These aren’t my best work, but that’s the point! I’m learning a new set of skills: hand lettering and brush calligraphy.
I’ve never had good handwriting. It’s usually quite legible, but it’s not neat and tidy. So many girls I went to school with seemed to have beautiful handwriting by default, while my handwriting was more like that of most boys.
However, I was lucky enough to be taught cursive by my mom when I was in kindergarten. My generation wasn’t taught cursive in elementary school, but those times had been recent enough that they still had the instructional banners on the classroom walls. So I never forgot how to write in cursive and I think that has been a huge benefit for present me who is trying to learn brush calligraphy!
Drawing letterforms has always interested me so I have dabbled in hand lettering before. I’ve also been fascinated by design and typography for a very long time, so it’s something I have an eye for even though I’m not yet skilled in doing it myself. When I make something that looks good, I know it. But the same is true for when I make something bad, which is far more often currently! But that’s the point of learning, and the point of shamelessly making bad art, one day my skill set will have grown to the point that executing my ideas properly will come more naturally to me.
I think I will include something to do with practicing these skills in my New Years resolutions for 2023! I’m not sure what exactly that will be yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.
Until next time, take care and have a wonderful day!
And the largest at that! It taught me that I prefer to work smaller, so it may continue to hold that record for a long time…
Strathmore Sketch: 400 series, recycled paper, 11×14 inch, 60lb. Painted the cover with the only Poscas I had at the time, not a color palette I’d typically go for!The liquid chrome Molotow accents on this piece really make it pop IRL!This piece just feels balanced to me and I really like the color I used. I remember I really enjoyed making it!The solid gold petals were actually because of a marker explosion! Happy accidents and all that, right? At first I was afraid it was ruined but now I like it even better.This was a value study I did with a mechanical pencil. Not the best tool for the job, and I knew that. I learned a lot and ended up really happy with the results! My reference was a photo of my dear friend’s dog, Kimber.This is actually a pretty small doodle, don’t be fooled by the image scaling! I just wanted to practice drawing hummingbirds and using alcohol markers, and ended up loving the results. Too cute!
For the longest time I could not for the life of me fill an entire sketchbook. It took me until 2019, at age 23, to completely fill a sketchbook for the first time. I still remember that chilly November morning, how I sat in our car in a gravely parking lot, doodling while I waited for my partner. I yelled from the elation when I realized I had finally done it. That was a day I checked a major milestone off my bucket list, I remember it with the same kind of clarity as the day I first held my daughter.
Now in the nearly-3-years since that time, I have somehow managed to fill another 9 sketchbooks, 5 of which I finished up this year because of my Art Supply No Buy and my newly found dedication to no longer abandoning sketchbooks partway through. I can see myself finishing up another one or two before the end of this year if I keep up this pace!
Allowing myself to see sketchbooks as a private place to practice, make a mess, and have fun has really helped me overcome the “precious sketchbook syndrome.” The gorgeous sketchbook tours filled with finished pieces on YouTube are cool and all, but not knowing that those artists probably keep a messy thumbnailing sketchbook on the side really held me back for the longest time. It’s awesome to make good art in your sketchbook, and you should always feel proud when you do, but your sketchbook should be a safe place to make bad art. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million times more: without bad art, there would be no good art. So make bad art, and lots of it!
This sketchbook is actually primarily filled with bad art. It was hard to pick out what to feature here because so much of it is not really spotlight worthy in my eyes. That’s actually part of why it’s become so sentimental to me though, she served me well through countless trials and errors. It’s also the first sketchbook of mine I’ve allowed my 1-year-old to flip through and scribble in wherever she pleased, and that couldn’t have happened if I cared more about the art inside! Now it is an irreplaceable treasure filled to the brim with memories.
Inktober is finally nearing it’s end. Once it’s done I will be writing a summary post and showcasing my favorite pieces. I look forward to sharing that with you all! Take care until next time, I will see you again soon!
Autumn Treats coloring page!I saved enough times while making this piece to create a work-in-progress collage!
When I first blogged about drawing mandalas digitally, I introduced the concept as “Mandala made easy!” I have since come to learn that easier doesn’t always mean easy.
This piece took several hours of work, even with the benefit of only having to draw each item once! This isn’t the first time this has happened, many of my digital coloring pages took a surprising amount of effort to create!
Making these is so enjoyable that, despite the frustrations I come across, it’s still very much worth the effort to make them. I get lost in the work. So lost sometimes, that I can forget I’ve even drawn that day, and then I still feel like “wow I haven’t been drawing enough lately!”
I love the meditative repetition of drawing mandalas by hand, and all the quirks and imperfections that make them so charming. But I also love the satisfying, immaculate symmetry of a digital mandala, not to mention the convenience of having the option to draw on my phone at any time! As long as I am drawing mandalas I think I will be making use of both methods, I enjoy them about equally for different reasons.
You can find this coloring page and all my other digitally-drawn coloring pages for FREE to download and use in this Google Drive folder!
If traditional art is more your speed you can find hand-drawn coloring pages, also FREE to download and use, in this folder right here!
I’d like to make even more autumnal art this year so hopefully you’ll hear back from me again soon. Until then, take care, and have a wonderful day!
