Drawing circles intrigued me lately, so I practiced drawing a smooth looking circle in my sketchbook. With each attempt and rendition, I saw that I'm getting better. Plus, it is quite meditative and relaxing to just focus on nothing but circles.
Medium: Black ballpoint pen.
I got back into working with my fountain pen! Fun.
Medium: Ballpoint pen, marker and fountain pen.
I haven't practiced painting in a long time. So when I saw Hyacinth in this unique pastel pink pot, I wanted to get myself back into painting! For both of these works, I didn't make an under drawing and jumped first into using Acrylics to lay down the shapes and colors. It was a good assignment for myself and I felt that the second study really showed the improvement in my mix of colors, perspective and proportions. I really had a lot of fun and super happy with my results!
Grand Central Station, New York
On the bus, Queens, New York
On the way to Kyoto Station, Japan
New York City Subway and Spring Street, Soho, New York
Its been a while since I last wrote in here. These are sketches that I did over the past five months or so. My fellow friend and creative recommend me to try a parallel pen, talking about how many of her friends are doing so. I didn't do so right away until last September, when I found myself already in Dick Blick, buying one and using it right away by setting forth to portray Grand Central in my sketchbook.
Using the pen was an interesting challenge, as I found resistance drawing lines I'm used to against a heavily texture paper of my sketchbook and yet growing to enjoy using this pen because it is radically different than what I used to. The lines are loose and playful and sketchier than I imagined myself drawing and I hope to become better using this pen in depicting new scenes.
On a side note, I studied up on various inks that can be put into the pen after reading blog like Goulet Pens Blog and Hudson Valley Sketches and decided to use Diamine Blue Black (as seen in the third and last sketch) after reading about drying times of the ink and archival of artwork. Please take a look on the sites if you are interested in inks and fountain pens like I am.
This past week, I was working on refreshing the look of the website. I searched around looking for various templates and I found my dream Blogger template from Themexpose. I really love their designs because each of them have such personalities! Over the years, as I became more of an user on tumblr and love how its UX/UI evolved, I didn't realize how amazing Blogger has become. That's why I want to spend a little time writing out two points on how versatile I found Blogger to be, since it really deserves praise on its improvements.
1) Template: While tumblr has simplified its CMS on modifying its template, Blogger offers a more robust experience for advanced users. I can directly edit and change the template file without going on a roundabout. For tumblr, I'm finding myself frustrated because I can't as easily modify the layout via html/css, which is quite disappointing, even if it is easier to use.
2) Posting: Blogger has made it easier to update with elements of Google Document and Wordpress inside its design. I can easier navigate and organize my posts without having to spend so much time figuring out which type of post it is! While on the other hand, tumblr and even Wordpress stumped me quite a few times when I'm using it.
On another note, I hope you all enjoyed coming here! I've had this blog for many years and it took me a long time to do this refresh because I'm such a perfectionist, which is both a good and bad thing.
Now, it is my goal to update this blog. I'm looking forward to creating new works and seeing this blog as a way to inspire me. Also, to share some of my thoughts on design and web. Thanks everyone for all your support and coming here!!!
Hands, hands and hands! I finally squeezed in some time between designing for the new brands I'm working on at my office. I realized that often working on the computer is drastically different from working with my hands. Creativity comes to me very quickly when I'm putting something down on paper instead of trying to envision ideas on a digital device. Maybe I've an old school style of working?
Medium: Pen
