I don’t know about you, but I get A LOT of my illustration inspiration from the music that I listen to. More often than not, the resulting illustrations have nothing to do with the song or its message, but the song unlocks something, allowing those ideas through. Even with the disconnect, this illustration will always be tied to that song.
So let’s give that a try for this week’s prompt: Draw something based off of your most inspiring song.
Here’s mine. It is a little more directly linked, but it is inspired by “Kiss You Off” by the Scissor Sisters
I get a lot of questions about my work, be it my illustrations or knitting. “How do you do that?”, “How do you knit so fast?”, or comments like “I could never do that.” My gut reaction is to usually respond with a “yes, you can!”, which IS true, but we will get back to that in a different post.
What I want to talk about here is what came to mind when I sat and thought on these questions a little longer. What came to mind was the fact that we shouldn’t take our skills for granted. There are a lot of skills that I have worked very hard to get, those 10,000 hours of practice and such. But there are some that I have that really help me in different areas.
Example:
In knitting, I was always surprised with people struggling with a pattern. My thought is that, all I do is follow the pattern one step at a time. BUT this is not as simple as all that. Making a shawl, and making a pie crust, for me, is the same process (following a recipe), but the success rates are WAY different.
What I am really saying here, is don’t sell yourself short. Whether you have worked your 10,000+ hours to get to a skill, or whether something “comes naturally”, you have a skill set that others do not. Don’t just assume that everyone can do what you do, and that it is somehow lesser.
Whatever work you do, your skills add up to your creativity. Own them, flaunt them, and use them!
First prompt of 2024! Do a self portrait! I have not done one of these in years. Putting myself in my art is something I find somewhat cringy, but sometimes it helps shed some light on what you have going on, and you might see something you didn’t before.
Full disclaimer, a little bit of AI was used for the character layout, but I assure you the final art is all mine. I had so much fun with this, and I hope you give it a try.
It’s that time of year, and would you look at that I am already falling behind. Getting the shop (https://hues-tones.square.site/) up and running put a lot of things on hold.
Anyway… here we are for INKTOBER!!!! If you haven’t heard me ramble on about this on my lives, this is a great event to boost some creativity, restart a bit of a rut, or explore some old or new tools. I know a lot of people, myself included, have taken the opportunity Inktober presents to go back to some traditional art when they have been so digitally driven all year.
In the past I have had some themes on hand to help with some of the tougher words. Last year was masquerade masks, for example.
As I have been working on my shop update and running around like crazy here, I am thinking that I might not have enough in the creativity tanks to support 31 new illustrations. I do still want to participate though. I thieved an idea from one of the Inktober socials comments that I am going to try. I am going to use the prompts to write a little bit. I have a book of 300 writing prompts at home that I have been meaning to use. My thought is to take the day’s word and then blind pick a page in the prompt journal. I’ll combine both of those and write a fun little story.
I think that this is a great way to still participate, and feed a side of my creativity that I haven’t fed in yeaaaaars. Who knows where it might take us!
I feel like I have been neglecting this space a little bit lately, so I plan to post my daily writings as I am able to get them up online.
I worked on this painting throughout the year last year. I went in with absolutely no plan. I wanted to put paint on a canvas, so I opened it up and got going.
I started with a base of sludge paint. Then mixed some colours that I liked for a base, and just mixed paint around on the canvas until something appeared to me. I would work until the paint on my palette was done and then let it dry. I had it set up in my studio, so while I was waiting for files to load, I’d take a look and see what jumped out to me. Eventually I started to see two fish circling the page.
I then started building up the background with blues and greens, and started building up the fish with golds and greens. This part of the process had a lot of iterations, I added more colours to make sure that we had some depth and shape to the whole piece. I worked around strokes that I liked, built those up and used them as guidelines for the flow of the water and shape of the fish.
I can’t recall if I had the idea for the fins before or after I put the white base down. I did get the zentangle idea when I was going through my Pinterest saves one day. There was a fish drawing with lace style fins. I was interested in doing more zentangle at the time so I thought that this was a great interpretation of that idea that would work well with this painting.
When building the fins I made sure to build a super solid but smooth white base. I wanted these to be a big contrast to the water in the background. I made sure that the white paint was dry for a few days before working the black over top. I didn’t want to clog up my good pens, and that dry time really seemed to help there.
I kept the zentangle and final outlines to be done as close to the very end as possible. I wanted to avoid painting touch ups and redos where I could.
Once the final details were done, I was ready for the final touch… the yarn.
Again, I didn’t have much of a plan going in to this. I started putting the nails in the canvas, equally spaced on the right half of the canvas. This was extremely nerve wracking. I haven’t done this before so I didn’t know how the frame would take it. Luckily all went well there. Once the nails were semi in place, I started winding the yarn to see what I liked. I started with a random pattern, took some photos, tried some other things. I was finding that the random approach was a little messy. So I laid a few ideas out in Illustrator using the grid I set up with the nails. I tested a few rhythms that were a little off symmetrical. Once I had one I liked I wound it up. I think that it really balanced out nicely there. I was originally going to use black yarn, but I found some navy yarn in my stash and I love it so much. I did try both but the navy yarn worked so well with the colours on canvas.
