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

Shopping about for Coloured Pencils - Derwent Coloursoft Impressions

Recently I have been on the search for my ideal coloured pencils. Currently I'm using an old WHSmith brand and a bunch of random pencils I have gotten over the years so I thought it was about time I invested in some good quality pencils.

My first thought was to buy Prismacolour since most people online agree that they have great colour pay off while not being as expensive as other brands. Unfortunately the only place they are available is on Amazon and if I was to buy them as a complete set they would put me back around £60-£70. So as you can imagine I have been looking up more reviews to see if they are actually worth the money. Even though they are great for colouring many people have said that they can break quite easily and to be honest I don't want to buy a brand I haven't tested myself.

My next option was to buy some Derwent pencils. I currently use the graphic pencils and I'm very happy with them. Derwent do many ranges but I narrowed it down to the Artist pencils and the Coloursoft ones. I came across a small tin of coloursoft skintone pencils on Cass Art's website so went ahead and bought them to test out before I took the plunge and bought a bigger set.

My initial impression of them was how waxy they seemed which makes them good for blending, as long as you don't keep layering up the colours. I did enjoy how easy it was to apply colour to the paper and the pigment was pretty good. However the texture of the colour wasn't always ideal and I was only able to get the colours I wanted if I mixed them with my WHSmith pencils. So currently I have decided not buy a big set of the coloursoft pencils for now.

The colour pay off is good and the blending is okay as long as you don't keep layering up the colours. It can turn quite waxy and patchy in parts. Also works well with other pencils.

So I have looked into the Artist Pencils but unfortunately the majority of people who have used them say that you have to lean quite hard with them to achieve vibrant colours. However the pencils will last a long time unlike Prismacolour's easily broken led and the colours are buildable.  

So I'm back to square one. Ideally the pencils I'm looking for have good colour pay off without leaning too hard and I can layer up the colours without fear of it looking strange like the Coloursoft eventually does. If only Derwent did a range inbetween the Coloursoft and Artist pencils where they are both blendable but not too soft - a Goldilocks range. But it seems that the only other ranges they do are Inktense and pastel pencils which are not what I'm currently looking for.  

My WHSmith pencils are okay for now. And really if I was able to find a bigger set of them I would be tempted to buy them. But chances are they don't make them like they used to. If anyone has suggestions let me know. I'm still looking.

Hazel, xoxo

My Nephew's Winnie the Pooh Wall Mural





I can't believe it has almost 3 years since I painted my nephew's Winnie the Pooh wall mural. When my brother and his soon to be fiancé asked if I would do it I jumped at the chance. I always wanted to do one but I thought it would be in my own room when I eventually did do it. This way I could try it out before I committed to my own room.

I started out with a rough sketch with Calum and Kerrie giving some ideas of what they wanted and went from there. Once the paints where bought the best thing to do was to start no matter how daunting it may have seemed at the time. I started in June of 2013 doing about two full days of painting a week and finished in August, about a month shy of the baby's due date.

By the end of it all I was really proud of what I had accomplished and considering it was my first project of that scale I thought I had done pretty well! I remember thinking "how on earth am I going to go back to A4 after this!"

When backing up photos I came across a bunch of progress photos from when I was painting the wall and thought it was about time I spliced them into video slideshow.

My nephew still loves his wall. He loves the little ladybird right next to his crib and makes buzzy sounds when he sees the bees a.k.a. the three amigos. I have even been told he likes to say goodnight to all of the little creatures, such as the butterfly, before he goes to bed sometimes. So I don't think the wall will need painted for a while yet!

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.

Who Am I Making Art For?

You would hope the answer to that question would be me, wouldn't you. Recently I've been asking myself this question a lot when I'm searching for inspiration and reference material. Every now and again I find myself thinking of what other people would be more likely to like on facebook or reblog on tumblr. I know these thoughts are ridiculous and the more I sketch the more I realise that I need to please myself with my art before I try pleasing anyone else.

This piece has over 100 notes on tumblr. This piece also only took half the time of my usual sketches. You never know what people will respond to but it shouldn't be my job to think about that too much. I need to make for myself... not for likes.

Trying to please others is what lead me to stop making art in the first place but I hadn't quite realised this until recently after having a conversation with a colleague at work. She had come across my instagram account which I have recently been more active due to me setting myself the challenge of sketching or making a piece of art everyday this year. It got us on the talking about art as a career and why I hadn't pursued it. She went on to tell me about how her mother makes dresses in her spare time and had even made her wedding dress which caused her to ask why she hadn't turned dress making into a business. Her mother responded by saying that she never wanted to turn something she loved into a job because she could quite easily begin to hate it if she spent her days making dresses she didn't like or just didn't want to make but had to because it was her job. Keeping it a hobby would ensure she would never hate it.

This struck a cord with me because it was basically what had stopped me from going to art school turning my hobby into a career. I had a taste of hating my hobby in my last year of high school where I had stopped making art I wanted to make and instead was making things to please others or to achieve a grade. And even though I look back at that year and I'm proud at the volume of work I managed to do and my A grade, I also felt and still do feel shame that I had done so much work that didn't reflect who I was, and so my self esteem nose dived as a response.

The sketch a day 2016 challenge so far has been great at helping build up my self esteem. I don't think enjoying art fully again is as simple as making something I truly want to make. Perfectionism and high expectations also have there part to play but making things I believe should always be what drives me forward.

Having said all of this, I do find pleasure in making things for other people at times. Making other people happy with a drawing can be an amazing feeling but I think it's about finding a balance. I'll let you know when I have struck that balance and stop waffling now!

Self Portraiture

 

 

I think one of the hardest things anyone can draw is themselves. Personally I've always loved drawing people but when it comes to drawing myself I'm not so comfortable with it.

 

When I did Advanced Higher Art back in high school I chose Self Portraiture as the theme for my course work without realising what I had let myself in for. I hadn't quite fully realised how big a role self perception plays in how a self portrait turns out. Depending on how I felt about my life but more importantly myself, tended to altered the outcome of each portrait. So on one day I may have felt self conscious about my appearance causing me to adjust my features to look "prettier" or I could go opposite way and emphasise how big my chin was or how wide my face appeared to be without realising what I was doing until I stepped back to look at what I thought was the finished piece. It was basically an exercise in illustrating body dismorphia.

 

Very rarely did I hit that sweet spot of actually seeing myself for what I actually was and managed to separate myself from my perception of myself. But as I'm getting older I feel like I'm get better at it. Maybe not the drawing part just yet but at least the part of accepting my appearance. It all seems so shallow and vain when you put it in terms of appearance. To a degree it is. But my style of art has always been based in the realm of realism so it comes with the territory.

 

On my birthday this year I decided to draw myself for the first time in while. I used a photograph as reference and even though the finished sketch wasn't identical to the photograph I could see myself in parts looking back in the drawing. I think I should probably draw myself more, at least once year anyway. Just to check in and see how I see myself at that point in time.