My mom’s art alias is Angel. I love when we collaborate! She’s more of a crafter than an illustrator, and I’m more of an illustrator than anything else, so we make a great team!
She traced some of my digitally-drawn coloring pages with acrylic paint pen onto clear plastic sheets to create these “stained glass” crafts. She’s actually the inspiration for the frame mandalas, so seeing her use them in the exact way I envisioned is so satisfying!
This one has been modified for privacy, obviously.
Thank you mom, for making such beautiful art with my art! Being a part of collaborations with fellow creatives is one of my greatest joys in life.
Hope you all are having a wonderful Labor Day, thanks for tuning in! Take care, and I will see you in the next post!
Last night marked the completion of the 9th sketchbook I’ve ever filled from cover to cover! So as promised, here are some of my favorite pages from said sketchbook. (Some of my favorites from this sketchbook have already been featured in my post about dangle art!)
Although this sketchbook was started in 2019, I actually filled about 60% of it in the last month. I’m excited to be starting a brand-new travel sketchbook, and I’m wondering how long it will take to fill up since I won’t be abandoning it this time! I think I will take it at a leisurely pace though, since I’m working on finishing a massive sketchbook that I can only draw in at home!
I’ve been wanting to make more Google Drive folders for my sketchbooks like I’ve done for the first two I completed, but I’ve not made the time to do so. I decided to just bite the bullet and do that for at least this one I just finished! I of course wish the photos were better but something is better than nothing in this case, and there were nearly 100 pages to photograph! Some pages have been slightly altered and one withheld entirely for the sake of privacy.
You can use these mandalas to frame a drawing or a photograph, or just color them and leave them as-is! Use them however you want really, it’s up to you 🙂 I’d love to see your work if you ever do use them for anything!
These were inspired by my mom, who decorated clear photo holders to have fun frames, in which she displays photos of her granddaughter! I would love to paint real frames in the future, perhaps after my No Buy is over!
Thanks for stopping by, stay safe and healthy! I’ll see you in the next post 😀
Stickers courtesy of The Dollar Tree. I would love to credit the original artist but unfortunately they don’t so I have no idea who painted these lovely cacti!
These images are just a small sample of my favorite pages from this sketchbook.
The comic strips are collaborations with my partner, Jasper Rae. She did half the panels and I did the other half! It was a drawing game we came up with, one person draws a panel of a comic and then the other draws the next but with no communication or context other than the panel itself! It is based on other drawing games we’ve played and probably already existed in this same form before we thought of it, but nonetheless it is loads of fun and I highly recommend it!
I started this sketchbook all the way back in November of 2019, right after filling up the first sketchbook I ever filled from cover to cover! Most of it was actually filled in the last few months though, as part of my Art Supply No Buy side project of trying to finish up as many of my partially filled sketchbooks as possible. I “restarted” this sketchbook back in March, so it took only 4 months to fill the remaining 2/3 of the sketchbook!
While I won’t put a ton of pressure on myself to do so, I think it would be amazing if I actually managed to fill all of my semi-filled sketchbooks before the end of this year. I do own some blank ones still, so I won’t count those, but to just finally use the rest of all the ones I abandoned would be excellent. I hope to never abandon sketchbooks in such a way in the future, I plan on making much better purchasing decisions from now on!
I’ve got a couple things cooking in my drafts. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted (relatively, given how I used to go months between posts) I’ve just been rather busy lately! Thankfully it’s not because of procrastinating anymore, I’ve come to really enjoy writing and I look forward to making these posts.
I sincerely hope you are all doing well. Thanks again for all the support! See you in the next post, whenever that may be!
Released a new traditional art coloring page today, and even got a sketch in too! I’ve started using my watercolor sketchbook more, and I’m hoping to actually get it wet soon.
Working on my mid-year Art Supply No Buy check-in post, so stay tuned! See you soon!
I drew this new traditional coloring page in my watercolor sketchbook! I plan to use my watercolor paints to color the original myself.
I’m “getting high on my own supply” so to speak, I’ve recently started coloring my own coloring pages. Now I’m addicted, and I need more line art to color! It’s not like I’ve never colored before, I spent my childhood coloring like many of us did, and being an artsy type it was one of my favorite activities. However, over the last several years I have mostly focused on drawing, and for some reason I never really considered coloring my own coloring pages.
Now I’m coloring out of boredom and a desire for some low-stress creativity. I consider coloring to be an art form in and of itself, but there’s something particularly rewarding about coloring in line art drawn by oneself! I figured that since I have created so many of my own designs, and I think buying coloring books goes against my Art Supply No Buy, I might as well have a go at coloring them myself.
Since I started using Mandoo I have been able to create line art so much easier, it has really helped me ease back into drawing regularly. Wanting new designs to color is also a huge motivator for me now! I have been itching to get back into watercolor but I have been feeling intimidated, so I figured coloring would be a great way to start again.
I do plan on showing off some of my colored coloring pages soon, so stay tuned! Have a wonderful day and I’ll see you in the next post!
Using Mandoo I was able to combine the concept of neurographic art with mandala and I love the results!
Doing this traditionally would be a lot harder and probably not a “true neurograph” since one is meant to start a neurograph with a random scribble, but with a mandala-making program it is completely possible and very easy!
Ari October Art 