#having a sketchbook that I doodle in with a ballpoint pen really helps a lot

[dragonfollies]

I haven’t posted my drawings to tumblr in a while, so here’s a couple of sketchbook doodles of Nintendo characters from the past week

[elbarkla]

Check it out everyone, 3 years of art progress! And I wrote a guide for beginners! 😊

Hi! I’m Laura, age 31. I’ve always drawn occasionally, but never really stuck with it. Frankly it stressed me out. I’d draw for a month, then cry a bunch, then quit for a couple more years. But this time I turned it into a habit somehow. I’ve been drawing near-daily since Feb ‘21 and my life is better for it. Art’s a huge part of me now; it affects how I spend my time, how I express myself, and how I see the world. I feel like a happier, more complete human being.

So here’s what worked for me. This is a guide for hobbyists (I don’t have commercial ambitions) and it may or may not work for you. But I hope you can learn something from it regardless. Without further ado, my thesis:

 ~ Laura’s Steps for Drawing A Lot and Hopefully Getting Better ~

 1 – Manage Your Health 

Know what’s bad for your art? Depression! Glad I got around to treating mine. But for real, if you lack self-confidence you might want to check your mental health. It isn’t the sole factor but it can rapidly overtake the others. Every day I see a post like “how do I improve, every time I try to draw I’m overwhelmed with thoughts I’m bad at everything and a burden to the people around me”. That’s relatable but not a healthy way to see yourself. Low self-esteem can be treated. Please consider talking to someone - you’re a wonderful, lovable person and deserve a happy life.

Also, try to get plenty of sleep and eat regular meals; it helps with everything. Exercise is worth a shot too. Going for walks is good for your mind and body. Yes it’s boring, but boredom gives you space to imagine things.

 #2 – Make It Fun

You’re taking this too seriously. Yes, you. It’s just a hobby. Take the pressure off. Have fun.

What does that mean? It means you need to make art approachable. It has to be a comfort hobby you’re naturally drawn to. That means killing all thoughts of what you SHOULD do. If it makes you want to draw, go for it. Anime characters? Pretty ladies? Fanart? Furries? Doodles from imagination? Zentangles? Pencils? Digital? Do it. If drawing the “right way” burns you out, draw things the wrong way instead. You know who draws a lot? Children. You know who doesn’t draw super well? Children. Have that mindset. Draw like a child. Don’t compare yourself to others; just enjoy the process of creating something. You had that ability once and I know you can reacquire it.

 Intimidated by an empty sketchbook? Don’t wanna ruin a white page? That’s OK; find something you don’t mind ruining. Grab a half-used notebook and a ballpoint pen. You EXPECT those to look horrendous. If you can have fun filling that notebook, you can have fun drawing regularly, and if you draw regularly you can slowly improve your art. It happened to me. I went from rarely drawing to wanting to do it every day. I still sketch in ballpoint now; it’s fun and comfortable.

Also, if drawing’s NOT fun? That’s OK too! There’s loads of ways to express creativity; go do do one of those. For me it was The Sims 3, then knitting, then drawing. Find something accessible and build your confidence up. The world needs bonsai trees and Minecraft castles just as much as drawings. <3

#3 – Seek Instruction

You’ve made drawing a habit, congratulations! You’ve probably learned heaps already; it’s natural to work out techniques as you go. But deducing art wisdom from scratch isn’t super efficient. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when you can learn so much from others.

You can do a paid course (great way to meet people), but you don’t have to. All the information’s free on the internet! Teachers will cover the same things in different ways or from different perspectives. There’s no exclusive knowledge; the more you study, the more overlap you’ll notice. It all comes together for a more complete understanding of fundamental concepts.

Here’s some of my favourite resources (currently all available free online)(except the Winslow one which was taken down, boo):

  r/artfundamentals, ie. drawabox.com . A great starter course on how to hold a pen, draw lines, build forms and so on. You can follow structured lessons or just practice whatever you need to.

How to Draw: Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments from Your Imagination, by Scott Robertson. This book’s the gold standard on perspective and great for technical thinkers. It gets VERY advanced but there’s basic stuff to learn from as well. If the textbook intimidates you, try this excellent video playlist by Dan Beardshaw. He walks you through the same concepts in a simple approachable manner. Vital information if you want your work to look 3D.

anything by Andrew Loomis. He’s an icon for a reason; the Loomis head is a standard art tool to this day. I also enjoy the anachronistic career advice (“all advertisers will pay for a well-drawn head” or whatever it was). Here’s the ones I’ve read and enjoyed:

Fun with a Pencil

Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth

Drawing The Head and Hands

Creative Illustration (my current fave, great for composition)

Classic Human Anatomy in Motion, by Valerie L. Winslow. Hot take – people who say “learn anatomy” to beginners are idiots. SO MANY fundamentals come before anatomy if you wanna draw good-looking characters. You’ll get better results studying proportion, form, gesture, shapes and composition first. But if/when you want to learn bones and muscles, this is the book for you! It’s probably overkill, but I loved the breakdown of facial muscles and how they create expression. Top-tier reaction image material.

Proko!! Fabulous Youtube channel. Not only is Stan a great teacher, he invites on other artists too. Just go to his search bar and plug in a keyword; you’ll always find something helpful. I recommend his channel if you want to draw humans (loads of gesture, forms, proportion, anatomy etc.), but there’s a video or two on everything. Some of my other favourite videos:

Mind-Blowing Realistic Shading Tricks. Simple effective intro to light and shadow, I still go back and learn from it.

How to Draw Dynamic Shapes – FORCE Series Part 3. So compelling I bought the book afterwards. Blew my mind, instantly improved all my shapes and in turn my composition and gesture.

Painting Skin Tones and How Light Affects Color. Marco Bucci’s a genius with colours, he explains value and saturation in such fascinating ways.

Digital Shape Carving with Scott Flanders – good companion to the shading video above, teaches dramatic silhouettes and cel-shading within a really interesting workflow.

Google. Any question. Throw it in. Someone’s made a video or reddit post about it. You’d be surprised! I swear, the number of times I’ve typed “composition tips” or “digital watercolour clip studio paint” or “how draw horse head”.

