It is January 4. It is already 2020 and I still feel sluggish. I think I needed a break from the holiday break. I probably feel this way because I was still working until December 27 at 11:57 p.m. emailing my report to the client. I was the one who chose that deadline so I should be able to commit to it. I put pressure on myself and I barely made it. I submitted in the nick of time. So since then, I was embracing my free time- waking up late. I scheduled activities late in the afternoon like paying bills and meeting friends.
I had so many wonderful plans to jumpstart the New Year. I planned to wake up early and start walking. I planned to start cleaning up my room. I planned to do more art. I planned to write my pending blog posts. I was reading people’s posts about their past 10 years. I think I had an interesting 2010s and I wanted to write about it but it meant digging up photos and memories. I could not continue without shedding a tear. I spent the past ten years of my life without my parents and I was able to survive it unscathed but with a lot of inner struggles. It would take time for me to write about that so I decided to write about something else. (Galing ng segue ko. Ang haba ng sinabi. LOL) Oh, well. Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.
So, let me write about this new art form I tried the past year- digital illustration. People who know me know that I do a lot of watercolor paintings. I love doing it but it is something I do with intent and the intention is to do it well. So I take my time. Every output I do is planned. I try not to commit mistakes because my art materials are expensive. (Don’t tell my Tita.) I cannot just paint and then throw them away after just because I did not feel good about them. This made digital illustrations attractive to me. For the times I feel like doing art and I cannot commit them on paper, I can do digital illustrations. I can always erase, edit and redo digital illustrations. And to do that, I use Adobe Photoshop since I am most comfortable with that application. I just needed to practice the pen tool. This game is very helpful in getting me acquainted and be at ease with the pen tool. https://bezier.method.ac/
My first digital illustration was this anemone. I think I only drew two flowers and tried to create patterns. This is the pattern in one square.
And when you try to put multiple squares side-by-side, the flowers connect. Cool, eh?
I needed inspiration in doing digital illustrations so I turned to Instagram. I followed illustrators and hashtags. I found out that there was an illustration challenge running at that time. It was #urbanjungleweek. Those who want to join were asked to create an illustration interpreting the prompt of the day. There were prompts given like succulents, park, edible and wild.
This is what I made for succulents. Since I was new to digital illustration, it took me the whole day to finish this one. I was using the track pad of my laptop. Dragging and clicking were tests of the dexterity of my fingers. Ha! I liked the way it turned out.
The next prompt was park. I am bad at drawing people so I only drew a girl on a swing. This is such a lonely park. Haha
The prompt here was edible. Those who organized this challenge may have meant this prompt as edible plants. I interpreted it as any food. When I did this, I was on low-carb diet so I was deprived of all these yummy goodness.
This ‘wild’ prompt was just a mishmash of wild plants.
When the #urbanjungle challenge was over, I was compelled to practice more so I did an interpretation of a Bailey Zindel photo, a digital illustration of hydrangeas and a landscape scene of Dinagat (since I just came from a vacation then).
I also joined the flora and fauna challenge in August and the prompts were water, tropical, mountain, desert and forest. These were my outputs.
I love these challenges because I get to practice and I also get to see what others did by clicking the hashtags on Instagram.
So for 2020, I hope to join more challenges, improve the skills and expand my illustration portfolio.