I haven’t been as active as I wish on the artsy fartsy front of drawing however, I have come across a fun little app in my spare time (what little of it there is) and wanted to share it with you guys plus some of the things I’ve made with it.
The app is called outline and is very simple- it makes a little line-art of whatever drawing you put into it. I rough line-art, but maybe something you could work with in the future. I’ve also been using it to see the overall “form” of my drawing and how symmetrical (or not symmetrical) my pieces are. Definitely worth tinkering around with if you’re into that sort of thing.
As artists, we are always looking for ways to hone our creative skills and continue broadening our horizons. Our goal: to make good art! The problem is that this can often lead to burnout as self-care is something that often gets pushed aside for the sake of work and growth! Not that growth or work is bad, but we all know that too much of a good thing can be bad. And we all need breaks.
So here is a short list I composed of various ways you can care for your body and mind, geared specifically towards art making creatives.
Every second that makes you feel better is worth spending.
-@E.m.x.thoughts
★ Draw something you’ve been wanting to do for awhile. Something mindless or comforting (Probably not hands or the other eye).
★ Or opt to put the sketchbook away entirely.
★ Spend some time on Pinterest or a similar site. These sites can often function to scratch the creative itch while still giving you a break from your work.
★Connect with family and friends. Have you been neglecting anyone in favor of your creative pursuits?
★Visit an art museum or exhibition. Enjoy the art others have put out there.
★Try a different art medium. Give yourself permission to suck.
★Watch a documentary. It can be art related or not. If you do want an art related one however, I greatly recommend this one here, free on youtube:
★ Grab a coffee with a fellow artist or just a friend! Be a person. Talk about all sorts of things, not just your work.
★This is pretty universal but take a walk outside. Breath some fresh air and enjoy nature for a little while.
★Watch a movie that you haven’t seen before. Have you seen “Loving Vincent”? It’s $3 to rent on YouTube. Cannot recommend it enough. I always walk away from it inspired by the artistic skill it took to produce.
★Google some hot chocolate or coffee recipes to try. Experiment.
★I cannot recommend this one enough: Pet a dog. Or a Cat. I’ll allow either.
★Just straight up take a nap.
★Organize your desk space.
★Sort out your art supplies and put them away for a little while, all nice and neat.
I hope you have found these few tips helpful! With so much noise and pressure to succeed, many creative people are neglecting their own needs. How can you be your best self if you’re not taking care of yourself? Remember, Selfcare is essential to the successful life of any kind of artist.
I teased this post in my summer art review post which I made a few months back where I said I’d share some of the traditional art I’ve made over the summer (and not over part of the semester). I have no really good reason as to why it’s taken me so long to post this besides that fact that every time I managed to think about it, it would slip my mind when I actually sat down to write a blog post.
All that being said, here are a few art pieces I’ve made over the last few months.
I think a few of my favorites are the mouse in the tea cup, the girl in the ballcap, the girl with a ponytail, and the close up of the cat. I wasn’t a huge fan of the green dress fashion sketch as the shadows just didn’t look right and I regret not giving her face (even though I feel it should be alright not to have to draw a face in a fashion sketch). Anyways, I hope that you found these little sketches interesting or at the very list give you a little inspo as to what you can sketch (or if you find them awful, use them as an example of what NOT to do when drawing :P)
Anyways! That’s all for now! Have a good week my friends and, if you happen to be on fall break like me, have a fabulous fall break where you drink lots of pumpkin spice lattes and attend a lot of campfires and soup potlucks.
One thing I alluded to in some of my life update posts is that I have new art that I am very excited to share. Most of it is digital edits that involve a lot of photoshop and less coloring/drawing (But still fun and artsy nonetheless). So I decided that this post would contain my new digital pieces that I’ve created over the last couple of months. I’ve been trying to focus a lot on portraits and faces more than anything. Hope my practice has paid off and you enjoy!