Remember, take it easy. Don’t burn yourself out. Back off if you feel the tears creeping in. Study should supplement your drawings, not replace them. If in doubt, revert to step 2 – “bad” art is better than no art.

4– Study Life

If you did step 3 you’re way ahead of me on this one. USE REFERENCES. Draw things from photos (or real life if possible). Fill your brain with visual information. Here’s a thread I made for sharing references of humans.

What if you prefer to draw from imagination? That’s fine – try a hybrid approach. Doodle whatever comes to you, then look up references and try again. For example I’ll doodle a bear, then draw from photos of bears, then doodle new bears using the things I learned. It’s fun and also a good way to test your knowledge. You may also enjoy combining different references; eg drawing animal fusions, combining poses with an outfits etc. It gets easier to do the more you practice.

Between art pieces I keep a balance between drawing from imagination, drawing from reference, following art lessons, and studying other artists. Speaking of which –

5 – Study Art

Ever heard “Don’t draw anime until you’ve learned anatomy?” or “Learn the rules before you break them?” I strongly disagree with both of those statements. Fundamentals are great but there’s never a point you stop learning them, and studying life won’t teach you how to stylise. That’s why you also need to learn from your favourite artworks. This gets easier/more efficient as you build your broader art skills, but you can learn styles at any point of your art journey (see – step 2). In fact, it makes study more enjoyable, since stylised art can look better and feel more “you”. You already know what you want to create– why not start now?

Let’s take anime as an example. That’s a huge genre with loads of variation. So, what’s your personal taste? Round and cute, or sharp and serious? Choose your favourite shows and study how they do it. Observe their lines, shapes and proportions. Then try it yourself. Make fanart. Not only is replication good art practice in general, it’ll teach you a bunch of new tricks. For original work, pull from loads of sources, the more diverse the better. Work in your love for Silver Age comics or medieval tapestries or German expressionism. The more places you learn from, the more unique and personal your style will be. Your art becomes a visual scrapbook of all the artists you love. I think that’s beautiful. <3

 6 – Find Community

Art friends! Best thing ever. You can bond over your shared obsession, commiserate over tough parts, and learn about art together. A lot of my drawings are in-jokes exchanged with my BFF. I’ve known them from childhood (lucky) but apparently adults can make friends too. Fandom spaces are great for this; many Discord channels have a dedicated artists’ zone. You can also try r/sketchdaily or challenges like Mermay/Inktober if you want a sense of community.

If you don’t have art friends (yet), that’s OK; parasocial works too! I like watching “Draw With Me” content on Youtube. It’s great to put on while you’re creating, especially when you don’t have the energy for something educational. Not only is it inspiring, you can learn tips and tricks along the way. And of course, you can never go wrong with Bob Ross.

 7 – Be Interesting

The very first step was to manage your health. In a way, we’ve looped back to the beginning.  Because no matter what you do, art begins and ends with who you are. You can practice fundamentals 12 hours a day but if you never live your life, you’ll never make interesting art. No one cares for artists whose only character trait is how hard they grind. So go be the most vibrant version of yourself. Take up weird hobbies. Make weird friends. Seek new experiences. Question the beliefs you grew up with. Read books for a while instead of drawing. Develop your principles. Embrace what makes you different. Survive the worst year of your life somehow. Learn what makes you thrive. Your art won’t be for everyone. But it WILL mean the world to some. And to me, that’s the whole point of doing this. Good luck, fellow artist. The world is your adventure yet to come. I believe in you. <3

[the1weepinqguitar]

tally hall sketches and other assorted doodles

Here ya go guys! I also have improvement pics from last year! Almost two years in the Tally Hall fandom! Woohoo! My Marvin's CD is gonna hate me even more after all of this

A Ross sketch! I'm super proud of how it turned out! Below is a close-up!

The aforementioned close-up, showing the shading on his face and the folds of his sleeve!

Zubin! I love the side profile, and I used his picture in the MMMM booklet as a reference! Close up below, so you can see some of the more fine details/shading

the close-up!

Here's Andrew! His hair is kinda hard to not fluff-ify, but I dealt with it anyways and tried my best to keep it close to reality. Obligatory close(r)-up below.

next will be some other random stuff, mostly tally hall, but some of it is oc art

drew this drawing of Ross last September. Not amazing but very stylized, which I love/hate. the tag on the bottom left reads, "he's rather disheveled but this is the best I could do back then"

wtf is he doing? He in an action movie or something? btw this was last-year's andrew. very stylized. i hate it.

decided not to include the other last-year Rob cause i hate it deeply. this one's much better. very fluffy. i dont like the collar tho

just me poking fun at my horrendous attempts at stylizing joe. im not gonna draw him as much as the others btw.

This is from an au created by @bonkdd, but i did rob and andrew's designs bc i never saw his designs for them. i also added a lot of lore and plot stuff because i really liked the concept. in simple terms the tallies are robots that were abandoned by Marvin after he passed away so now they're falling apart n stuff without him to care for them (that's why rob hides his face). Anyways, huge thanks to Bonk for the original idea! They're a great artist, you should go check them out!

Edith, drawn/sketched with a ballpoint pen.

Another one. I like this one better, but I spent two days on this one versus a half on hour on the other so i guess it makes sense

Adrian and Reuben (OCs), done in a college-ruled notebook bc i ran out of pages in my sketchbook. next is a close-up so you can see more shading.

probably my favorite gay couple i've ever written ngl

Ace again, but wearing Reuben's favorite sweater.

Looking mighty fine!

He's lookin' tough, he's got the stuff, he's got the spiffy shades... (/lyric)

pose practice

Boll weevil, why don't you get out of your home? (/lyric)

old art jumpscare - i actually kinda like this one, might redraw it. Below is the full thing

why is zubes staring like that??? its creepy

here's another. i don't know why it's sideways. andrew is scared of joe btw, this isn't the entire drawing

Did an embossing peice. It's the Mojo Chessmaster! I tried by best to make it as detailed as possible, and I think I did pretty alright. The neck was probably the worst part to do. Below are close-ups

the head of the guitar was a pain in the ass.

