Exhibition and Spring break

Spring break is right around the corner. Except, there'll be snow.
It feels more accurate if I call it a 'mid-winter' break, and not 'spring' break. I doubt it, but hopefully the snow will go away next week. It is so close, yet so far away!
What are your plans for the break? Anyone going on a vacation? I wish I could go somewhere warm, but I'll be staying home in Michigan and catching up with both sleep and homework.

As mentioned in the last post, I submitted an art piece for the 5×7 fundraiser exhibition the CCS Haiti Service-Learning Trip 2015 group hosted, which happened last Friday.
I myself visited the exhibition with my friends who also submitted pieces for the show, and we had a great time! Lots of wonderful works, and good food.
Speaking of the CCS Haiti Service-Learning Trip group, they are going to Haiti over the spring break next week to learn about Haitian history, culture and art, and provide art classes there as well. Have a safe and a wonderful trip guys!


Here are some photos taken during the show. Besides some edits, photo credits goes to my friend Khia who kindly gave me some of her photos since my phone's battery died during the exhibition. haha

The last photo are some the people from CCS Haiti Service-Learning Trip 2015 group who organized this event. Click here for more information on this trip; they are accepting donations as well.

If interested in the piece I submitted, please check out the last post!

Have a creative day,

5×7 Fundraiser Exhibition

Back to the simple template for this blog, since on my other template no one was able to view the comments on the posts from the computer, including myself. Boo!

I believe you can see them now. I probably will want to change back to the old template later on, but for now, I'll go with this one.

Anyways.

While relaxing, listening to my favorite musics, and drinking the french vanilla from the new coffee machine we recently got in our cafeteria, I did a little experimentation piece combining graphite, watercolor, colored pencil, and ink for a special event.

I was invited by my friend Rachel (check out her blog here) to participate in the fundraiser exhibition the members of the CCS Haiti Service-Learning Trip are hosting. There will be artworks donated by the faculty and students of the College for Creative Studies, and each 5×7 in. piece will be sold for $25!

Here's the scanned image of the final piece I submitted (with little tweaking, of course). Below are some process shots I took while working on this piece.

These are the basic steps I took: first I drew with 2H and 2B pencil, painted the flowers with watercolor, added some watercolor washes onto parts of her face, inked the background, used color pencils to draw in the flowers, painted white gouache for highlights, and then used gold paint to add the finishing touch.

The exhibition will be located in the U245 Gallery in the lobby of The Art Center Building: 201 E Kirby st. 48202, this coming Friday, Feb. 27th from 4:30 PM. Come by to see all the good art!

( a little something I played around with just for fun )

Have a creative day,

A tribute to Valentinus

A very short post sharing a drawing I did in my sketchbook, colored digitally, for this special occasion.

Happy (belated) Valentine's to all of you <3

The ephemeral tale of The Little Mermaid

I like the silence of winter; how the snow takes in all the surrounding sounds, makes you feel like you're the only one left in this beautiful world.
That does not mean I like the coldness.

I was outside in the winter forest full of snow this Sunday afternoon, when it was below -10℉, with my camera and a tripod to take reference photos. Bad idea.
Hopefully it will get warmer soon; I'm so ready for spring. Although, I do love looking at the snow.

Inside my warm-ish room (since I feel like the air from outside occasionally comes in which, well, is not good), I'm currently working on a movie poster/book cover illustration for the story The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen.
If you've never read the original story, you should read it. I linked it on the title above. *wink wink
It is a sad, but a beautiful story of a mermaid who fell in love with a human prince, and one of my favorite stories as a child.

I am still in process of completing this illustration, but wanted to share some process drawings I've gone through. These scanned images are all on tissue (tracing) paper, so I apologize for the weird texture.

After taking reference photos, I kept on adjusting the face little by little, especially the eyes, until I got the expression I had in my mind.

Noticed the hand was not the pose and position I wanted, I took more references and drew them from scratch. I did this on a separate paper since I wanted to keep the face.

Then I combined all the tracing papers to draw out just the line of the entire image to transfer onto the surface I am going to paint on.

Knowing the pain and the risk for becoming a human, she still takes the chance to be with him. I wanted to illustrate her accepting this pain, represented by the fish hook. Moreover, I wanted the over flowing hair to also look like ocean currents towards the bottom.

Hopefully I'll be done with this piece by next week, so I can share it here as well!

Stay warm, and have a creative day,

Sketchbooks and Drawings

For thumbnails, sketches and ideations, I usually use the Strathmore sketchbook. Other times, I've been using different types of Moleskine sketchbooks. Their paper quality is good and smooth, and very comfortable to draw in. I was looking for a sketchbook with rougher paper, and I found the Two Hands Paperie sketchbooks and I've been drawing in them ever since then. I just love how it grasps the graphite so nicely. It's also thick enough to hold some inks and light washes of paint as well;

I just wanted to share a recent doodle/sketch I did in the Hand Book, and some digital coloring I did after scanning the drawing in.

This image was initially suppose to be upside down, as if she's laying down and you're looking from the top of her head, but unfortunately it was hard to see the image so I decided to flip it. I scanned it in, cleaned up the unnecessary marks, touched on values a bit and made it black and white.

By the way, I still struggle with graphite smudging; if I'm not conscious all the time, my hand will brush against the drawing and make bunch of grey smears, especially where I render with the graphite and not just lines. Oh lord. If anyone has tips on how to keep your drawings clean, please let me know! Anyways.

Here's the colored version of this sketch. It turned out to be more of a finished drawing rather than a doodle as I started loosely, since I really enjoyed giving liveliness to her. I've also tried to keep the rendering as simple as I can to give it a more flat look.

So far I'm loving this Hand Book Sketchbook.

What's your favorite sketchbook brand?

Have a creative day,

Turning the first page of a new book

Hello 2015! So far you've been good to me, and I hope you can continue to be so.

As the new year started, I renewed my blog. I left my first, old blog in the shades when I created my new blog in my personal website, but found blogger to be much more easier to handle, so I created one here again. And so I'm back. Third time's the charm, right? I hope so.

I'm not so sure at this point, but I will probably be sharing posts from Instagram, sketches, process works, and announcements. I've also added links to my Instagram, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest on the sidebars, so please check those out if you use those social medias; now you know I'm there as well.

I would first like to thank you all who came to Noel Night last December. It was great talking to all of you! That was my second event where I met people face to face and talked about my works, their works, and art/design stuff in general, and I gotta say it's very inspirational and I love it.
I'd like to continue attending art events like that as much as I can when I have the opportunity.

Also, thanks to those who signed up on my mailing list during Noel Night; I'll be sending out postcards whenever I have new ones ready, and will be sending out announcement emails as well.

Alrighty.

Have a creative day,