This was actually meant to be posted the day before yesterday according to my new bujo post schedule! I'm finding these strict schedules are a pain but they're encouraging me to be more productive. In fact, believe it or not I was meant to post these pictures over a year ago! Anyone remember when I conducted that poll asking what you'd like to see first on my blog (e.g. outdoor sketches and vogue inspired art)? Well here it is!
(Once again, I promise I'll get to other people's posts too! <3)
Over the summer holidays last year I felt compelled to draw some art inspired by the interesting pieces in Fashion Art of Vogue, a book I have. (Some of you may be familiar by the popular fashion magazine, Vogue!) The book has plenty of gorgeous designs, from English to Parisian to Japanese, and captures formidable fashion styles from over the years.
I was fascinated how the expressions capture the varying personalities of the people drawn in intriguing ways. I think I'd better do some pieces inspired by the artwork in this book for Inktober - most are all in black and white!
The picture I've drawn above is of one of the many detailed pieces that caught my eye. ^^ I decided to have a go at redrawing it in my own style! (I'll have to find the source and I'll be sure to add it here when I do.)
Haha okay this re-draw I did is pretty bad. xD Back when I drew this, though, even though I noticed the faults the result actually seemed okay! But now I can just see that if I were re-doing it, the hair would be neater and so would the eyes. The picture is based off another image I found in the Vogue art book that inspired me - I'll have to find out what it's called because the concept of it is so inspiring!
The next few pictures (and the one above) are some outdoor sketches I did last year that I promised to post earlier but didn't get round to it. This particular one is of a passion fruit flower in the garden! The plant does give passion fruits too but they never ripen, naturally because I don't live somewhere where there's a warmer climate. xD
This is supposed to be a red and yellow dahlia that I also drew in the garden but it doesn't look anything like one... I completely messed this up with watercolours! That's the thing with watercolours - you can only really create one layer without ruining your picture and you always have to start with the lighter colours first before moving on to darker shades (and I obviously didn't respect that here).
Here's the sketch before I ruined the flower! I think I took this outside when the sun was dipping so it's not a particularly good shot haha.
These are some pink Japanese anemones - they were super fun to draw! Granted, I kind of messed up with the watercolour layering again but it's still my favourite out of the three! xD If you're starting out, simple flowers like these are a good way to begin rather than more complex ones (like the dahlia I drew above, or a rose for example).
I'll confess I drew these this summer (not summer 2016!) but I felt it was relevant to the subject of outdoor sketching! Besides, I think my improvement is visible when compared to the three above. I was also meant to use watercolours for these but I didn't have the time unfortunately. Anyway, the top sketch is a purple hibiscus (one of my favourite flowers) and the one below it is a cream rose.
Here are my tips for outdoor sketching!
- If you're sketching an animal/insect/moving object and it leaves, stop the sketch and don't continue it. Otherwise, you're likely to ruin it! It's easy for your mind to confuse certain aspects and make random assumptions that are incorrect.
- You could even sketch with blue or red! In fact, you can sketch with literally anything that makes lines on your page. (You don't have to have fancy art materials for a sketch to look good - just do it!) I don't personally use blue or red now, however, because I find it hard to draw something with an impact... but that's just me.
- Remember that, although it's not necessary, you can find different ranges of pencils - 6H (6 hard) is hard, good for details; 6B (6 black) is soft, good for soft sketches/smudging; while HB is normal. I tend to sketch in pen (0.05 or 0.1) not pencil but it's all up to you!
- Make it light and try not to go over your sketch too much - it can become pretty messy (instead of simple and loose) and the page might even crumple if it's not heavyweight.
- If you use watercolours, remember not to layer over too much else your page will risk crumpling/the colours will bleed through the page if it's not heavyweight. Also, start with the lighter colours before the darker ones because there's no going back!
- Another important thing when using watercolours is that you remember to keep adding water or they won't blend nicely. I was once lazy with a Chinese-themed piece (that I posted ages ago) and the colours ended up sticking hard rather than blending smoothly because I didn't add enough water to my brush.
- If you like your ink sketches having that smudgy-looking blend effect, you can buy a water brush. In case you don't have a clue what I mean by a water brush, they have a smooth white tip and a see-through plastic feed filled with water designed to help the ink blend on your page when you squeeze the feed. (They're SO fun to use! I got to use one once at an art workshop but when I looked in HobbyCraft I found that they were pretty pricy... I'll have to buy one off Amazon some time!)
Over a year ago I won Megan's awesome giveaway (via Megans Mega Blog)! The prize came with these two super cute colouring sheets by Heartfelt Illustrations that I had the chance to colour in. Colouring is a super fun and relaxing activity and still remember enjoying colouring-in this one! I'll definitely have a go at the activity again sometime soon to help me improve with my Prismacolor pencils too. :)
I really like the design of this one! Here I decided on pastel colours with a beach theme - yellows, oranges, pinks and blues. I adore the summer vibes this one has. ^^
Colouring sheet by Heartfelt Illustrations.
As well as these pictures I also have a box-covering DIY tutorial that I meant to post from summer 2016 where I transformed an old, broken pencil pot into a newer-looking one and on top of that, this year I took some pictures for a tutorial on how to personalise art books (using several I bought for £1 at The Works) which I'll definitely have to get round to writing up! Yet again, another tutorial I have from around two years ago shows you how to make an origami flower which I think is pretty cool but the tutorial itself is a little outdated as I never got round to making a post about it welp. xD Anyway, let me know which tutorial you guys would be interested in seeing the most out of these three! (I'll make a poll for it so anyone can feel free to vote!)
