Portraiture and Me

2018's Birthday self portrait - 25

Portraits are my thing, my jam! If I was only allowed to draw one subject matter for the rest of my life, it would be portraits - I don't tire of them. Faces are so interesting to me, which is odd because I often say to my friends and family that I don't like people. But what I really mean to say is people disappoint, intrigue and confuse me which is probably part of the reason why I'm always drawn to drawing faces. As a way of figuring people out. It's a strange dichotomy... If that's even the right word for it.

My love for faces can often give me a tunnel vision type focus. And so a lot of the time I have to make a concious effort to draw other subject matter. During my sketch a day and inktober I tried to space out my portraits to make sure I was drawing other things to widen my skillset. After all improvement doesn't happen if you don't step outside your comfort zone every once and while and challenge yourself. But because I have such an ease with faces I find them relaxing to do. I'm no master face drawer by any means but it is definitely my strength area. And with that comes a zone and flow of drawing that I often crave. The zone where you are not even actively thinking anymore but thoughts are just passing by and it feels like your in your own world with no sense of time. To get technical, it's probably a type of mindfulness meditation.

However since I've been limiting myself in regards to portraiture I've found I've drawn less and hindered my own improvement. When I get a strong urge or portrait idea I begin to stop myself either because I feel like the idea isn't good enough or because I make myself feel guilty that I'm not drawing something else. But I never end up following through and drawing anything else and so in the end I have a blank sketchbook page. I think it's time I put stop to this vicious cycle and just let myself do what comes naturally. It's time to draw all the faces!

2016

2017

So this year I've started myself off with the best place to start - self portraiture. Since 2016, I like to do a self portrait on or around my birthday. I actually did an inital blog post on self portraiture, its challenges and my first annual portrait which you can look at here. Even though I only have 3 portraits so far it's good to look back and see where I was, what I remember feeling and how far I've come. I know in the grand scheme of things 2 years isn't a long time but I can already see that my confidence has grown. 

This year I chose to do a double portrait to show different sides of me both literally and metaphorically. For a while I've been thinking about experimenting with limiting my colour palette with particular works of Jen Mann in mind. I settled on doing a tonal blue and red piece facing each other (giving strong vibes of JLo's Brave album cover which caused me to sing a lot of Jennifer Lopez both aloud and in my head while doing this piece). I'm already thinking of expanding the series, possibly doing a green piece, maybe purple. I also want to try a front facing monochrome piece with the reds and blues. I think it would fit nicely with the ones I've already painted.

The only problem I've encountered this time round with the self portraits is the feeling of vanity. It's been a while since I've drawn myself continually and so with that can come a feeling of stupidity which I know I need to check myself on. Back when I did my self portraiture work in high school - work above - I would draw myself everyday but didn't feel self absorbed because in the end it all had a purpose - getting a good grade. What I need to convince myself of is that drawing myself does have a purpose and significance outside of just grades. It helps me practice and experiment and plus if I want to continue doing original work I'm my best model at the moment a.k.a. I'm always avaliable. So shut up brain! Why do you try so hard to sabotage me?! At least I recognise I'm doing it. 

I hope in 2018 I will continue down this path of portraiture. I think I need to start trusting my gut more and my gut is telling me original portraiture is the way. 

Hazel, xoxo.

My Experience with Winsor and Newton Promarkers

I have now fully embraced markers. They are so fun and easy to use plus I get the same vibrant colours without having to organise an elaborate set up like I would with paints. I really am quite lazy when I think about setting up supplies. I find it can discourage me from starting to draw or paint. So the simpler, the better. 

My first foray into Promarkers was back at the start of the year, with the Letraset brand - in fact I have a blog post about it here on this blog. Within the last month or so I have slowly been buying more to expand my colour choice. As I have continued to buy them though there seems to have been a change over with the Promarkers going from Letraset to Winsor and Newton. The colours are the same but I do feel like the Winsor and Newton ones are slightly better in regards to blending.