This part was also pretty tricky but it came out okay. the dials at the bottom are raised as much as I could get them to go, so I'm not worried about them. My issue here was the pickups.

I also added Flansburgh's little signature guy but i drew his hair because why not? Anyways this piece took me a good hour or so to finish, I think it'll fetch a good grade (it was for my metal design class).

I'll add a sketch I just did as a bonus:

it's from a tally hall fanfic/au i made back in may after my grandpa passed away. It was a great stress-reliever and I still really like how it turned out. It's about cryptids and monsters and shit. I'll post a summary on a different post because this one was mostly for the drawings. I might post a few installments of it on my ao3. It could be a weekly thing since i usually have time on fridays to write.

Once again, a close-up is available below.

I put literal hours of research on cryptids and of the area (ann harbor, MI) while writing this fic. It was fun though, and it helped me a lot. Feel free to ask me anything about the plot or world-building !

[solradguy]

How do i find the motivation to practice art? I have so many shitposts that’ll never come to fruition because my skills plateaued ):

No one else is going to draw my ideas and I'm too broke to pay someone else to do it for me. For better or worse, I seem to approach a lot of things from a "gotta do everything myself around here" angle haha

Honestly—and I won't lie to you—doing art studies is a real pain in the ass, I hate doing them. I never do them unless I've got major art block, and even then I still hate doing them, but it's like taking medicine and I know doing them will make me better. Every art teacher I've ever had's grilled me about this, "solradguy, you need to do 15 studies before the end of the week to get a full grade this quarter." Blah blah blah.

I guess for some people doing studies could be fun, not having to think about pose or composition, whatever, just putting lines down on paper and focus on your reference. One time, when I was still in college, I had to do a certain amount of studies in charcoal so I booted up Red Dead Redemption and drew landscapes or objects from it that I kinda liked. It was enough. I told my professor it was from my grandma's farm hehe

Art memes can be a good way to practice too, especially those ones about drawing in different styles or drawing a character in different outfits. They combine fun with tricking you into drawing things you might not normally draw. Emulating different art styles is the only art study method that doesn't make me want to fall asleep. Don't forget they're just art games though, and especially don't forget:

👉If You Already Feel Burnt Out Don't Feel Compelled To Complete Every Art Meme You Start👈

As you get better at art, you start noticing improvements less and less because they become more subtle. When you're really new to art, figuring out stuff like basic anatomy or shading is REALLY obvious because they're foundational parts of art. Hang on to your really old stuff and look at it every now and then and I guarantee you'll have improved way more than you thought you had.

I get the impression you've probably been at art for a while now, and I don't want to come across as patronizing, but sometimes refreshing the basics can help overcome a plateau too. Drawabox is usually what I recommend to people just getting into art, I really like their approach. Here's a link to their introduction lesson: drawabox.com/lesson/0 And here's one that skips to the actual art stuff: drawabox.com/lesson/1

While it's probably beneficial to actually do the exercises in the lessons, just skimming through reading them can be good too.

Something I've noticed a lot of my artists friends (and artists online) do is try to make every single drawing a finished piece, and I'm like "damn, no wonder art feels like such a chore." My sketchbook is 99% scribbles done in pen:

I use Pentel RSVP fine point ballpoint pens so if I make a mistake I'm forced to deal with it. Doing these rough sketches before starting a bigger piece is something I recommend with my entire heart. Just get a pack of shitty $0.99 pens and doodle like it's high school math class. I like the cheap pens because you can get faint lines drawing lightly and can coax them into darker lines with a bit more pressure (and if you lose/break one it's no big deal).

The best way to get better at art is to keep putting lines on paper. Even if it's just silly pen doodles, you're still improving coordination/pen control, improving construction of basic shapes, exploring concepts, and thinking about art, which will lead to more new ideas and further inspiration.

Sorry this is long and meandering haha Hopefully something here helps at least a tiny bit.

[meruz]

Aforementioned long ask post please excuse me while i try to figure out tumblr's new text editor. I’ll get into the art meme questions first and then the rest at the end.

Ok first of all thank you all for sending in questions! Giving me an excuse to talk hehe. I’ll address these in number order. Here’s a link to the ask meme for reference but also I’ll restate the question for ease of reading.

1. When did you get into art?

Super cliche answer but I don’t remember a time where I WASN’T the weird art kid! I started keeping a dedicated sketchbook when I was about 12? But here’s a page from my kindergarten journal about what I want to be when I grow up.

2. What art-related sites have you ever signed up for? 

LOL this is a weird question. Not sure why so many people want to know. Anyways I definitely had a dA. more than one dA account. I used to browse oekakis when I was a kid but I think I was only signed up to some small ones that internet friends owned. What else...? Mangabullet,Tegakie, Paintberri, iscribble back when that was a thing, instagram if that COUNTs, I used to post art on livejournal and dreamwidth too. Patreon, I guess. Gumroad, inprnt, bigcartel, storenvy all for selling stuff.

In terms of resources.. I have a schoolism account that I’m sharing with friends. Used to take classes on coursera for free. I signed up to textures.com for work recently haha. I can’t remember if I ever had an account on posemaniacs. Did they have accounts...? I definitely used to visit all the time.

3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand.

Alright here’s me actually logging into my old deviantart account. These are from September 2008 So I was 13 years old. I don’t have a deviantart account from before then because 13 was the required age for having an account and I didn’t want to lie about my age because I wanted people to be impressed by how young yet clearly incredible at art I was LOL.

4. What defines your artistic style?

You guys are probably more equipped to answer this than me but uh... I wanna say... Focus on colors. And... a slightly heavy hand? Like confident... not always well-considered mark making HAH...

Also I think I have a pretty healthy mix of american comics/manga influences. I feel like people who are into american comics always think my art is too manga and people who are into anime/manga always think my art is too american. And I’m taking that as a good sign.

5. Do you practice other styles/have you tried other styles in the past?

I like to think I switch it up a bunch! I mean, these are pretty different, right?

I think I’ve mentioned this before but one thing I really took away from art school is that, for an illustrator at least, art style shouldn’t be consistent. Your greatest weapon is changing the aspects of your style based on the task, the emotions and message you want to illustrate etc. So depending on the project I’m working on, the fandom I’m drawing for, whether I want something to be funny or serious or dramatic, I’ll change things about my style all the time.

