Reinvention (part 2)
Originally Published on my Patreon Page…
December 27, 2023
Note - I finished this diary page at the beginning of October. But decided to split the publication into 2 submissions because it felt long. I wish I hadn’t split it since it was already written. But after the wonderful momentum…I was exhausted. And with exhaustion comes saturation and with saturation comes this repelling feeling that indicates, I’m done, for now. The only energy I had within me was to publish my halloween illustrations on Society6, Redbubble, Instagram, and Pinterest. After that, it was time to just let go. Does this happen to you after completing a project?
Part 2 of my diary page:
Now for the basic illustration choices and decisions that I made… I decided to make each cupcake drawing large enough to fit in the details (I made smaller cupcake drawings once, fit 12 on one page and getting the details I wanted was tough). I started my planning back in August and I made a mental note to photoshop them together in the end instead of drawing them on one page. Did I forget that I didn't know photoshop? And that every time I tried, I was unsuccessful? But I must learn the basics and this is basic.
I chose to use Prisma Color Pencils as my medium. I enjoy making lines, the freedom of lines, and the building of color layers. And that’s what it took, building of layers, first one very light watercolor layer to ensure the background on the illustration would have a color hue instead of remaining white. When using color pencils on textured paper (mixed media) some small areas will remain white. I then applied 3 light layers of the main colors (same colors), 1 layer of darker or deeper colors on specific areas (same color family) and 1 layer or just a bit of shading in a contrasting colors for details. I had planned to build more details in contrasting colors but it looked finished after the quick shading. More details, I decided would make it look more like a pencil outline and that’s not the effect I was after. There was flow to my illustration days. And I felt happy every time I opened the drawer where I kept the illustrations and saw gradual progress.
Now the challenging part. Each year since 2020 I’ve tried to learn Photoshop, just the basics to get the artwork ready for publication. I watched videos, got the software, paid a subscription for months without using it because I got frustrated with it. Exactly one week ago, I signed up for Skillshare, took a class from Cat Coquillette and one week later, done! I had 5 finished illustrations to practice on and just kept re-winding the class until I did what she taught. I spent this past week, one full week (between taking care of my sister with a tooth problem, and my daily responsibilities) learning how to clean up a drawing, remove the background, enhance colors. Lost a lot of sleep because I stopped keeping track of time. But I told myself: must learn the basics! And I did. I did. I did it! I learnt the basics. I can repeat the basic steps every time, using my notes, but I can do it. I'm proud of myself.
By the time this post is published, my illustrations will be on Society 6. And each day I will also upload pictures of each illustration on my Instagram account. I’m also considering RedBubble and one other platform whose name I can’t recall.
Nice to see my progress on the images that I took, but I must get better at taking more sequential images or maybe record myself.