I recently re-read a number of my posts in this blog site (which also helped me get inspired to start writing here again) and I came across The Frustrated Artist (Really Frustrated), a blog I wrote after one of my painting sessions.
Years later, I can say I did improve a lot. I can now paint decently (relative to my watercolor works from years back) with watercolors. Some of my watercolor tubes I use now are still the same watercolors in the picture in my previous blog. I guesss that’s what I love about watercolors. Nothing goes to waste. You can just wet it and you can use it again. No need to even clean up your mixing plates every damn time.
This is my sketch of Angela, my favorite (most used) hero in MOBA Mobile Legends Bang Bang. She’s powerful for a support and easy to use. The drawing at the back is Hanabi.
I tried coloring it with watercolor and here’s the result:
I’ve also been trying to digital drawing, but drawing faces is really a challenge for me. The first subject of my digital drawings is Song Jihyo.
The first one is a vector art I made using Adobe Illustrator Draw on my phone. This is the first digital art I’ve made from a person’s photograph.
My succeeding digital drawings are made from my tablet’s Autodesk SketchBook. It’s easy to use and I couldn’t use Adobe Illustrator since it’s only free in the playstore for phones.
Yesterday morning, I woke up at 10 AM and got up by about 11 AM. Well, I slept 4 AM in the morning, so that’s justifiable. Mom was actually mad at me because I didn’t dye her her. Yes, I dye Mom’s hair (if I’m on the mood), that’s off the record so let’s leave it like that.
That morning my eyes caught my old watercolours. They have been lying under my table in the living room. I have a set of this because we had an Arts project way back my senior year wherein we were asked to do a craft using any of the given techniques in our textbook. So yes, I chose watercolours. Nope, I knew I was not good at it, I just wanted to have a reason to buy a set of it. It’s not as cheap as the watercolours we use when we’re still kids, so yeah, I impractically bought a 12-tube set. I made two paintings on two 1/8 illustration boards— one was a modulo art and the other was a landscape one. My Arts teacher asked if she could keep it and I said yes. It looked okay.
I then found two of my brushes.I really do not know where my other brushes are. I know I’ve got at least five of them in different sizes and tips, but most of them were nowhere to be found. I was giddy about it, because I have been wanting to do this weeks ago, but my schedule didn’t permit me.
I prepared my stuff and went on in what I have hoped to be a master craft…
First attempt:
I stopped without finishing this one, because I knew for a fact that it wouldn’t end well. I used Oslo paper instead of illustration boards or canvasses (I don’t remember even buying one) because I subconsciously knew that I would just waste those stuff on this thing I was doing. Hairs and trees were the only things I could paint well (that was why I painted landscape when I was in fourth year), and look at that thing… The hair, oh my, I lost hope.
Second attempt:
It’s not a scratch paper, it’s an art… Believe me.
Well, this one used to be a painting of a tree, since I have this obsession of painting/ drawing them. I mixed green and white for the bushes and it looked all right— presentable enough. Then I added a different shade of green and boom. It didn’t get along very well. So what I did was I combined different colors and just glided my hands to wherever part of the paper.
I just enjoy it, I’m not dumb enough not to know that my works are all hopeless shits… I just enjoy the stroke of the brush, the paint stains I would have to wash away after all the fun, I just love doing it…
“Ang pangit pala talaga ‘no?” I told my brother, who was sitting adjacent to me, while I was waving my art in the air.
“Ngayon mo lang nalaman?” he said, throwing me a scrutinizing look.
“‘Wag ka, no’ng high school ako pinanlalaban ako sa poster making [contest], at ayun, sa apat na taon naman wala akong naipanalo kahit isa.” Yes, I joined about three or four art-related competitions way back my high school years. No, no, I didn’t volunteer. Teachers would normally give a poster making activity in class. Of course, given that it is individual, he/she would tell us to draw on an Oslo paper, bond paper or 1/4 sheet of cartolina. I would use colour pencils and given that smaller working place (paper used) and time given, I would be able to add more details and strengthen colors— I would end up doing “an okay and a presentable” work to submit.
But that ends the presentable stuff.
By the time I’d represent my section to the inter-level competition, my craft would end up on the lower half. I was never good at oil pastels and colour pencils aren’t good enough for a cartolina-wide craft to be worth the second look.
“Ba’t ‘di mo pa itigil ‘yan, sayang lang, e,” my brother nagged.
“E, umaasa pa ako na mamaya lang makakagawa ako ng stroke tapos magiging maganda na siya. Abstract nga kasi ‘yan!”
I will never learn to paint a good one… Maybe I should just accept the fact that I am for pens and papers but never for brushes and paints… Maybe I’ll never really learn to paint a good craft… No! No, I will, one day!
Well, I am Paint Brush (and I am not by Betty B. Young), certified frustrating frustrated artist!
Sporadic Musings 