This is an digital edit portrait I did of my friend Megan over at Megan’s Musings. Really happy with how this one turned out!This is another mixture of a photo edit/art piece. Certain parts of the piece like the face and some of the hair are drawn while other parts I edited and blended into the piece. The base picture is one that I took myself and used for reference.This is another edit/art piece where I took the photo I used as a reference myself except I did a lot more drawing for this piece than I did the other one. Perhaps in another post I can share the original photos vs. the art pieces but I’m not sure if people would be interested in that. Regardless, that is a post for another day!This is a photoshop portrait I did of my friend Becca! This is one where I really struggled with the hair and background but I’m pretty okay with how it came out.This is another photoshop portrait I did of my younger sister. I would love to redo the background but I think by the time I was getting close to finishing, I was simply ready to be done. I’m sure many of you artists out there understand the feeling.I really enjoyed playing with colors in this edit. The Original was a photo my sister took this time of me playing in chalk. It turned out super cute.
And that’s it for now! I have some traditional pieces that I may also share in the future but I was mostly excited to share my digital pieces this time around. Thanks for checking them out! And if you like what you see round here, maybe consider dropping a follow or a comment below! I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Alrighty! That’s it for now! Talk to you later, lovelies!
I promised. When I make a promise I will never ever break that promise.
…especially when it comes to making these posts. I sorry, I’m just a helpless pinterest girl.
1. Koicore
This is an aesthetic I sort of made up awhile back. Basically it’s characterized by a love of fish, lilypad-esque color schemes, and an emphasis placed upon reducing plastic use. Yaknow, cute stuff like that.
I separated the aesthetic into two types….White Koicore and Green Koicore. I even made a little graphic showing the visual differences between the two.
Cute, right?
Anyways here are a few more mood boards just in case you don’t entirely get the gist just yet.
2. Persephone
Kind of proud of the name I came up with for this one. Basically this aesthetic is botanical gothic. It is characterized by statues covered in ivy, a heavy mist hanging about a garden, and pomegranates of course. Perfect for when you’re feeling girly and feral at the same time.
3. Lady Detective
Lord have mercy, I am an absolute sucker for this aesthetic. I couldn’t find any other fitting name for it to be entirely honest. But surely I can’t be the only one who lives vicariously through this aesthetic? Surely? Its the perfect mix of vintage and adventurous that just makes me oh-so-happy. Alas, I blame my obession with Nancy Drew as a child.
4. Jaded
The perfect mix of luxurious and dark, Jaded is an aesthetic that is characterized by royal imagery as well as the color pairing of green and gold. Examples can be seen below!
5. Stainglass
There is something magical about stain glass windows. The shimmery, colored says of light that stream through the glass onto altars and pews evoke a such a positive and peaceful feeling. So it’s no wonder that I’m drawn to such an aesthetic as this.
I was sad to find through a few pinterest searches that this aesthetic is severely underrated/barely exists if at all. So I, of course, had to remedy that. I created a new section in my Aesthetics pinterets board and got to work. This aesthetic I think would be characterized by Renaissance-type imagery and fashion. Pearls, harps, lutes, candles, crosses, gold, tapestries, and tunic tops seemed to suit this aesthetic nicely.
I doubt this aesthetic will catch on however, I hope a few pinterest girls who have a thing for medieval inspired fashion and the Renaissance era can appreciate the few moodboards I’ve created.
And I think that just about wraps up our little aesthetic-round up though, if we’re being completely honest here, I’m probably going to continue this series as more novel aesthetic concepts pop into my head or onto my pinterest feed. There is no end in sight! See ya’ll soon!
While I generally enjoy populating my blog with tips for writers primarily, from the few art posts I have on my blog, you can probably tell that I dabble a bit in the realm of drawing both digitally and traditionally. It is not a source of income for me nor do I ever really plan on it being however, I still find myself in a much better mood having created something that appeals to my eyes (for the most part. Every artist knows you must create an abomination every now in then to keep thinks spicy).
So, all that being said, I felt like it would be fun to make a little “tips and tricks” post for my fellow artists out there for keeping motivated to draw and create even when you feel like you’re not improving or find yourself in a rut creatively.
1. It’s okay to have a pretty scuffed sketchbook.
I know first hand the discouragement that Pinterest drawing journal inspo can produce. On one hand, I feel inspired to create such beautiful pieces myself! On the other, it can cause me to obsess over the “cleanness” and perfection of not just my individual sketches but the state of my sketchbook itself. And, like I often say over here on my blog, perfectionism can be one of the biggest obstacles an artist must overcome. So take heart, artists with beat-up and banged-up sketchbooks! It is totally fine to have a collection of drawings with a few “scrap” pages and maybe a few coffee stains on the cover. Actually, I’ve found that I often draw more when I have a slightly scuffed sketchbook as it prevents me from being nervous about messing up the book with a less than perfect sketch.
