Week 3 In A Real Breeze!

Well, lemme just say, I'm trying to post my updates consecutively because guess what? In my timeline I'm actually on Week 4 now oops. So.. let's get into it yeah?

Let us begin with... Day 15! First time I ever drew a hippo, who knew they had such hairy ears? Or gigantic mouths. Or gross teeth (or lack thereof sometimes??) Honestly, this one was kinda difficult, partially because I keep thinking it looks like melted ice cream and partially because I keep worrying it will become melted ice cream sinking in a pool of water. I think it came out a little too... wet?

Day 16. Ah, this is where everything went downhill so to speak. Well, I wouldn't say it was a bad thing, but if you are kinda terrified of random eyes staring out of the screen at you, you might wanna skip. Like, a lot. (Yes, we will get to it later) Anyway, I was looking through my notes for revision (yay... life of a student over the holidays with exams looming! :') which means, I found a lot of old doodles. Which means, INSPIRATION HAS RETURNED! In this case, more specifically, would be a ton of eyes. I got a liiiiittle carried away... this one here, is kinda similar to another piece I've done before, in terms of composition and concept, but this time round, it was supposed to look happy rather than distressed. Obviously, I wasn't very successful. Apparently, I can't really draw happy eyes. Is that a thing? Emotion can be such a difficult thing to express... I don't think this one hits quite the same as the first piece, but I still quite like it I suppose. Can you read the little bits of poetry I weaved in? I wonder if everyone will ever find all the pieces...

So, I found a little time before dinner on Day 17, and guess what I did? Yep, doodle more eyes. I can't help it, it's the first thing that came to mind after so many eye doodles over my notes all year. I have developed a penchant for it I think. Not that I've improved much from the hundreds of eyes I've been assaulting my notes with, but at least it's enjoyable! Still working on the left eye and all the tiny details, but considering I have no references, I'm quite proud of myself. It's something special when you can lose yourself in your own creation straight from your mind! Bonus, the bottom left pair of eyes, I heard, coincidently seems reminiscent of Mona Lisa's... Anyone in agreement? I didn't even realise until it was pointed out and now I can't unsee it. It's unintentional, I swear!

Day 18 can't escape either... I promise it's not that I'm running out of ideas (Honest! Even thought it looks suspiciously like it...) I just can't get enough of these eyes! So, I whipped out my pens and inks and VOILA! The pencil isn't doing my shadows justice, but I think I've been too liberal with my shading when I dig out the pen and forget to leave enough white of the paper to shine through. It's a tough balance. Also, all these eyes turned out so squinty * sigh * my favourite eye here is the gigantic one that I just went ahead to dumped in the middle of the page. I had good fun drawing it extra huge. And slanted. Coz why not? I've been asked if its on purpose for composition, but actually, no, I just felt like it. This week's pieces are very much more experimental, loose and "sketchy" (haha yes many eyes watching you, don't be shady. Art jokes are my life, especially puns. Ok, I'll go now XD )

I know, another portrait piece? What's up with that, I apologise, I didn't realise until it's too late and now my formatting looks like a poorly designed hopscotch, but this is the last vertical one this week! Day 19, here's a little of my quirkiness and a peek into my crazy mind. I was eating and having good dinner conversation when suddenly, my brain went "banana fish" not for the first time. However, it is the first I decided to take myself seriously and do it (coz why not right?) the result? Banana sea creatures! How... delirious...ly fun! It was some good creative practice fitting the banana shape into the various marine life... some don't fit too well but hey, all in good time. It was fun for me so, have a good laugh. Check it out, I even named them (though not too creatively, what can I say, I used up my creative cells on cartoonifying the references and banana-ing them) ( Yes, I used references and then proceeded to pretty much ignore them...) aren't they just cute?! I loved drawing the bubbles too, it helps with the illusion that they may just be mishappen marine creatures done up by a not too great artist, not a creator who has clearly gone (dare I say it) bananas XD

In hindsight, facing this last pencil piece for the week, one simple lesson: do not doodle with pencil. Photography is bad. Seriously. My room light cannot do me justice. And what justice may this be you ask, well, this is another peek into Crazy Me on Day 20. I assure you, this is not a sign on me descending into madness a little past the halfway point of the 1 Month Challenge. I'm quite sane. Mostly. But, I'm having fun and letting loose ok! The inspiration here went a little like this, "Here's a letter, X. Wait no, that's too hard. How about M? Miracle? Meteorite? OH and a dinosaur detector!" And so... this was born. If you know the dinosaur detector joke then yes, I kinda had a spin off of that. Absolutely silly but it was funny and I had a good challenge drawing in a very cartoonised style which I'm not used to at all, and also dealing with line art and outlines. It was certainly a fine challenge but hey, I think I should use my imagination more often! Overall, this was kinda nostalgic for me actually... Not really my generation, but my childhood had a lot of dinosaur movies in them.

And the week closes off beautifully on Day 21 (which I admit, I cheated again and actually only did it the day after on Week 4, but I did two paintings together and you know, what's the point of washing your brush twice yeah?) I promised myself I would get by at least 7 sky paintings and I only realised how epic my avoidance was at the end of Week 3 so I guess here we are. My attempt at fluffy clouds! I honestly spent half the time on this one panicking and going omgomgomging but I kept telling myself, "just put down the colours where you see them, don't think about it, don't think about it!" And magically, it did sort itself out! I'm quite impressed by the illusion of the eye. So tricky. One thing that is not an illusion however, is the slanted border. I think I wasn't too right in the head (but in my defense, it was late at night ok?) but I put my tape down wrong and I didn't even realise until the morning after when my brother casually went, "you know it's slanted right?" * cue panic * but eh I guess it's just gonna be this way * shrugs * imperfections makes it real. Of course, I could attempt cool borders with I dunno scrap paper or white acrylic but honestly, I want to just leave it because, who says we can't have slanted borders?

On that note, I hereby officially conclude Week 3 and leave you with a little bit of teaser for the second sky painting to this pair for next week ;) hint, it has vaguely the same colour palette! I also figured out some gouache secrets on that one, but no spoilers yet XD I had a lot of fun for this week and for once in a long time felt good creating from my mind and adding my own touch to my work. Banana fish was a genius idea, I should think up more crazy things to grace the world with (you're welcome world!) What do you think? Cool beans? Hope I didn't traumatise anyone with the multitude of eyes heehee magic happens when you don't think too much about it and just open your heart to let things flow. It's been a good week. I can't believe we are almost at the end of it all! It went by a lot faster than I expected but a lot less dreary too. Funny how many ideas you can get once you put your mind to think of just one everyday...

Love, Cuix ;)