The third row is Winsor and Newton Promarkers and the lines under the row are the Letraset Promarkers. As you can see the colours are pretty much the same (apart from the yellow but only because I tried to blend with it and it picked up the other colour). From this colour selection I've managed to make a variation of colours. My only annoyance is with the lack of variation in skintones but my using the browns and greys from the others sets I can just about manage a darker range of skintones. However it would have been a lot better if the skintones came in a pack of 12 to insure a better diversity of colour.

While shopping I also bought Marker paper which to my surprise is a lot thinner that I though it would be. When I ordered it on Cass Art I didn't look at the thickness of the paper assuming it would be quite sturdy since all the paper I had used with markers so far all had bleeding. So when I saw the paper was quite flimsy, resembling grease proof paper or tracing paper, I was taken aback (70gsm to be accurate). But there definitely isn't any bleed through which is amazing even though you can see the drawing on both sides of the paper. For now it is great for sketching however I think I might look for some alternatives for higher quality work just so it is easier to store without tearing or creasing.

How the drawings look from the back of the paper.

I found this Baylee Jae video about the subject and thought it might be helpful to those looking for marker appropriate paper like me.

I have looked into other brands of markers, Copic and so on, but I find the Promarkers do the job just fine without putting a hole in my purse. I am curious to test them though just see what the hype is all about. Until I win the lottery though I think I'll live without having used them. Pigment Markers are another type I'm interested in due to how easy it looks to blend them, especially with the white pen. Far superior to the waste of time blender that comes with the larger packs of Promarkers. They look like a mixture of pen and paint.

I see myself using markers for a while. The novelty hasn't wore off yet. The only thing that concerns me about them is how fast they might fade but until I see that for myself I'll continue using them.

Hazel, xoxo   

March Sketch a Day Faves

I'm aware some visitors may have not seen any of my daily sketches, unless you have been following either my Instagram, Facebook or Tumblr. So I thought I would start posting my favourites of the month to give an brief overview of what some may be missing out on but also just to reminisce.

This year March was the month of concerts. I had the pleasure of seeing Tori Kelly, Ellie Goulding and Adele. Unfortunately I don't have a sketch to commemorate Ellie's concert but I do for Tori and Adele. I highly recommend seeing any of these singers live. Especially Adele. She gave me goosebumps. I will say though Ellie's concert gave me serious Cora vibes (the popstar from the movie Music and Lyrics) and not in a bad way.  

  

March was also the month I became addicted to Dance Moms (or should I say unhealthily obsessed) and so dancing managed the sneak its way into my sketches. Got to love Baby Groot!!!

 

I also tried to work on my skin tones this month with some decent results. I purchased some Winsor and Newton skin tone promarkers and I think I prefer them over the Letraset promarkers. Not entirely sure of the difference in their formulation but I like the Winsor and Newton colour better. I think it might be because the colour less bold so it's easier to layer the colours up to create more dimension. I also tried out some Derwent Coloursoft pencils which I have already reviewed in a previous blog post.   

And finally here are some random faves of mine.

It's been a good month and I managed not to skip too many days and tried out some new drawing tools. My goals for next month are to start trying to paint some bigger pieces. This way I can spread my progress across a number of days instead having lots of small sketches. But I guess only time will tell if I manage it.

Hazel, xoxo

Promarkers sketch attempts

I recently went into Cass Art and saw a set of 12 Letraset promarkers for under £10 and snatched them up. I have been following a lot of illustrators on Instagram who use markers and it made me curious about them so I opted for Promarkers as they are definitely the more affordable option compared to other brands, such as Copic.

Unfortunately what I had envisioned was being able to take to markers like a duck to water but as with anything a little practice is needed. The colour pay off is great but I thought I would be able to layer these to build up the colour. It wasn't quite what I had envisioned. It might be to do with the fact that they are of the Letraset brand but I'll soon find out since I've ordered some Winsor and Newton skin tone promarkers to try out.

In the meantime here are a couple of my trial and error sketches. Note to self : i'll probably need to purchase thicker paper to stop the ink bleeding.

Weepah Way For Now Experience

My closest friends know that I used to be a hardcore Aly and AJ fan back in the day and if I'm honest with myself, I still am. So when I heard that their independent movie, Weepah Way For Now, that is loosely based on their lives, was coming to the Glasgow Film Festival I jumped at the chance to see it.