2. Draw, Draw, Draw. Quantity (mostly) over Quality.
Just like with writing, often skill comes overtime with the production of a lot of creations. This is the whole practice makes perfect phenomenon. Not that you shouldn’t try of course. Keep trying, by all means. But try not to get all caught up in creating the perfect piece now.
3. Not every art tip you find online will apply to you.
This is another important thing to note when you’re an artist with an internet connection. You have an endless supply of lists of “Do’s and Don’t” that you should follow when drawing. However, while it is good to at least CONSIDER these tips when making your own art, you probably shouldn’t follow every single one. Certain things are creative decisions and a piece that follows all the “rules” can sometimes feel boring or devoid of creativity.
4. Practice the things you struggle with.
I don’t like this tip but once I decided that I was going to draw a hand every day for a month, I saw a huge (though gradual) improvement with my ability to do so. Now that’s a pretty intense solution that I don’t think everyone should do, but I think you get the idea. Try not to avoid things that you struggle with and feel you aren’t good at it. Not that you have to now make your living as a hand-sketcher but it really pays off to put extra practice into those artistic pet-peeves you have whether it be drawing hands, eyes, people, animals, etc.
5. It takes time to find your style.
Not to mention it also evolves constantly. That’s alright though. That’s actually good because if you weren’t changing, you wouldn’t be improving in the slightest. Remember, change is (usually) good.
And I think that’s about it! Thanks for dropping by and reading! Also feel free to let me know in the comments section below of what tips really helped you as an artist! I’d love to hear them!
Hey, everyone! Thank goodness it’s the weekend. I started a new job recently as I’m sure some of you have heard about via a blog post of me basically saying “Haha I’m tired because of work so sorry but there will be less posts hahaha”.
But it’s Saturday! And this post has been something I’ve wanted to share and talk about for a week or two now but just haven’t found the time to really MAKE it. Honestly, this post isn’t quite like a normal one for me. I usually splash my blog with writing related posts, a few personal posts, and maybe a FEW art posts here and there but writing seems to be my real bread and butter. I haven’t really had any inspo for writing prompts or tips though so HERE WE ARE.
Wow, that’s a lot of backstory without any real context to the specifics of what I’m talking about. Apologies. Getting to the point is not always my strength. What was I talking about again?
Oh yeah!
I found an interesting though slightly obscure art app that I wanted to talk about with ya’ll. It’s called Wombo Dream. It is an AI art tool that generates pieces based off of your “prompts” which tend to consist of a few keywords and phrases. It’s a fascinating tool and I’ve played with it on and off for a few weeks now. I think the best way to really explain this AI and how it works is to share with you some of the results I got while using it as well as the prompts I used.
The prompt for the image above was “Circus Tent” and, as you can see, the results are pretty trippy yet also recognizable. Let’s try another!
The prompt for this guy was “cozy coffee shop”. You can definitely see it, even if not everything in the picture is completely identifiable.
The prompt for this one was “Rivendell” which is a location from Lord of the Rings. I can recognize this one really well, especially with that waterfall in the background.
The Prompt for this one was “Emerald Castle”. You can really see the AI doing its best here to create a structure that resembles as such.
You might be able to tell the prompt for this one already, but in case this structure doesn’t seem at all familiar to you, the prompt that I used was “Tardis Castle.” As in, the Tardis from Doctor Who.
This one is definitely a little vague but hopefully it seems recognizable when I tell you the prompt. The prompt was “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”. I can see them twirling in a group here, their skirts swirling round them creating such an appealing composition for the image. It’s crazy to think that an AI generated this!
I think you get the idea now so I’m going to stop explaining the prompts and just show you a little showcase of other beautiful images I got from using this tool. Let me know in the comments if you recognize any of them!