I am beyond thrilled with the final result on this painting. It is a great example of letting the art guide you into what it wants to be. I can’t wait to paint my next piece.
I did submit this piece for the Art Comp at the local 100 Kellogg’s Lane gallery. I was not chosen, but I am not discouraged. This means I get to display my piece in my own gallery (living room). More content to be submitted at another date.
You’re in control of how often you create, and whether you create something new.
Brandon Stanton
I have mentioned it over and over here. Everyone is creative. Everyone. If you’re not creative that means you are being told how to think, what to wear, where to go, etc. I don’t love that for you. The difference between everyone’s creativity is the choices we all make. You may not be an “artist”, but maybe you’re a chef, an engineer, a doctor, a teacher… there are so many different ways to claim creativity.
You are in full control of your creativity. It is completely up to you what side of your creativity you nurture, and how often you feed it. It’s also up to you what you create within that world of creativity.
Some people make a living out of their creativity, and some just use it as a hobby. Some people use a variety of different outlets for their creativity. But it is all up to you.
If you want to be drawing all day, let’s start making some time to do that. How do you incorporate what you create into your day to day?
It’s also up to you if you want to create something new. If you want to follow recipes and patterns to the tee for your creation, go for it. If you want to experiment and try something in a different way, let’s do it! If you want to start from complete scratch and throw yourself right off the deep end, yasssss queeeeen!
What I am saying is that we are all creative, there is no negotiation there. But how we express it, feed it, and execute the final product… that’s up to each one of us.
I am completely obsessed with everything about this piece (have I mentioned that yet?). Read more about the development here. Watch the build with the recorded livestreams where we worked on this together!
I am going to take a small break to take this one in now, and then on to the next piece!
I always like to see art out in the world. Galleries, shows, murals, etc. I also like to see art that I know well… in a different way. Here’s where I drop my recommendation of the Imagine series.
Last fall I went to the Imagine VanGogh exhibit, and it was wonderful! I didn’t know what to expect going in so the whole experience was brand new. I loved it! I am a huge VanGogh fan, so seeing the art “up close” like this was so great. I actually found it to be quite emotional.
For those who are unsure of what the Imagine Series has to offer, basically you are getting up close and personal with these masterpieces. High level scans of the Sunflowers, Starry Night, etc are displayed on floor to ceiling screens all around a large space, on curtains within the space, and on the floor.There is music playing as well that compliments the work being displayed. It immerses the viewer into the paintings in way I have not experienced before.
In the spring I was able to attend the Monet version as well. I had a very similar reaction. It is so wonderful to see the brush strokes in this level of detail. I was also exposed to new pieces from both artists that I was less familiar with.
Unfortunately, both of these exhibits have left the London area for now. There is a Disney version that just launched, I haven’t been yet, but I will be going soon. I do know that these are shows that pop up all over the world. Rumor has it there is a Klimt and a DaVinci one, I’m looking at you guys next. My post here is just to recommend that you check these out if you ever get the opportunity. Even if fine art isn’t your jam, I think that there is still something for everyone in these exhibits. It would be a great date night, night out with friends, or a great mental lunch break. You won’t be disappointed.
No piece is ever finished. Just abandoned. Know when to let go.
Ken Lashley
Knowing when you are done a piece can be a huge struggle. I have talked with some people who have mentioned that that infinite possibility can be overwhelming.
Sometimes we are lucky enough to have a deadline to work too. Midnight that night the piece is “done” lol.
When you are working on something that has no deadline, how do you know when it is done? Here is very vaguely what I do. It’s vague because every piece is different based off of medium and size of the piece.
Generally, whether I go in with a solid plan or not, I will work through the idea. I will get through the line art, the colouring, the shading, the highlights… the “usual”. Then I will walk away for some time. An hour, a day, a weekend… just a period of time. Then I will open or pull out the piece and take a look. Here I will assess what jumps out as a “need to do”. Is there an area that is not dark enough, is there a weird balance, did I miss something? Should it be upside down instead? I will do those changes and walk away again. This cycle will continue until I don’t have anything major that I want to change. I do this while things are fresh. I try not to wait a year or two, because my style and approach will have changed by then. This cycle is on average a few days on my end, depending on how much paint needs to dry.
Consider a piece 80% done. Walk away and come back with the final touches.
Birgit Palma
When you label a piece as done, leave it. Publish it, post it, seal it, whatever you have to do. Don’t overwork it. Let it be.
This is something that I think that I struggle with but overall I find it to be one of those “you’ll just know” scenarios. No piece will be perfect, which is what makes it perfectly yours.
You heard me! Grab that sharpie. Get that ink out. Put that eraser away. Get going!
Even though this can be a huge hurdle for someone to get over, afraid of making that mistake (I speak from experience), this can be one of the best anti-perfectionism suggestions I can make. Every line is now part of the art, make it work. It will also help you to let the drawing, painting, etc, be what it wants to be. Don’t force it into a small box, let the lines do what they want and go from there.
Ken Lashley said at MAX that he doesn’t like to use his time scanning, and layering his pieces. He finds that it uses up his energy to draw the same thing over and over again. If you can do the whole thing one time, use that energy in the creating, not the redoing.
Hues & Tones 