Sketches
I painted this for my wife as a birthday presented. I really wanted to capture this very mundane observation that takes places so many nights...
It's late, tired from a long hours at work, half-consciously scrolling through reddit or YouTube, while fading away from the day. We happen to call this activity "internetsing" at home.
Happy Birthday!!
I first wrote about my oil painting adventures here.
Earlier in the year, I attended a Drawing Fundamentals course at Bienarte. I learned a lot about sketching, working with graphite and charcoal, interpreting light and value. I had a lot of fun.
During the lessons, I got to see oil paints from other students at the art studio. My teacher, Isabella, also showed off her incredible collection of paintings in oil. I was blown away by what can be done in the medium.
At the same time, I was watching Blue Period on Netflix, which tells the story of someone learning to paint. It spends a lot of time in introspection as the protagonist tries to interpret what all these crazy works of art mean. Seriously, I have the same thought when I walk around an art gallery.
With a healthy push from Mrs and help of some YouTubes, here is my first attempt at an oil painting. I am super excited about how well it turned out. Some of my learnings from the drawing course really came in handy!
More to come in the future… :)
I’ve started to do some research on techniques to do sketches and drawings on my iPad. Running through lots of YouTubes like this one:
One of the interesting things about Procreate is its ability to draw in layers. All artists use techniques like this whether through tracing or letting oil paint dry layer at a time. In mediums like comic books, this is especially true where the storywriting, sketching, inking, colouring and lettering are done by different artists. Sketching is done by the Penciller, who would go through multiple layers of drawings that eventually get traced on with an inking phase to give the final refined, consistent look.
With “rapid visualisation”, ideas start off as basic shapes. Through multiple iterations, we can start to increase detail and fidelity. Over many layers, we can drive the character or object towards the feel we want.
Let’s try to draw an elephant as an example...
Colouring would work in a similar way...
I’m having a lot of fun learning and improving my drawing skills. I obviously have a long way to go... ;)
Proposals. Oh man. So much pressure to get this right and it is filled with social expectations! Having dated Dinusha for 6 years, it was my turn to pop the question. I honestly just didn’t want it to be lame.
After months of back and forth with a jeweller, I got the ring. I wanted to propose in a secluded beach. I picked Kingscliff beach as the my winner (Cabarita would have been good too).
I just felt like this proposal needed something more. It needed something that really speaks for the occasion and reflects who I am. Plus, I knew the ring wasn’t going to be a surprise. Having an extra element would be a lot of fun.
No, not a flash mob!
So I turned to my iPad.
This is “Book” by FiftyThree.
“Book” is an accordion style printed Moleskine book. First, you have to digitally illustrate the pages using the “Paper” app. Then all you have to do is to pick and arrange the order of the pages and hit "Print".
I've always loved drawing. While illustrating a whole book takes a while, I felt that using a little bit of technology would make this a lot more reflective of who I am. And more fun! So I decided to give it a shot. I used the "Pencil" stylus (as you may have guessed, also from FiftyThree as well, given the super creative names) to illustrate on Paper for the Book.
I started the project by brainstorming ideas on what life events I should illustrate. I included things like the first time we met and talked, our Europe trip, favourite hike, our ‘alter ego’-toys which kept company in our 3 years apart etc. And finally a place to pop the question and make this contract binding :).
I ordered 2 copies — one of her and one for me. The order arrived just 2 days before the proposal! phew
I managed to find a secluded part of the beach. We sat on a sand dune with two apple ciders and some Noosa chocolates and watched the waves. Afterwards, I pulled out the book and reminisced through the pages.
The book was a complete surprise. She took her sharpie out and wrote “Yes”. Yay!
It was a month long effort. Drawing, erasing, redrawing, colouring and editing. It took me a while to understand and work around the limitations of Paper app. Towards the end of the project, I had developed a certain style in the drawings. There was a common theme running across with the “heart strings”. This caused me to revisit some of my initial work and redo them.
The best part for me is that I produced a piece of work that was truely cherished by Dinusha. Hopefully, it is something she could, keep forever. I think it spoke a lot more than the ring.
The engagement book was unique and creative. It reflected my personality well. While it is very much an analogue creation, I was still able to back up the digital drawings to Dropbox and iCloud.
I had a wonderful break away from screens, for most part. Now it's back to business. Decided to capture my view from the couch before we took the Christmas tree down :).