I know this was sort of an odd post but hopefully you found yourself just as fascinated as I was upon finding out about this app. Just the idea that a AI tool could create things that look so familiar has such neat implications. Will there be a time when this AI is perfected so well that It will be hard to tell the difference between AI art and human art? I don’t know but until then, I definitely encourage you to check out this art tool. Not only is it fun to play around with, but it might be good for art inspiration or even writing inspiration for when you have a fictional place but aren’t sure how to exactly describe it.
Oke doke! I think that’s about it! Thanks for sitting through my rambling review of an obscure art app.
My sophomore semester is coming to a close and while it’s been a ride, I’m sorry to say that I haven’t done as much with my artwork as I would have liked. My hobby life is kind of dead, especially around finals. There’s a statistic out there that says only 1 in every 5 college student report having hobbies that they indulge in during the school year and I think that really makes sense. Regardless, enjoy my showcase of a few art pieces that I created for no other purpose than to enjoy creating art.
First, let’s start with my hand drawn pieces:
My favorites of this batch were probably my Reepicheep sketch, my kingly sparrow sketch, and my little necromancer sketch. I wasn’t a fan of how my kitten-bee turned out but I really enjoyed the concept.
Next, I’d like to showcase my 3d art edits and pieces:
A few of these were actually for a series. The portraits of regal and vintage looking women were a concept I had floating around in my head for awhile. It was a lot of fun making them into a sort of disney-esque style. But, admittedly, most were random portraits I created for the fun of it. No theme. Just fun.
Hello there, readers! It’s me again, back at it with some self-targeted advice. I experienced some hardcore burn-out in the recent months and am only just now realizing that I show some very obvious tell-tale signs before I completely become useless to all my creative projects. I wanted to compile these signs here so both you and I can recognize them and identify them when we feel ourselves becoming less and less motivated. Usually they are indicators that I just need to step back and give myself a break from my work before starting back on it so here’s hoping both you and I can recognize these signs better in the future.
1. Constantly feel guilty and like you should be doing more.
I am the queen of self-induced guilt. I feel like I should always be doing something. All the time. Life is short after all? This sign usually shows up as a sort of guilt-inducing self talk. It tends to come in the form of phrases such as “You should REALLY be working on X.” and “Why didn’t you do X, today?? You had so much time!”.
2. You procrastinate.
I can procrastinate a lot in general but I find my procrastination spikes to new peaks when I am actively burning out. I find myself consistently putting something off, that is a sign of burn-out right there.
3. You feel tired all the time.
Forcing myself to work on something makes me twice as tired than normal. This is because I have to spend energy making myself motivated and then spend energy actually doing the task. And what’s even worse is it’s often a task I once enjoyed which segues right into my next point which is…
4. You can’t remember the last time you enjoyed your work.
Generally I burn out on tasks that I once enjoyed quite a lot. They’re generally hobbies. This means I CHOOSE to do them for FUN. At least I used to. But sometimes I can’t remember the last time I wanted to draw or work on my story.
5. You feel uninspired.
Writer’s or Artist’s block persists when I am becoming burnt-out. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just my creative juices tend to not flow as freely. It’s almost like those times in school when you find yourself staring at a math problem of sorts FOREVER. Then you get up, walk away from it, and come back to find yourself knowing the solution all along. You just needed a break in order to remember it.
6. You feel exhausted before you even do tasks.
Similarly to the “being tired all the time” issue, you find that the mere thought of doing certain tasks makes you tired. It’s this weird pull of wanting to do something but also DEFINITELTY NOT wanting to do something.
So, now that we got the signs out of the way, how do we fix it? What is the solution? Usually it’s simple. Usually its something like taking a break for a day or two. Sometimes its taking a LONG break depending on how intense the burn-out is. Sometimes it’s finding a new source of inspiration to reignite one’s passion for what they originally loved. It often depends on the individual. But whatever the case may be, remember creation should be fun. And if it’s not, it is not a crime to stop creating. Often life feels like a chore and it’s our own faults. Awhile back I came to the realization that many of expectations I felt weighing on my chest were my own. And while that’s was a hard pill to swallow, there was a bright-side to that scenario. It was in my power to fix it.
The thing is it is often our own expectations that lead us to burn out. And it sucks. But it also means that there is something I can do about it.
By the Brooke 