My overall thoughts of the movie was that it was surprisingly hilarious but on a note more relevant to this blog, just gorgeous to look at. The director Stephen Pierce Ringer is a talented photographer and directed both Leighton Meester's Heartstrings music video and Aly and AJ's (formerly 78Violet) Hothouse music video so I knew before seeing the film that I was going to love its look.

He did not disappoint. It has a dreamy, warm glow to it that just makes me want to paint and draw every scene. So as part of my sketch a day naturally I did a sketch to mark the occasion and thought nothing much of it once I uploaded it. 

Soon after uploading AJ commented on my post complimenting the drawing and as if it couldn't have got any better uploaded the picture to her Instagram account. As you can imagine I was freaking out! It's always nice to see your work recognised especially by people you admire yourself. Chances are this probably won't happen anytime soon again so I'm just going to bask in this glory and excitement in the meantime.

Sketch A Day 2016 progress and Watercolour pencils

Even though it's only the 14th, I'm already looking back through my sketches and feeling quite proud of myself that I've managed to do quite a few. When I set myself the challenge of a sketch a day I thought a lot of them would be small, lazy drawings that I would quickly upload to get it out the way. But I'm finding I've done quite a few that are quite detailed. Obviously I won't always be able to do this all the time but it's nice to know that I'm capable of it. I also thought I might have packed it in by now since I decided to do it on a whim! Glad I haven't.

So here are my two favourites in case you haven't had to chance to see them yet.

Both of these pieces were done with watercolour pencils which I have found to be so much fun to use. Even though I quite like coloured pencils on there own, there is nothing like being able to use a brush and water for me. It's just so smooth and therapeutic, whereas pencils can be quite stressful at times especially when working with a lot of colour. I'll definitely be using more of these!

I've been trying to use a variety of different mediums and found charcoal and chalk pastels to be the most difficult for me to use. Hopefully in the coming months I will have grown more comfortable with them so much so that I will feature them as a favourite. But for now they shall stay a challenge.  

Stay tuned for more sketch posts soon!

Hazel, xoxo

All the Links

I thought it would be handy put all my links up all in one place. Chances are I'll probably make a separate page for this later on but for now this will do. I'm most active on my Instagram, Tumblr & Facebook currently but there are some other links in here too, in case you want to do a little nosey!

Tumblr - www.hazelstewartart.tumblr.com

Facebook - www.facebook.com/hazelstewartart

Deviantart - www.hazelstewart.deviantart.com & my old account cuteasabutton-xo

Instagram - hazelstewart93

Twitter - hazelstewart93

Pinterest - hazelstewart93

Hello and Welcome!

First blog posts are always the worst. So I may as well just delve right in!

Hello there! My name is Hazel and I enjoy drawing and painting. At least I do most of the time. Unfortunately for the last couple of years I haven't been doing art as much as I would have liked to for many reasons. But the main reason being I put too much pressure on myself for the stuff I made to be up to a particular standard. I would have never labelled myself as a perfectionist but in certain ways I probably could be called one. I see this as more of a hindrance than a help.

So recently I have embarked on getting back into the swing of things and trying to rid myself of the unnecessary pressure I have been putting on myself. So this year I decided to set myself the challenge of sketching something, no matter how big or small, everyday of 2016. Within this challenge I'm also trying to push myself slowly out of my norm so by the end of the year I'll be able to look back through my sketches and see variety, instead of the same old faces. Of course I love portraiture but it can get a little boring if that's all you make. By drawing new things I wouldn't usually think to draw and using different materials, I'm finding art to be a little more interesting and enjoyable. At the moment at least (I'm only on day eight!).

My goal is for sketching to become like second nature and for it to inspire me to go on to make bigger projects with hopefully original(ish) ideas. At the moment I'm just sketching but hopefully with time I can do more. It's almost like I'm getting in touch with my old self at risk of sounding corny. Art used to be such a big part of my life and identity but recent years took me in a different direction. I just feel the need now to get back to my roots.

If you made it through this awkward first post, well done you! I hope you stick around! :)

xoxo