elbarkla

[elbarkla]

art will save you, being unreasonably passionate about something niche will save you, letting past sources of joy show you the way back to yourself will save you, earnestness over composure will save you, the natural world will save you, caring for something bigger than yourself will save you, daring to be seen will save you, kindness not as a whim but a principle will save you, appreciation as a practice will save you, daring to try something new will save you, grounding will save you, love will save you, one good nights sleep will save you

[elbarkla]

Happy pride, fellow asexuals <3 have some art!

Bonus doodle:

[elbarkla]

Contrary to popular belief the biggest beginner's roadblock to art isn't even technical skill it's frustration tolerance, especially in the age of social media. It hurts and the frustration is endless but you must build the frustration tolerance equivalent to a roach's capacity to survive a nuclear explosion. That's how you build on the technical skill. Throw that "won't even start because I'm afraid it won't be perfect" shit out the window. Just do it. Just start. Good luck.

[elbarkla]

Something I try to keep in mind when making art that looks vintage is keeping a limited color pallette. Digital art gives you a very wide, Crisp scope of colors, whereas traditional art-- especially older traditional art-- had a very limited and sometimes dulled use of color.

This is a modern riso ink swatch, but still you find a similar and limited selection of colors to mix with. (Mixing digitally as to emulate the layering of ink riso would be coloring on Multiply, and layering on top of eachother 👉)

If you find some old prints, take a closer look and see if you can tell what colors they used and which ones they layered... a lot of the time you'll find yellow as a base!

Misprints can really reveal what colors were used and where, I love misprints...

Something else I keep in the back of my mind is: how the human eye perceives color on paper vs. a screen. Ink and paint soaks into paper, it bleeds, stains, fades over time, smears, ect... the history of a piece can show in physical wear. What kind of history do you want to emulate? Misprinted? Stained? Kept as clean as possible, but unable to escape the bluing damages of the sun? It's one of my favorite things about making vintage art. Making it imperfect!

You can see the bleed, the wobble of the lines on the rug, the fading, the dirt... beautiful!!

Thinking in terms of traditional-method art while drawing digital can help open avenues to achieving that genuine, vintage look!

[elbarkla]

New art done for April! (I'm late!) It's hard to be a sci-fi fan in the age of the technocrat dipshit, but I'm not gonna let them claim it 😁. Check out that perspective on the ship - it was a learning experience, I drew many grids, it sucked lol

[elbarkla]

do you sell prints of the mantis art you did, bc I wanna hang it up so baddd

I don't charge for my art (too much fuss, am doing fine financially etc) but feel free to get it printed and hang it up if you like! The file should be decent quality. Spend your money on yourself or other artists who need it more ♥

[elbarkla]

I love this magical golden broccoli tree 💛🥦

Art by Tim Hildebrandt for The Realms of Wonder calendar (1983)

[elbarkla]

making stuff is one of the best parts of being alive

[elbarkla]

This was drawn back in 2021 during the time I looked after my recently deceased uncle's house and it got infested by wasps.

[elbarkla]

hi hi hi more commissions 💥

[elbarkla]

WOO, OFFICIALLY 500+ FOLLOWERS!!! 🎉

Drew a silly comic to say thank you 🐀 The best part of my art getting shared is seeing strangers be cute in the notes. I love your passion for your hobbies, the baffling snippets of your friendships, the knowledge you're building connections by sharing my work. What a privilege to be a messenger of love 💗🥰

[elbarkla]

Hii this is my first time asking anything and I just wanted to say I loved your praying mantis drawing and was wondering if maybe you can do a Cone head Mantis? They're really pretty and people don't talk about them enough :') I don't know if it's ok to put requests here so forgive me if I'm breaking Tumblr etiquette, and obviously you don't actually have to do it

Cheers for messaging! I'm afraid I don't do requests (because I'm bad at following through) but thanks for letting me know about the Conehead Mantis! Extremely cool creature, love the satyr horns. If I draw one I'll let you know ♥🐛🐜

[elbarkla]

If you’re not wearing a flower crown and glorying in a verdant meadow, are you even enjoying the spring?

(another custom request from last year’s Kickstarter)

[elbarkla]

Welcome Spring 🌼🐰🌼

[elbarkla]

Birthday art for my birthday! Happy Aries season 🐏♈🎈🎂🍰

[elbarkla]

Very glad you all like my art 🥰 I feel obliged to share a correction - the face fingers are merely part of the maxillae, and are known as the maxillary palps (thank you, nice reddit biologist ♥ ). But my favourite response so far:

Yes, girl! ✨You CAN have beautiful wings! You CAN catch and eat hummingbirds!✨

Y'know when you're doing a quick painting study and get all swept up in the moment 😅 I didn't know this would turn out so hyper-realistic, I'm suddenly nervous about AI accusations for the first time in my art journey (fuck AI, to be clear)

[elbarkla]

i love you visible brushstrokes. i love you glue warped scrapbook pages. i love you awkward poems. i love you junk journal with faded receipts. i love you poorly composed journal layout. I love you unintentionally blurry photographs. i love you asymmetrical beading. i love you curling freeform crochet. i love you fingerprints on pottery. i love you reused materials. i love you improvised instruments. i love you mistakes. i love you bravery to make it anyway. i love you creativity that hasn't been wiped clean of every drop of humanity and sanitized and commodified.