One thing I don’t rly post on here is really tight polished work and that’s because I do that for my day job haha. If you’re not paying me... I’m probably not gonna color in the lines.

6. What levels of artistic education have you had?

I have a whole ass diploma LOL. Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. from the Rhode Island School of Design. And I had a great college experience tbh. Besides the student loans. If any of you guys are thinking about art school feel free to e-mail or message me questions or concerns, I’ll be happy to help. Be as honest as I can be.

7. Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site.

heres the wandavision kids. Uhh what else do I have...I feel like I’m rummaging for loose change here...

assorted valentines prep doodles

8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Well, obviously this is gonna change all the time and generally it’s gonna be my most recent piece LOL. So yeah, why the hell not. I’ll say it’s this one. I have a pretty short memory which I count as a blessing for an artist. I don’t dwell that long on older work and it keeps me moving forward.

10. What do you like most about your art?

I like that it’s something that only I would make! I had this thought fairly recently and I wrote it down in my sketchbook, it’s pretty cheesy and rambling but it felt revolutionary at the time:

So yeah. I like my art best when it’s the most me and for me. And I like it least when it feels like I’m just making something for social media or for other people’s expectations or whatever.

14. What do you like drawing the most?

Kids in baggy clothing are like my go-to LOL idk if that’s obvious. but also I like being challenged so lately I’ve really loved drawing multi-character compositions, environments, weird angles, etc.

oh i LOVE drawing the underside of shoes lol. And bandages. People that are kinda beat up.. I think it comes from getting a bunch of cuts all the time. I’m always patching myself up and I want to patch characters up too.

15. What do you like drawing the least?

mmm I try to find something to like in every drawing but lets see... I don’t like doing commissions of people’s dogs. Just because it’s normally like... a family friend and my mom volunteered me without my consent and I don’t even really know what they’re expecting me to draw and I don’t even get to meet the dog. Also I’m not that great at dog anatomy. Trying to learn though.

18. What is your purpose for drawing?

This could have a million answers! Uhhh to GIT GOOD??? But also to express myself... and also to make money... I mean it depends on what the drawing IS. I draw fanart mostly to connect to people in the fandom so if you ever see me drawing fanart please take it as like an open invitation to talk to me about the character haha. 

20. How would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc.)

Good!!! I have a lot of self-confidence primarily born out of ignorance and a short attention span. If I don’t think too hard about how many other artists are mindblowingly unfathombly good... its easy to think I’m good too! LOL

In all seriousness though, I think the opinion a person has of their art is like a crazy balancing act, right? Like you have to think you suck enough to want to get better but also you have to think you’re good enough to not want to give up. I think we’re all walking that line, I know I am! But also I’m a glass half-full type of person so. Most of the time I feel good about it.

22. List at least one of your “artspirations.”

This is a good question because I’ve been trying and failing to put together one of those “influence map” memes for like a full month now. What’s giving me a hard time is I feel like none of these are actually really obvious “““influences”““ in my art? Like it’s hard to see a lot of them in the work I make...? But idk maybe you guys’ll see what I can’t.

And these are just a couple! God there’s so many more. I could talk about other artists for ages, from all different genres of art. Daumier, Rockwell like every illustrator out there, Dana Gibson, Alex Toth, Hiroshi Yoshida, a lot of the Brandywine School. Lots of current working artists too, Karl Kerschl, frikkin Masashi Kishimoto lol, Jake Wyatt, Richie Pope, Edouard Caplain, Matt Cook, Sachin Teng, - lots of big internet artists, Sophie Li, Freddy Carrasco, Milliofish, Angela Sung... like all my friends from art school too. I could just keep going but I’ll stop for now lol.

24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolour sprite comics, tracing art, etc.)

I mean if that’s how we’re defining shameful?? sure LOL. It’s not sprite comics but I used to do pokemon sprite recolors all the time. And I used to trace manga panels and color them... Granted this was all when I was like under 12 yrs old so it’s not even embarrassing. Can you really call it shameful when a 7 year old wets the bed or whatever? Not really. In fact some of these are cool as fuck. Look

25. Draw a picture!

Man I’m so tired now but here.

I used to get a lot of compliments for drawing people smiling lol but I don’t think I’ve drawn a lot of smiling lately.. here’s proof I’ve still got it.

OK MEME DONE. onto the rest.

I read this ask first thing when i opened my computer in the morning and it made me really emotional.. I’m so glad my sketches could help you!!

I think a lot of artists on social media talk about the struggle of making art but imo not enough people talk about the joy! Like I know it’s corny but. I really meant what I said at the beginning of that sketchbook about re-contextualizing art around process and progress > product and perfection. I think its super important..! The strength of messy, unfinished, and energetic art! For the feeling of it, for the love it!

That's crazy!!! I hope you like 'em. The whole line of x-books is really good rn imo.

Hi! I totally have the answer for digital stuff on my faq lol. But in terms of drawing on paper.. it varies! I tend to use sketchbooking and any on-paper doodling I do as a way to loosen up/warm-up or experiment. But right now my go-to aresenal is:

from top > bottom

- kuretake no.55 doublesided brush pen

- tombow fudenosuke

- muji 0.38 ballpoint

- medium size poscas

- grey tombow double brush pens

- good ol bic mechanical pencil

not EXACTly sure which inking you referring to from my sketchbook but if I had to take a guess it'd probably be the kuretake no55. That's been my main inker, lately. Great for sketching with the thin end too.

You can print out and eat my art if you like. Just please don't mass produce or re-sell. <3

Thanks! I've come to accept that my art is always gonna be sort of gestural and painty naturally. It's getting it to tighten up enough to be legible that's hard lol...

uh yeah lol I agree actually. I think yolei is great.

I assume these asks are related? LOL

1) Yeah totally true. I love David.

2) I don’t take requests, sorry! But if you want to commission me to draw Legion i would be MORE than happy to. Just e-mail me at isellhotdogs@gmail.com.

<33333333333333333333333333

[decaffeinatedartisthug]

How to train your hand

Sooo... I’m not dead, yay!!(●'◡'●)

I’m sorry for not being “present” these weeks but school sucks and I had tons of assignments to do... 

