Terrible Wacom Drawings

Once upon a time last year, I bought a Wacom tablet in hopes of getting myself into digital art making. Well, due to computer troubles and lack of motivation, I didn't do much with it till this May. To get myself comfortable with the medium, I decided start a "100 Terrible Wacom Drawings" project.

The goal was simple; create 100 images on Gimp (because I'm too poor for Photoshop) without any attention to their awfulness. I would slap something down, number it and move on to the next. My favorite part of this project was allowing myself to fail. Usually, I have the artist's curse of super self-criticism. Giving myself permission to fail and learn in the process was a wonderful, stress relieving experience. I would encourage everyone (artists or not) to try it.

I thought it would be fun to post a few of the images so you can see my transition from "terrible" to "slightly less terrible".  A sort of "best of the worst", if you will.

I still have a long, long way to go before I'm actually good with the tablet, but after 100 drawings, I believe I've shown good progress.

sincerely,

Beth

Leveling up!

Due to copious amounts of drawing, I've recently had a "level up" in my drawing skills. Those times are always super encouraging. You spend what seems like ages trying to draw stuff that ends up looking terrible and then suddenly, something clicks and your work gets noticeably better. It's the best!! ^_^

Because pandas doing yoga is awesome.

I'm particularly proud of the posing on this one.

I decided to doodle out what sort of character I'd be in a fantasy setting/story. Here's what I have so far.

I also did a character based on Jon. He turned out really good. 

I also did a few sketch/note combos about Jon and my characters. I'm not sure if this will become its own project or just a visual daydream, but it's been kind of fun so far.

A bunch of anime eye styles I copied/played with.

Chibis!!! FYI, chibis are the anime people with huge heads and tiny bodies. This is the first time I've played with this style that I've actually produced something I like. 

Chibi Jon is so cute! ^_^

The other neat thing about these sketches is that they're all fun things. With art my main "career" focus, I forget to draw things I actually enjoy. I'm not naturally good at fan art or stuff of that inclination, so it's usually more frustrating than fun for me to draw. But, I think I'm (finally) getting good enough to explore art styles and subject matter outside the realistic jig. 

sincerely,

Beth

Apr-May '13 sketches

A few pencil ramblings from the past month or so. 

My friend Dresden and her son Calvin, both sleeping.

Sleeping babies are a lot easier to draw than moving babies.

I was playing around with the word "light bulb".

A doodle for a project I have in development.

A random page of sketches, just for fun. 

Gerbils are also hard to draw.

I'd just finished reading The Little Prince and was inspired to draw something about it.

Lyrics to a song that were stuck in my head at the time.

Church sketches

I like this drawing of Robot. It's different, but still emotionally compelling. 

And that wraps up my current sketchbook. On to the next!

sincerely,

Beth

Journey

Jon and I finally took the advice of our friends and played the game Journey. Wow, such an incredible experience! It's completely different from anything else I've ever played; more like an interactive art piece than a game. The visuals and music are stunning and the actual game play is fairly relaxing. (Except when you're trying to avoid large, mechanical dragon-fish.) I was so inspired, I even did a few fan art sketches! Crazy, I know.

So, if you own a PS3 and are in the market for something unique, artsy and therapeutic  Journey is the game for you!

Painting Kick

I came back from the most amazing week ever and all I wanted to do was paint random things. So I did. Here are the final products.

They just simple, loose studies; not too realistic but still capturing an interesting mood. I really like how they turned out. Btw, painting artichokes, very challenging. 

sincerely,

Beth