Week 4 (aka The Week I Sealed My Fates)

So, this week went by even faster, but that could be due to my little cheat where I split up one piece of work over three days (in my defense, it was my first A3 piece in forever after, so I get to give my brain a break okay) Still, this week has been pretty amazing and I'm really proud of myself for coming this far and actually sticking to my goal (more or less, but hey, who's checking?) So, without further ado, allow me to introduce the next 7 AMAZING pieces!! WHOO (technically, this is the end of 4 weeks, but a typical month has about 31 days, so I think I'll update another another half a week worth of work, 4 pieces is a lot to skip out on!)

FADA!! We made it to Day 22! What a beautifully large number... Actually, lemme admit that at this point, I think I'm a little confused myself how many pieces I've done and even though in my memory, the dates don't seem to add up enough to the number of time's I should have created, but somehow, when I look through my gallery, I actually have one "extra" drawing so... Not sure how well I would do with my upcoming Math tests... Still, if its extra then yay for me right? Anyway, I'll take what I have, so here is the other half from last week's post :) I was really proud of this one, and then I got a nasty surprise when I peeled off the tape. THE BOTTOM STRIP OF ORANGE IS GONE!! * gasp * * cries * okay, this is partially my fault, because I painted too much on the tape... but again, in my defense, it happened wayyyy too late at night. (Clearly my brain is on a downward spiral and all the creating has finally done me in, but please bear with me okayyy)

Day 23, I busted out my pastel pencils which I may or may not have (purposely) abandoned for like, a couple years (because they are messy and I'm still not entirely sure what to do with them...) It was a good challenge I suppose. They are blunt, very crumbly and I guess the only way to describe them would be creamy but at the same time chalky. It's good practice for placing down abstract colour blobs and trusting your eyes to do the blending for you though. If you can't resist the temptation and and personally get your itchy fingers muddled up in all this, you'll just end up with a blurry, non-distinct, badly-taken-Polaroid-that-got-finger-smudged-and-exposed-to-the-sun-for-3-years-and-is-hence-also-slightly-whitewashed. You get my point. You just end up with one giant muddy blob instead of anything that looks like anything. Basically, pastel pencils are beautifully vibrant and a lovely medium to work with (if you don't mind your table getting quite... smudgey) but if you don't trust yourself and trust the process, things get messy real quick! In short, it's a trust exercise! Don't believe your eyes until you're done! (I'm pretty happy with how it came out though, I need to revive usage of pastel pencils... Look at how solid those colours are!!)

Andddd, this is where I cheated a little, Day 24. But trust me, you would too if you found yourself doing something as insane as tackling an A3 piece of paper with a 0.5mm pen okay. I'm not gonna do the math, but if you think about it, even writing a full page of words takes some time, and you don't even fill half of it (technically speaking). So can you imagine drawing but on a space twice as large? Definitely worth a brain break. I'm not gonna count the number of lines I drew either, but shading with gel pens is a slow process... the trick is to start really light and slowly layer it on... don't think about the lines, it'll work out eventually!

Day 25, I continued on to another section, and here, I think I started slipping into the Danger Zone Of No Return, where you can't help but keep adding layers and layers of ink and then realise that you should stop but its almost too late. Some parts should technically be lighter but eh I guess it happens. It's always a tough balance between "Is it too blue? Is there too much paper showing? Does it look okay? Are the lines too line-y?" XD it gets questionable for a bit, but hey, I quite liked how it was going so far. I know lots of people love using ballpoint for pen drawings because it's easier to shade smoothly, but I actually picked up pen shading with a gel pen to begin with (probably because that's just the kind of pen I use normally and I'm too lazy to switch to a pencil in the middle of class anyway) It's a little tricky to get the hang of it, and occasionally you get a really solid streak of ink and you go oh poop! but eventually you figure out your pen and which side that you tilt in would get what effect and tadaaaa you're on a roll! I really love the blue though, it seems magical what a simple pen can do (and blue makes it look like you didn't print it. Plus, who doesn't like blue?)

A3 was finally complete on Day 26, and I think went a little crazy. Evidence: I held 5 pens in one hand and it wasn't enough... In fact, when I downgraded back to a one pen approach for the final details, it felt like my hand wasn't holding a pen fat enough * smacks face * reminds me of those childhood days where you just grip a giant crayon or marker and then enthusiastically go scribble scribble scribble!!!! Doesn't it remind you a little of those pen testing strips in bookshops? Well, that was the only thing going through my mind as I just kept scribbling!! and wondering, "Why doesn't this seem to be doing anything?" Thank goodness, eventually, my 5 pens pulled through and TADA! At first I worried that everything was going to end up too dark because I definitely found myself going overboard towards the end, but the background helped offset everything and ultimately, all was well... Maybe this scribble scribble scribble-y thing can be my thing? I never thought I had an art style but hey, maybe this could be it! It's certainly fun to make a mess of things sometimes and see it magically come together! (This took me a total of almost 5 hours okay, it's intense!!! * sweats in memory *)

On Day 27, I once again braved the skies and clouds... I feel like I'm always saying this, but for awhile the clouds were pretty iffy... I think it just takes a lot of layers to manage the floofy cotton candy look. I'm not too good at it yet, but I'll settle with "not too bad" for now. I wasn't too happy with how the painting started out (do you know how watery gouache gets sometimes?! It's like overly watered down acrylic, or like watercolour I guess, but less satisfying coz the colours muddy up way faster!) The background wasn't doing too hot, and the darks were not dark enough, I could never mix the right shade of colour and the little wave supposedly poking out off the bottom doesn't really look like water but you know what. I decided not to meddle too much or be too fussy about it. It's okay. This is all an exercise of accepting imperfections and messiness! A little abstraction wouldn't hurt... I have to trust the eye to do the blending... It's on you now XD The blending is a little tough, but I suppose that's the challenge in it huh? Nature has so many colours all on it's own and they never muddy up, it's a little amazing if you really think about it...

Here's Day 28, the last day of Week 4, and clearly, you could tell that I cheated and painted both skyscapes on the same day, because look at those similar colour palettes! It's just me being lazy to wash my brush every day and not wanting to deal with dried up gouache XD For some reason, this one reminds me of African sunsets, or big cities, which I guess makes some sense since this is at the beach in Singapore, and we all know Singapore is just a gigantic island-city! (Credits to my sky-loving cousin for all the lovely references ;) I'm actually on average pretty happy with how this one came out, the colours are pretty vibrant and the top and bottom both blended pretty well if I do say so myself. Only problem is, I think because of my last few touches, I messed up the middle a little, where the sun is rising, which is a bit tragic because that's the focal point right?! It does have that classic gouache-y vibe though so I guess it's not too bad. I suppose it's a lesson to not meddle with finishing touches for ages and not look at the reference picture... Overworking an art piece is a problem I sometimes deal with... My brain has to keep screaming, "Stop!!! Don't ruin it now!" But I suppose it could be worse XD

Overall, this week was honestly pretty good! I picked up all the media I would normally avoid AND even did a whole A3 piece without having anyone make me! (Though now I'm wondering what to do with it now that it's done... I don't even have a frame that big. I'll have to find one day to ransack Ikea or Spotlight for some good frames and then hang it up in the short corridor outside my room...) Unconventional media are pretty fun to mess around with. If I count 4 weeks as a month (haha who would even do that... except me...?) I would be done, but I suppose there are 4 more days to make 31 days so.. Till then! Tata :)

Love, Cuix