Anyways! What I noticed as soon as I rose from the dead, was a reblog of one of my previous posts of someone saying how difficult and overwhelming it is to draw digitally when you are so accostumed to drawing in traditional. This got me thinking that a lot of baby artists tend to have the same problems, even when they start to draw normally. So, I wanted to give some tips on how to train your hand to draw in different situations and materials! 

1. Sketchbooks (ONLY OF TRADITIONAL ARTISTS): okay, let me get this straight: your sketchbook is your training ground. This means, it has to be comfortable to draw into, but it must also be suitable for your artistic enhancement! So, choose a sketchbook that has papers made with materials that you are comfortable drawing on. It can be in spiral-form or bound (like, book-form), it doesn’t matter, it has to be comfortable for you. Here’s a tip: do not draw on ruled paper when you are starting to draw! Lined paper does not help your spatial reference or your anatomic study. Instead, you can use blank (even the printer ones!), dotted or squared (even if I don’t really like them either, because they make your drawing process a LOT more difficult) papers.

2. Ballpoint pen or pencil? (ONLY FOR TRADIOTIONAL ARTISTS) so, the eternal dilemma: is it better to use ballpoint pen or the normal pencil? for me, both are really good drawing materials. From my point of view, the ballpoint pen allows you to train your hand AND your brain without even realizing. In fact the ballpoint pen doesn’t allow you to erase, so you train yourself to fix errors without erasing and be more precise when you are drawing. On the other hand, the pencil enables you to work on your skills without the fear of making mistakes. So, what I suggest, is an healthy use of both so that you can use pencils to make precise works and ballpoint pens to doodle on your sketchbook.

3. Be constant (DIGITAL/TRADITIONAL ARTISTS): repeat after me: training is gaining! This means that through constant exercising you will be able to impove in your art very fast! Think of your artistic skills as if they were a muscle such as the ones you use to bike. If you learn how to bike but don’t exercise yourself for a long period of time, you will always know the theory and the base concepts, but your muscles won’t support the activity as long as they would if you did it every day! The same concept can be seen in the artistic world, but in this case the muscle is your brain! If you train your bain to do some gesture or draw in some specific way every day at leat for 10 or 15 minutes, you will be able to improve in your art in a very short period of time!

4. This also means: Do not rush! (DIGITAL/TRADITIONAL ARTISTS): Improvement will be seen, but you have to be patient and give you and your hand some time. Great artists are not the ones that improve faster, but the ones that have strong bases. There is no simple way, no tutorial that will help you become Leonardo Da Vinci in two days. My art journey is still on process, as the one of everybody, and to arrive to the point I am here now, I had to train myself for eight years.😊💕

[too-attached-to-fiction]

Love Illustrated | Steve Rogers

Masterlist here

Word count: 2447

Requested: no 

Prompt: I doodle on napkins between orders and i leave them for every regular that comes in and one day you leave a drawing for me 

a/n: not doing any sequels for this. I just wanted some fluffy Steve Rogers content.

REQUESTS ARE OPEN, JUST SLOW!

~~~

Your best friend picked up another doodle you had left on the counter, observing it carefully. Above the hum of the espresso machine, he called out to you. 

“Have you ever considered doing this as a job?” He held up the drawing you had made of them earlier in the morning, just after you had opened up the cafe. “You’re better at this than talking to people.” 

You rolled your eyes, glaring at him. “That’s what I’m going to college for, dumbass.” You said.

Lucky Cafe was a small building, just a few blocks from Stark Tower and right next to a subway entrance. Taylor, your best friend, had opened up the shop the minute he was out of college. You, on the other hand, had been working in the shop since high school, and had started taking community classes a year ago. Due to your anxiety, you found it easier to hide behind the cash register and make whatever low-fat soy chai was ordered. 

“Well, Edith is starting to move toward the counter. Better start on that London Fog,” Taylor said, taking his rightful place at the cash register. 

“On it.” You mumbled, just as the old woman reached the counter. You quickly grabbed the milk to start steaming it and a teal mug from the shelf above you.

“Hi Edith, London Fog?” Taylor asked in his cheerful, my-smile-is-always-this-wide tone. 

“As always.” Edith said, making amicable chit-chat with Taylor. You smirked to yourself. Kiss up. 

As you waited for the milk and water to heat up, you grabbed a pen and started doodling on a spare post-it note. Today, Edith wore a purple sweater, something you’d seen her knitting for the past few weeks. 

You were finally satisfied with the doodle when the water and milk were ready, and once everything was assembled, you took the mug and the post-it to her. She beamed up at you when she saw the small drawing. 

“It’s beautiful, (Y/N).” You smiled back shyly before walking back to the other side of the counter. 

Just as you returned, Taylor’s eyes widened as he looked through the glass doors. “Holy shit.” He mumbled. “New customer, (Y/N)!” He tugged on your apron, and you looked up. Holy shit was right. There was a blonde man coming closer to the doors of your cafe, wearing a brown leather jacket and jeans. 

“He’s a fucking Adonis.” You mumbled, barely coherent. Still, you rolled your eyes. “We get them all the time. Stop ogling him and get ready to have a human conversation.” You sat on your stool, trying to figure out what to draw next. 

The bell over the front door rang, but you didn’t bother to look up. You could still feel Taylor’s nervous energy practically radiating from him. 

“Hi, welcome to Lucky Cafe! What can I get you today?” 

“Just a black coffee.” 

“For here, or to go?” 

“Here, please.”  The man said, and you glanced at the empty coffee pot. 

“We’ll bring that out for you in a few minutes.” Taylor said, knowing exactly what you were thinking. 

As soon as the man left the counter to find a seat, you leapt up, starting a new pot of coffee. While you waited for it to filter, your hands found the pen and post-it, and you sketched a basic outline of the man. 

“Looks more rough than usual.” Taylor observed, making you jump. You swatted his shoulder gently. 

“Shut up.” You shot back, too lazy to think of a proper insult. Taylor only laughed, and the front door rang again. 

The machine beeped, and you carefully poured the coffee into a mug, grabbed the light blue post-it and a small plate. You tucked the post-it underneath the mug and plate in hand before walking out and delivering the drink. 

“One black coffee.” You said, the two of you exchanging polite smiles. “If you need anything else, we’ll be at the counter.” You ducked your head as you walked off, palming the back of your neck. 

Anyone who wasn’t Taylor made you nervous. You were surprised you had been able to get those two sentences out to this new customer. Normally, you could barely utter one. 

Your shoulders instantly relaxed as you got behind the counter again, and carefully, you eyed the stranger as he found your drawing of him. He smiled at it, folding and tucking it in his pocket before he opened the sketchbook he had brought with him. 

Steve knew you were watching him. He’d seen the way you and Taylor had looked at him from across the street. Still, not wanting to embarrass you, he chose to brush that off. 

The drawing you had given him was nothing short of a normal sketch - and yet, it was undeniably him. You had gotten his features down perfectly within a few strokes of your ballpoint pen. 

This continued on for a week or so, with Steve coming into Lucky Cafe and receiving a sketch of himself every day. He kept all of them in his nightstand, safely tucked away from Tony and the rest of the team. 

By now, he had worked up the courage to say something. He knew you were painfully shy, because you never stood behind the register. You were always behind the espresso machine. 

So if he couldn’t talk to you at the counter, he’d have to figure out how to communicate with you. 

He started bringing his own post-it notes. He wondered how you made sketches so effortlessly in between customers, when he disliked everything he drew for you. 

It took another week for him to be happy with his own sketch of you. He had been sitting near the take out counter, where you normally sat on your stool while you doodled. Without thinking too much about it, he drew you - your hair tied up, the black apron over your (F/C) t-shirt. When he left, the post-it note stayed where he had been sitting. 

You made quick work to pick up the empty cup and the tip he’d left, but underneath it all was his drawing for you. You stared at it, wondering how he’d known all this time that you had been sketching him. 

Just below the drawing, he’d scribbled out his name and number. 

Steve Rogers, you thought, you’re going to be the death of me. 

