Originally Published on my Patreon Page…

April 4, 2025

I’ve only had two hobbies in my life. The first, illustration, but in my mind and heart it qualifies as my passion. And the second, reading. There are many other hobbies I wish I had picked up along the way, but time has not been on my side. And there are a few hobbies that I tried but I was so easily frustrated by them that giving up was better than persisting. And I must say, I am persistent.

I was then caught off guard by an illustration idea that came through while journaling. I quickly captured it. The final composition came together just as quickly, before getting to the rough draft step of my process. I tried knitting early in my life, but my perfectionist self would not accept odd looking stitches and I made a lot of them, no matter how much I practiced. I’m not the same with my drawings, odd lines that come while composing or even when finalizing a drawing, are always welcome. I love knitted sweaters, especially the ones that you can tell are made by hand. Maybe my soul craves to be able to produce something so beautiful, but for now, it is happy knowing the illustration we made carries with it the love of the hobby and the richness of the lilacs and purples I would have chosen as yarn.

The medium of choice for my “Love Knitting Girl” illustration is easy to see, colored pencils. Simple. Meditative. I’m drawn to the exercise of building layer upon layer to build colors. This time I stayed within the same color family on purpose. And only used darker colors to add a few shadows here and there or to define the drawing a bit more. And I tested adding texture to the scarf while using photoshop to clean up the illustration. The texture comes from a piece of linen. I was happy with the result.

I may have shared before that I was able to move beyond my frustration with photoshop. Practice, practice and more practice opened my mind to more possibilities. Therefore, I felt it was time to learn more about this tool and by more I mean, using it to illustrate. I had only been using photoshop to clean up my illustrations in order to get them ready to publish. I took more pictures than usual while making the “Love Knitting Girl Illustration.’ I enjoyed making it so much that I wanted to capture the end of each drawing session with a photo.

I find that I learn by doing. And while in the past I may have paid a lot of money to take a course and just be happy with staying within the parameters of homework to practice a skill…today, I’m more conscientious about where and how I spend my time and money. This means that I only take a course that will enhance or support me in producing an illustration that I’m working on. And here comes another truncated hobby. In real life, I do not have a green thumb. I love plants but have been known to kill them. Only two types of plants have survived my ways, succulents and codiaeum. The latter has attempted to die a few times, but I have managed to bring it back to life.

This year I hope to change this internal story that “I'm not a green thumb” and give gardening another try. And for inspiration, I chose to create an illustrated vision board of gardening tools. Although I may have focused more on the pretty apron, hat and boots. I watched a few “how to illustrate in photoshop” courses on Skillshare and YouTube. I ended up using a combination of tips and tricks from the different courses. I created the patterns for the boots, hat and apron specifically for those items, separately. I hand painted (in photoshop) the water can, seed packs, gloves and tools. But the hardest part was the base illustration, which I made with the pen tool. What a wonderfully frustrating tool. I believe I have a handle of it now, but it took many, many attempts. The drawing has a lot of objects and I had to make the composition cohesive, placement was not enough. Color in my mind can contribute to bringing cohesiveness to an otherwise busy image. The color palette is from Pantone, called “Floral Pathways” which came out this year to showcase the 2025 color of the year. I of course tweaked the colors somewhat to make the colors look even more pastel.

Digital Illustration, Gardening Tools in Cream Background

I see so many possibilities making digital illustrations. I see even more experimentation coming my way. The only down side or what does not work for me, is the ease with which one can do and undo an action; the commitment that I make when drawing on paper does not exist digitally. My composition changed many times. Even now, I have to refrain from re-working the composition. And a secret, or maybe not so secret and you may see it more obviously than I did. I forgot to add the apron ties. But I’m afraid if I go back in to add them, I will end up changing the composition one more time.

Illustrating Hobbies

A Creators Website and Coherence