Sketch Dailies

Hello my friends! It has been quite some time, hasn't it?

The first thing you might notice is the name change! I'm starting to use the moniker Staceart more and more often, and figured it is time to apply it to this blog. I am looking to use this blog again, while Tumblr and other social media is nice, I quite like having a place that I can show process shots and write more in depth about my work. I will also be using this blog for write-ups on different art related events I attend.

This year I've started to post my work on two new platforms: Instagram and my own Facebook Page! Instagram focuses more on my sketches and other traditional work, while Facebook features a little bit of everything from all the sites I use. Please follow both if you can!

Onto the art... There are also some other projects in the works, which I'll post more about in the future. For now though, I've been participating when I can in a great daily activity called Sketch Dailies and here are the entries I've drawn inspired by the daily topics from earlier this year.

Black Bird

Billy the Kid

Honey Badger

Robin Hood

Mermaid

Baba Yaga

Unicorn

Goblin

Valkyrie

Gremlins

I've really fallen behind on keeping up with the topics but Seeing these all together make me realize how fun it is to challenge myself and my process. I'll be sure to make more time for future topics and post them here on my blog!

Holiday Sprites

Happy New Year!

Hard to believe it's already 2014! I don't know what happened in 2013 but it wasn't until the end of the year that I really started to engage myself more in art and start playing around more with my art. Definitely will let that continue into this next year!

I have expanded my presence more onto other websites but I love using this blog to put the different steps of my projects into one entry - such as the holiday sprites below. 

Making sprites is always a joy for me and I really wanted to get back into making them again. I was a little ambitious this year in tackling a large quantity of sprites in a short time (my Christmas spirit was delayed by the warm weather, bah!).  

Sketches for the holly and poinsettia sprites.
Watercolor pencil and col-erase pencil.

The collection of 2.5x3.5 sprites given away to friends and family.
Acrylic with metallic watercolor wash.

A 5x7 poinsettia sprite - given to a close friend of mine.
Acrylic with metallic watercolor wash.

A 5x7 poinsettia and holly sprite - given to my family.
Acrylic with metallic watercolor wash.

A 5x7 holly sprites - exchanged during the Very Merry Art Trade.
Acrylic with metallic watercolor wash.

 Of course, I had to paint my cats for my wonderful boyfriend, hehe.

Oliver, Singer and Sargent.
5x7 Acrylic with metallic watercolor wash.

May this year be fruitful and bright for all of us!

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Just Keep Swimming

Ahh hello everybody, sorry again for another unexpected hiatus. Hard to believe it's August and it's almost already over wah!

Basically what happened was I fell into a depression, one of those that sneak up on you and after a while you get used to it unfortunately. It's sad when you don't realize you're even depressed, it just becomes a black hole of numbness. I unintentionally pushed away many of my friends and family without realizing it. It wasn't until I was in danger of losing my relationship that I finally noticed something is wrong with my current lifestyle and it needs to change. One of those steps is to start posting here again and to be more open about what's going on in my life!

Anyways, I made myself an art schedule but I have a hard time keeping up with it. I focus too much on the short term things that make me happy instead of the long term. I want to work on changing that, especially since I need to get a job. I have no savings right now and it scares me that if something happens to me or my car that I would go into debt. Right now I'm looking for a new day job since my hand is feeling better but eventually I would like to replace that with either a studio job or freelance. I am even thinking about relearning 3D since it would be nice to do something else for a job and still keep my art personal.

In the meantime, I will continue working on my studies and also continue finishing work (still my biggest struggle after all these years!).

Alright, here are some pieces from the past few months, just really experimenting with my process. Next week I'll put aside more time to scan some sketchbook drawings and also some current pieces in progress.

Sketchy Saturday: Breakthroughs

I somehow slipped into an impromptu hiatus, quite possibly to mentally recharge for some upcoming challenges. Regardless of the reason or excuse, I am back to drawing!

I finally cracked open Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design and Invention last night to read the first chapter on gestures. How can something so simple such as only using curved lines instead of straight never occur to me, I do not know. Today ended up being the happiest with life drawing I have been in a while because of something so simple!

I'm quite excited to see what other aspects from his book I will pick up. What's great about drawing is that regardless of who you study with or what books you read, the mixture of the multiple sources combine along with your own individual taste to create something fantastic - something yours.

FDD: 3 & 4

Gah, I forget how busy weekends can be. It's a nice change of pace but I then usually get really anxious to get back to art!

I forgot to post up my piece from yesterday for the daily draw challenge. And today, I really had to rest my wrist so I spent most of it in bed, watching Parks and Recreation. It's feeling better so I did complete a still life study and started a new little piece for my tough girls series.

So, big art post, yay! :D

 My still life was a sandwich! Such a challenging thing to paint but I learned a lot doing it. Unfortunately, it looks better in the picture than it did at the end of this still life... Food tends to go bad. And stink.

Process pics:

Grabbed some boba at the artwalk yesterday, and proceeded to draw people in the area. I love doing this, especially in pen! 

 My next gal, going to attempt to do photoshop this time around. It'll be a fun experience!

30 Day Challenge: Day 7

My apologies for missing yesterday. It seems my mental health likes to go down the drain on Mondays and all I want to do is read art blogs, hehe.

Well, it looks like all that reading paid off! I did some character sketches tonight and I'm still in utter disbelief that I created these...
One of my favorite subjects to draw are "tough barbarian girls" and I'm going to start trying to incorporate some contrast between them. Here I tried "Poor vs Rich" and instead I feel like I crossed time periods. Oh well, so long as I'm having fun, that's all that matters.

I hope you guys don't mind all the blog posting, because there will be more! I just learned of SatelliteSoda's Daily Draw February. I'll adjust the name of the subjects from here on out, just to be sure I'm being honest about what day I am drawing. :)

Sketchy Saturday: Better Late Than Never

Keep missing my Saturday updates... But as the proverb goes: Better late than never!

I'm enjoying doing still lives with pencil lately. Mostly to build up my patience but learning how to work the pencil again has been lovely.

Sketchbook liter, characters characters characters...

Fiddling around with sketches in Photoshop. 

Thanks for your time. :)

Sketchy Sunday: Spectrum

This one is for you, Matt!

It's been nice to have some old characters filling up my pages again. 

Attempting to rebuild my relationship with gouache. It's getting there... 

 

Life drawing from two weeks ago. I will never grow tired of drawing women!

Sketchy Saturday 5

Whenever I ask Daniel about how to improve my art, he always answers that I should just draw from life. That's what I've been doing and it's been rather helpful with my imaginative works. Also, I could never grow tired of drawing people.