~~~

For the next few days, you didn’t see him. Taylor and Lyra, the other part-timer, had both promised you that they’d tell you if he came in. By the time he came back, he had almost left your mind completely. 

Almost. 

When he entered the coffee shop for the first time in days, you gave him a small wave from behind the espresso machine. He grinned and waved back after ordering his usual. 

You were up in a flash, bouncing behind the counter as you waited for the new pot of coffee to finish. Lyra smirked at you. 

“Ready to talk?” She teased, and your face went hot. “Relax, I’m just teasing you.” 

Steve sat in his usual spot, in the corner of the cafe. You brought the steaming mug over with the post-it tucked into your apron. 

“Thank you, for the drawing. That was really nice.” You said quietly, bringing out today’s drawing. 

“I figured I should return the favor. What’s your name?” 

You pointed to your name badge with a raised eyebrow. “(Y/N).”

“When do you get a break?” 

Twenty minutes later, you were walking along Steve through the crowded streets of New York City. Summer was dying down, and the leaves had started to turn color everywhere. “So, Steve, what do you do?” 

“I work for the government.” Steve said carefully, trying not to act suspicious. “Is the coffee shop a full time gig?” 

“I’m a full time student at CCNY. The cafe just pays the bills.” You adjusted the bag on your shoulder. “I’m actually studying to be an animator. Well, trying to, anyways.” 

“How long have you been drawing?” 

“Longer than I can remember.” You replied, a soft smile gracing your features. 

Steve listened as you walked, your quiet voice flowing nervously. It had been a long time since you went out with anyone that wasn’t Tyler. 

Eventually, you made him talk about his past. He picked bits and pieces from his childhood carefully, which made you all the more curious. 

When you reached the community college, you looked at Steve. “Thank you for walking me. I’ll, um, I’ll text you. I-if that’s okay.” Your fingers unconsciously fiddled with the hem of your sweater. 

“Have a good class.” He said, raising a hand in greeting before going into the crowd of New Yorkers and students leaving CCNY. 

A month passed, with Steve walking you to class after your shift most days. Sometimes, he didn’t come into the shop for no more than a week. Taylor and Lyra did their best to distract you during those times, knowing that he brightened your day every time he walked in. 

“Are you free on Thursday night?” Steve asked one day as you served him his coffee. You stuck the post-it on the table, avoiding his eyes. 

“I think so. Even if I was scheduled for work, Taylor would probably make sure I’m free.” Your face warmed. “What do you have in mind?” 

“I wanted to take you out to dinner. A date, if you will.” 

Your eyes met his hopeful ones. You couldn’t help but nod, too speechless. In no universe did you ever think that you’d be going out with Steve Rogers. 

“Is that a yes?” 

You nodded again. “Um, I-I’ll t-text you my address.” 

He watched as you rushed off, amused as you practically raced behind the counter and whispered something into Taylor’s ear. His smile only grew as Taylor high-fived and hugged you tightly. 

