On Frustration and Moth Princesses

Ever had a project where you thought "This'll be easy! I've done this a bunch of times before." and then it turns to be frustrating and stupid and you want to scrap the whole idea? Well, that was this week's illustration. I wanted to do a colored version of the Moth Princess from a few weeks ago and I figured it would be a reasonably quick and easy project. After all, I colored all those other Inktober drawings, this should be cake, right? Wrong! 

I spent some of Monday and a good chunk of Wednesday working on Moth Princess and she ended up looking like this.

Something felt off to me. The colors weren't working right and I had tried them really muted and really intense. Super annoying! So, after taking a break, I tried swapping out some colors till I got to this point.

This one feels a lot better, but I'm still not totally sold on it. I may need to take a break and try a third version. Or I may decide it isn't worth it and move on to something else.

Sometimes, projects don't turn out the way you'd hoped. Sometimes, you get so frustrated you just want to chuck the whole thing and never try that medium again ever! And you can do that, although it might not be the best choice in the long run. If you do stick with it, you have to decide whether to keep working on that project till you're satisfied, or call it close enough and move on to the next thing. Neither way is 100% correct all of the time and it take a while to figure out which approach to take when. This time, I'm choosing to move on. Next time, I might keep working till I'm satisfied. But either way, the important this is to keep moving forward.

onward and upward,

Bethany

Pasta doodles

A few weeks ago, I found this super fun, lemon pasta at the grocery store; it was utterly adorable! 

After cooking it up and doing a customary food post on Instagram, I started wondering if there was anything else I could do with the pasta. Thus, pasta doodles were born! Playing around with drawings and 3D objects was something I'd never tried before and it was a lot of fun! 

I may try this again later with other 3D objects, especially when I need a bit of fun and whimsy in my life!

onward and upward,

Bethany

Pokémon GO

Last Sunday, I decided to jump on the Pokémon GO bandwagon (which is uncharacteristic of me; I tend to be a very slow about jumping on bandwagons).  Personal tendencies aside, I'm very much enjoying playing the game and figured it would be fun to draw all the Pokémon I've caught so far.

Yes, it's an embarrassingly small number; I'm working on that. And of course, after I had drawn this group, I caught a Clefairy, so I had to add it, too!

I know this game is in hardcore fad stage, but I hope it sticks around once the initial hype dies down. It's a fun idea and has a lot of positive qualities to it!

onward and upward,

Bethany

Gouache doodles

A few months ago, I decided to experiment with gouache paints to see if they would be fun/useful to work with. I bought a set, but then we moved and I really didn't get a chance to try them out. Well, now that things are (slightly) calmer than before, I decided to give the gouache a try on a few abstract doodles.

So far, it seems to handle a lot like watercolor, which is nice, because I know how watercolor works. It can go on thicker and darker than watercolor, though I haven't tried pushing it in that direction yet. You can also layer one color over another without getting a lot of color bleed and you can paint white directly on top of other colors! (This doesn't sound like a big deal, but with watercolor, you have to be super careful not to get color on any areas you want to be white!)

Gouache does have a tendency to dry quickly and stay where you put it. You can't really go back and pull up the dry pigment with a damp brush, like you can with watercolor. This makes getting an even wash over large areas tricky. But to be honest, I'm not super good at getting large, even washes with watercolor!

So far, I really like this stuff! I plan on using it in tandem with my watercolor paints, so they can each make up for the other's short comings. I have a lot to learn when it comes to painting, but I'm looking forward to working in this new medium more! ^_^

onward and upward,

Bethany