Tag: art

Drawing Tips – Painting with Waterbrush

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Friday was a national holiday in Taiwan because the government was compensating a day off for Qingming Holiday where everyone goes home to pay respect to the ancestors. My friends and I took advantage of this day off to go on a Picnic to Qingtiangang, a beautiful expanse of plain on top of Yangming Mountain.

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Of course I brought along my paints and sketchbook in hope to capture the beautiful scenery. I wasn’t disappointed, because the weather was super nice and I’d say it’s even feeling like summer has arrived!

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I recall when I was here last time (about two weeks ago), the weather was dreary and there was heavy mist up on the trail. We couldn’t see a thing within 10 feet, so we gave up and went home disappointed. (However, we did get to see some cherry blossoms on the way down the mountain).

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Hobonichi Flip Through January Part 2

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wHAT ARE YOU WRITING IN THERE ALL DAY?

says Mom.

In today’s post, I’m continuing with my Hobonichi Filp Through of January! This month I had the opportunity of visiting many exhibitions and art shows, so there are a lot of colourful things to draw. It’s also when I started exploring and experimenting different uses of washi tape and stickers in my diary as well.

I’m contradictory in that I wanted to use up all the cute stickers that I own, but at the same time I wanted to keep my diary in a minimalist style, keeping everything in black and white. Apparently with my latest addiction with watercolour, that’s not going to happen anytime soon (the black and white thing).

A dear friend sent me a happy mail of Sai Watercolour brushes! I immediately wanted to try it out in my journal. Unfortunately my first grasp of this pen is not very well, and I ended up with super saturated strokes. However, I love how many colors this set of pen has! Too lovely for words.

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I love to use washi tape to save all the tickets of the exhibitions or shows that I’ve been to. Usually the tickets are beautifully designed, and can be a colourful reminder to your adventures.

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Drawing tips – Waterproof Pigment Ink

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For many doodlers out there, there must be some discussion on what’s the best pen to draw with. Some people might want to use water-colour together in their drawings. In this video I share my favourite waterproof pigment ink pens I use in my Hobonichi Techo. They are Uni-pin fine line, Sakura Microns, and Unchida pens~

They have a harder nib than normal pens, and their waterproof nature makes it very convenient to paint over them without the lines smudging. Check out this video for some speed doodling using these pens!

Doodle book project – Shapes and Faces

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Lately I’ve been asking myself whether it is worth it to take some time off to do drawing and illustrations each day (amateurish ones of course). Shouldn’t I be focusing on some other priorities such as trying to make more income for my upcoming graduate studies, or spend more time studying and understanding the professional field I’m heading into.

However, browsing through the various artistic community and seeing everyone constantly producing such beautiful artwork has definitely spark my envy at this craft. I realised that if I ever want to achieve that level of consistency and dedication to this hobby, I need to practice, and practice, and practice, and practice. I justified that this time for drawing is time well spent, because I feel relaxed and happy when colouring and building pictures with simple lines.

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Starting with the basics again, I refer to the second lesson from the doodle book that teaches how to draw human portraits – Shapes and faces. Emotion and facial features can be a daunting thing to capture when drawing portraits. So the book starts on a easy-going level of simply creating comic-like expressions on different shapes.

It asks me to fill up the page with bold drawings, so I decided to go one step further and practice more than it instructed.

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In this practice, I definitely drew some expressions that I’ve never tried before. The main lesson here is that the position of eyes, nose, and mouth can make a huge difference on expressiveness.   Plus, I snuck a few of my penguins into the array of faces.

What do you think? Try this exercise out in your own sketchbook!

 

Hobonichi Flip Through January 2015 part 1

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It feels really good to start off the new year by art journaling in the Hobonichi. The format of the Hobonichi Techo and the constant reminder to put in something wonderful each day really helps give a sense of purpose in keeping this journal.

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To recap, this is a A6 Hobonichi Techo English Planner. Although it lack the detailed timeline bar, the check boxes on top, and has a different type of format from the Japanese Techo version, I feel that this layout allows more blank spaces for writing and drawing.

I wanted to start this year with a bang, so I figured I’d buy a lottery ticket to test my luck. Well, if I had won, this ticket won’t be stuck to this page now ;). I love cutting out cute pictures from beautiful brochures and flyers, especially in the city of Taipei where there are many artists showing off their trade.

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Portrait Practice – doodle book project

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I came across doodle books by the way of online recommendations. I’m always interested in books that teaches art at book stores, and I’ve always love to watch art tutorials on youtube.

Yet it is clear that you cannot improve if you don’t start drawing things yourself. Videos and books can teach you techniques of give you an idea of how to draw certain shapes, but to learn art, the best way is to pick up a pen and paper and start drawing.

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This is why I’m beginning my pursuit of drawing people through a series of exercise as guided by this book I found: Easy Drawing Note, 10 minute a day, learn to draw people.

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Hobonichi Flip Through December 2014 – part 2

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Continuing my previous post on my December page flip throughs, my daily entries consisted of a main illustration for the day, and surrounding it are my journaling of the day’s events! I’m not that great a writer, and I don’t want to pressure myself into writing fantastic entries that are full of meaningful thoughts or anything like that. Therefore I try to focus my art on doodling and replicating photos that I’ve taken in my iPhone for that day.

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Sometimes I take inspiration from Hobonichi entries shared on facebook pages or cute images I’ve seen on Instagram. Luckily I don’t have to rely much on prompts yet to come up with things to draw. There are too much interesting things around me that I would love to put into doodles and writing.

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Hobonichi flip through December 2014 – part 1

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I got my hands on the Hobonichi Techo planner in November last year. It was the English planner, and its December pages actually start from the 24th. Of course I couldn’t wait to start using it already, so I skipped ahead and actually started using the 2016 December pages! I figure that I would have gotten a new planner during planner season (September – November) later this year, and it will all cycle out eventually.

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My hobonichi planner set-up includes a cover page that I put on the inside of the planner cover. This one is a collection of inspirational phrases that make up the Good Life Project Creed. For those who would like to know more, the author and host of this website Jonathan Fields hold talks and conversations with entrepreneurs and incredible people. I love watching his videos and listen to his podcasts. This creed really speaks to a lot of things in life that we face, and which inspires us to be amazing everyday. I would always flip to this cover page for daily inspiration.

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Hobonichi Unboxing 2015 Spring Cousin

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Many people probably have seen my unboxing of my Hobonichi Set up for 2015, but here it is again! This is my first online order via the Hobonichi Webshop. In this video, I also show some of my tools for journaling and the basic set up of my planner for the year. Hope this helps you in making your decision on whether to get a Hobonichi planner or not!

Portrait Practice – Contemplation Girl

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After losing an opportunity of commission for character design, I decided to start practicing my character illustrations. First, I got to tackle some of my greatest fear in sketching – drawing people.

So this project starts with speed sketching models out of a magazine each day. Got to practice body proportion, at the same time learning clothing coordination, ha!