“I’m so happy for you.” Taylor mumbled as he hugged you. “God, that took way too long.” 

~~~

That Thursday evening, Steve appeared at your apartment door, with a small bouquet in hand. You smiled, promising come back after you had placed the flowers in a vase. 

Three subway rides later, the two of you were sitting in a tiny Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. The waitstaff seemed to know Steve well, offering you warm smiles and earnestly telling you only good things. 

“Do you come here often?” You said after you’d ordered. 

“Enough.” Steve laughed. “My coworkers and I helped them out of a tough spot a year or two ago.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, we helped a lot of places rebuild after the whole alien thing.” You nodded. The invasion of 2012 was a huge deal in New York. You remembered ushering at least twenty people into Lucky’s basement, where you all crouched around the crank radio. Taylor was somewhat of a survivalist, and for once, you were glad that he was over-prepared. 

“That’s incredible.” 

Another two months passed, with Steve going away more and more often. Even though you missed him, you got caught up in work and school often, distracting yourself. You passed your winter finals with ease, and found refuge in Lucky Cafe. If Taylor and Lyra noticed Steve hadn’t been around, they didn’t say a word. 

Your phone buzzed as you were walking home from work. You stopped on the sidewalk only to find Steve’s name on your phone screen. 

Steve

3:45 PM

Can you come over? 

3:45 PM 

Yeah, of course. 

In your two months of dating, you’d only been to Steve’s apartment once or twice, and both visits had been extremely short. He was generally private about his work, and there was a part of you that always felt like he was holding his breath around you. 

Still, you navigated through the streets of New York with ease, as you had done for years, and appeared at Steve’s doorstep. 

He greeted you with a warm hug that made you practically melt. When he was away, there were usually a few texts back and forth, but no calls. Both of you avoided calls like it was the plague. 

“Is there something wrong?” You asked when he finally let go of you, ushering you inside. “Or am I just overthinking everything?” 

“I have something to tell you.” You raised an eyebrow as he sat across from you in the small living area. “We’ve been invited to Tony Stark’s annual Christmas gala.” 

“O...kay?” You looked at him in confusion. “And that’s a problem because…” 

“Promise me you won’t freak out or tell anybody what I’m about to tell you.” 

“I won’t!” 

Steve gave you a meaningful look. “I’m Captain America. I’m the leader of the Avengers.” 

You opened your mouth, at a loss for words. “Steve-” 

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but Stark’s my teammate and he’ll probably make some dumb jokes at the gala and I wanted to tell you before he beat me to the punch.” Steve rushed. “They know about you. Do you… do you want to come with me to the gala? As a date?” 

“Um… can I think about it?” You asked weakly, trying to wrap your head around the news. Looking back, it made sense. Steve was certainly built to be Captain America, and his “work trips” were probably missions for the Avengers. 

A grim look crossed his face. “Yeah, of course.” 

As soon as you stepped out into the cold, you bit your lip. You knew that you should have said yes. That’s what you wanted to say when he had first told you, but all of the new information made your head spin. What if he put himself in danger in the next mission and got himself killed? 

Even with this new information, he was still Steve. Steve, the guy who always ordered black coffee and left drawings as tips. Steve, who made you feel less invisible and didn’t care about your anxiety. 

When Steve walked in the next morning, you perked up as usual. But this time, instead of your usual post-it note, you brought over a larger piece of paper. You shyly presented it to him. 

“I, um, made this. For you.” He opened the folded paper to find a picture of himself, split down the middle. Half of him was him in his civilian wear; the other half was him in the suit, complete with the helmet. 

Down in the corner, in small writing, you had written the following: The world may know you as Captain America, but I know you as Steve Rogers.

“I love it.” 

“Is it too late to RSVP for that gala?” He grinned, leaning up to kiss you. 

“Not at all.” 

[mcrmadness]

A Masterpost: ALL MY OLD die ärzte (aka Bela&Farin) COMICS (from 2010-2011)

I’ve lately been talking about my art, especially comics, here a lot but I have never posted my OLD old dä comics here! That’s about to change now. The old ones happened in 2010-2011 when I was 19-20 years old, so they are a bit cringy now :D The scans are my old ones so don’t mind about cat hair or something like that in some of the scans. And I know: my hand writing hasn’t really changed in the past 10-15 years at all :DD

And a slash warning (do I really need that with this fandom tho..?) because I used to draw just very fluffy Bela/Farin comics and they barely have any good plots even. There’s just 4 overall in this post and they all are quite short. But at least for me it’s fun to see how far I have come and how I’ve gotten better at drawing!

Anyway, without further ado, this is where it all started:

Bela&Farin - “Du willst mich küssen”

Simply the idea came from the fact I noticed that on the “Du willst mich küssen” single there’s only one additional song: “Die Antwort bist du”, and that one out of all the potential other songs from the studio album. (Now I’m wondering if I should try to redraw this some day to see my progress? :DD)

The rest under the cut because they get very cringy but if you want to read B/F fluff comics and facepalm at my idiotic humour, go ahead and click the read more link.

Bela&Farin - Bela will ein Baby

(eng. Bela wants to have a baby)

This one was the first I did in German and I traumatized myself. I had just started learning German and totally failed everything and an (old) online friend, native German, wrote something that indicated laughing and I felt so insecure about my German after that that even today I have a fear of saying/writing even simple German words in front of native Germans. She anyway “beta read” the plot and corrected every faulty phrase (aka every phrase) and this is what she suggested that I’d write, and that’s what I did.

The plot shortly: Bela just wants to have a baby but he wants it with Farin obviously, so Farin says they’re both men and can’t reproduce together but Bela found a solution: he found them a surrogate mother. Problem solved.

***

Bela&Farin - “Beer Belly”

Prepare yourself for a cringe overload :)) I’m so sorry that you have to suffer through this.

With this the idea came from the live videos I was watching back then - lots of live videos from 2007-2009 and I noticed that Bela just kept growing and losing his belly all the time. (OMG HELP I’m crying because “SQUEAK SQUEAK” XDDDDDD)

Also the ending is... I don’t know what is it. I guess I just wanted Rod ot make an appearance and didn’t come up anything better than this ::D My peak of humour is right there btw: anything that happens at the background. That shit just never gets old for me. So I find that still funny in this comic but I have no clue how a bass can be pregnant.

Also hey, I have started drawing shadows :DD

And yes, Bela actually did have a cow t-shirt like that in some of the videos and I just had to draw it! And btw, the reason for the fluff is probably because the concerts where those videos were from? It was extremely slashy, Bela and Farin barely could keep their hands off of each other so you really can’t blame me for all this. The ship just sails itself.

***

Bela&Farin - “Zucker”

(eng. “Sugar” - this one was again in German because it wouldn’t work in English. This time I think I did all the language stuff myself but I can’t remember for sure so maybe I got help, maybe I didn’t... This is the last one of these old comics and my personal favorite. You can see that my style somehow went through some major changes but I don’t know what even happened there. I can’t remember.)

