based on this bird:

It's a not so happy story - my cats caught this black bird, I managed to stop them from killing it, but it had a deep cut on the chest that won't stop bleeding. I put it in a safe place to recover, unfortunately the blood loss was too much for it to handle.

This bird has brilliant ruby eyes. Really awesome, when you look into it you can really see an intelligence there looking back at you. That's where the inspiration for my drawing came from. The finished piece will be black and white but the eyes and the heart pin on its chest will be bright red.

Ongoing, it's A4 sized so shouldn't take long to finish :)

The Embrace

Well I finished this in record time - took me 3 days straight...now I need a break because me wrist is achy! :P Not sure how or why, I've stopped searching for reasons an image will suddenly pop up in my mind. This piece has a lot to do with acceptance and unconditional love, whether it is someone else or especially with yourself. To me there will always be a light or dark, no one being is 100% good or 100% evil, we are all shades in between. So yeah, image received (I sometimes feel like a satellite receiver) and I set out to draw this emotion I felt.

1st stage, always happens when doing the main characters; I'll get the most criticisms from my mind. It'll be yabbering in the background how 'this is not good enough', 'that line is crooked' or 'come on be more perfect!'. It is always a challenge in the start of every piece to overcome my personal hurdles...internally lol. :P But I think it started as well as I can manage! :)

I didn't manage to get a 2nd stage work in progress but this is the 3rd stage, half filled in the background. I did have one regret, there was no need for the floating bubbles/spores. Because in the end they made the image too busy. Oh well. Another part I thoroughly enjoy of any drawing is to make things up as I go. Those giant 'mushrooms' (I love mushrooms) were added on the fly. I was staring at that blank space and they just filled themselves in :D

The finished piece! This is a photo, haven't got around to scanning it yet but it should be easier than The Sky Whale, this is almost A3 sized. Had some trouble with the shading...might have gone overboard here with the lines teehee, but I think it turned out well! :) Look forward to have this as a print in the near future!

The Sky Whale - con't

So I had another burst of inspiration and redrew parts of the foreground and background. Originally the whale was high-fiving a guy holding on to the top of a tall clock tower. But I took that all out cuz it wasn't working for me. Too static. So the guy now is a paratrooper reaching his hand out to the whale's flipper, and the area below is filled with crashed bombers, rubble and dead creatures.

A dead creature's clawed foot. I loved doing the details on this one! As with all the architectural bits. Sometimes I felt like I'm channeling Mike Mignola (Hellboy) or Frank Miller (Sin City) lol. I do love their black and white art style tho! Of course I'd have to have some Edward Gorey in there too!

Yeeeeah...so there are some style differences. Always happens when I work on something again after leaving it for almost 3 months. But I think it all goes together though, and makes it more interesting and dynamic!

So, more to come. Hope I'll have it in this push to finish this piece :D And you'll be seeing lots more large b/w drawings from me! Just next time I'll be using ink and brush to fill in those patches of black. I've been inhaling a bit much of Sharpie fumes...hmmmm :P

The Muse (W.I.P.)

So one day I was puttering around Sophia's room and she was sitting on her bed strumming away on the guitar. The song was 'Just the way you are' by Bruno Mars. But it just looked so surreal with the bright green and yellow walls and that funky bed coverings with the spirals...

So I took a shot with my phone camera :P

And when I got back I sketched out the image I saw...someone strumming away on a guitar sitting on fluffy clouds that are frozen to icicles on the bottom. It's sort of a windy, chilly setting.

The final sketch - I found a pic on the 'net of a twisty bonsai I liked so I put that in as the tree. Lots of spirals here...in the ferns and the shell clips in the hair (not sure if those are visible). Background will be a swirly cloud scene too.

These sketches were done a month ago, and colouring was just completed so watch out for the final artwork coming soon! :D

The Sky Whale (W.I.P.)

I saw this pic on the 'net some time ago of this scuba guy hi-fiving a humpback whale.

Something about that photo just caught me and well...a while later I had this idea to draw it. But in my twisted way of course. I've been drawing monsters lately and it's been quite some time since I've drawn anything grotesque. And I want to do BIG drawings now. Like huge! :D

So I bought the largest Art block I can find, size is A2 and woohoo I was getting high off all that expanse of blank paper! :P So here's the result (still in progress):

The weapon of choice are Sharpie markers. Oh the fumes...

It is sort of set in a post-apocalyptic world (oh I love those) and the 'whale' is part machine. Cyborg Sky Whale.

And this is how far I've got as of now. I originally intended the guy to be holding on to the top of a leaning building but I'm gonna change that now to maybe him being on a jetpack or something.

The whale with its many eyessss...

Detail of that swirly brain.

It's not finished yet, not by a long shot. Gonna unroll it and work on it some more soon. :)

At the Threshold - Evolution of a Sketch

Finally got around to working on this piece after a looong while! Originally it was titled "Through the Open Door" and began as a rough thumbnail sketch in my sketchbook:

So then I scanned it and drew out a cleaner copy in Photoshop:

But for some reason the image didn't call to me and it stayed stagnant in my hard drive until yesterday, when I reworked it again:

I flipped the drawing around, added more stuff around the door - I wanted the room to appear claustrophobic and cluttered. And the girl was no longer lingering by the door, she's bounded out with the cat! (yeah only 1 cat here).

Then I decided to change it again and the girl is once again behind the doorframe, but taking the first step outside. There are 5 cats now, all in various progress of exiting the room:

The final clean drawing before colouring!:
There are 3 grades of lines to help emphasize parts of the drawing. Most of the clutter will be in deep shadow, and the outside is very bright.