I can’t get over Farin’s hair in the last panel, I drew it so perfectly and I still don’t know how to recreate that lol. And now I’m losing it at that tiny “XD” in the grin panel because I found it so stupid looking - the first time I had even drawn a grin for him lmao. Also ignore Farin’s arm that has suddenly lost all its color. (Aka: someone forgot to color it.)

THE IDEA for this comic is simply in the name of brown sugar. At least in Finnish that is called as “fariinisokeri”, which always amuses me still after 12 years because I am a bit simple sometimes, and I figured that it can also be called “Farinzucker” in German so of course I needed to make a Bela/Farin comic about it.

The dialog for those who don’t speak German (too well) yet - Bela just goes to Farin to ask for “Farin sugar” and Farin first is like “nope” but then “jk” and they lived happily ever after. Or something.

***

BONUS:

Something I drew with a ballpoint pen once when I was visiting my aunt and cousin and was bored and doodled this. I like drawing repeated patterns like brick walls or apparently also flowers.

And I have no idea where did I draw this - maybe it was something to do with one course through the employment agency as I tend to doodle when in any kind of class. I feel like I had been watching “Die band, die sie Pferd nannten” prior to this, based on Bela’s looks.

And it was back in 2010, I didn’t have a smart phone yet so no internet to use for reference photos :D

***

So, back to the comics - I only made these 4 back then but before this I did draw other stuff and comics too. I drew several of them as horses when I still didn’t know how to draw humans, and I also have one of them as rats too. The rat one might work as a redrawn human comic, tho... Anyway, at some point I got annoyed because I didn’t like drawing them as horses or rats and wanted to invent a “human style” so then one night, this happened:

The texts are mainly just me chanting how I’m dying from laughter etc. That is actually what I do when I am very insecure of what I do and then I just start openly laughing at everything and myself, that way things don’t feel as bad failures than what they actually are :D (And yeah I know the article is wrong at some point, let’s just say I hadn’t memorized all the article stuff from German yet :D I don’t know if I had even started learning German yet at that point.)

But yeah, then I did find the style and these are the next sketches from my sketchbook:

The bottom left says “facial experessions” - and oh my god I was so damn cringe whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy---

but anyway, those were what I ended up with eventually and the rest is history. I think I’m still gonna make one post with stuff I drew in 2018 and that I haven’t posted here yet as there’s still a few of those, too.

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | Q&A w/ THEO ELLSWORTH (Missoula, MT)

From DIY comics, art zines, animations, drawings to hand drawn woodcuts, artist Theo Ellsworth has doodled his way from childhood and high school to galleries and museums all over the world. One look at his body of works, you’ll find yourself drawn into a detailed, imaginative, stream-of-consciousness narrative realm, where strange creatures, surreal beings, and dreamy landscapes flow and blend into one another, with no beginning or end. Not only one thing, Theo also is the house artist for the London based electronic record label, Astral Industries, creating art for bands like Flying Lotus, Ramona Falls, and Algecow. Learn more about Theo Ellsworth’s art and what his early artistic influences are, what materials he loves to work with, and what he has coming for the rest of 2017.

Photographs courtesy of the artist

Introduce yourself?  Hello, I'm Theo Ellsworth. I draw a lot. Pretty much whenever I can. I live in Missoula, Montana.

My drawings take many forms: I make hand drawn woodcut art for galleries and museums, I also make comics and art zines. Sometimes I do large scale drawings on walls. I do illustration work of all kinds. I'm the house artist for the London based electronic record label, Astral Industries. I've also made album art for Flying Lotus, Ramona Falls, Skeleton Farm, and Algecow. I've been dabbling in animation and I'm currently excited to be learning woodblock printing. My work's been featured in Best American Comics, Cicada Magazine, The Treasury of Mini Comics, Smoke Signal, The Graphic Canon, and the upcoming book, America 2020.

When did you first get into drawing?  Was it a hobby turned career or something you knew from the start? I've loved drawing since I was a kid, but it was in high school that it really became an essential part of me. I started out just doodling a lot with straight sharpie on whatever piece of paper I had on hand. Something about just letting my hand run free to follow whatever shapes it wanted to make, really helped me relax my brain in this weird new way. It was never an absent minded kind of thing. It never felt I was spacing out. It felt more like the act of drawing helped me carve out a personal thinking space where I could concentrate and function more naturally. I got sent to the principal's office for drawing in class all the time in high school and I used to get bad grades in my high school art classes for not following the assignments correctly. Now, I feel lucky to be making a living making art. If I don't draw regularly, I get grumpy and hard to be around. Something about making art seems to keep me feeling intact and able to face the world.

Who were some of your early artistic influences? Reading comics and children’s books as a kid really had an impact on me. I always knew I wanted to make narrative work with my art.  When I discovered the world of self publishing, zines, and mini comics  at the Small Press Expo in San Francisco back in 2003, I realised that I could do it all myself. The first zine I ever printed was a series of drawings on receipts. I started a photocopied comics series called Capacity, which was eventually collected into a 335 page book published by the Brooklyn based small press, Secret Acres. My newest published book is a 128 page, wordless psychedelic horror comic called An Exorcism, published by the excellent Latvian small press, Kus Komikss.

What mediums do you love to work with? What are your essential art tools? I’ll use any kind of pen, but my favorite is the Rapidograph, which is a technical pen that can be refilled with india ink. I also love just drawing with cheap ballpoint pens.  I love to draw on folded paper. I like the idea of drawing on a sequence of pages as opposed to drawing on a single sheet of paper. The act of drawing becomes more of a thought process; a series of drawings that travel somewhere, as opposed to a single static image. Some of my folded paper notebooks have been reproduced as art zines, such as Logic Storm, Antidote, and Relax, We Have Alien Vehicles. These zines are probably fairly cryptic objects to any viewer expecting a narrative, but working on each one helped me navigate the time period they were drawn in. I carried them around with me and worked on each one a little at a time, until they were filled. I Like having an ongoing work like this in motion that I can take my time with and slowly build on. I like to draw on a folded paper size that can be easily reproduced on a photocopier and potentially made into an art zine and I draw on both sides of every page, so the zine is an exact reproduction of my notebook. Sometimes I only make a few copies or none at all of any given piece, but keeping that format keeps me locked into a sequence of pages that I have to work my way through.

Do you keep a sketchbook or work your ideas as you go along?  What type of sketchbook do you keep – disorganized chaos or neat and clean? Besides my folded paper drawing notebooks I keep, I don’t really keep a sketchbook. I don’t really do preliminary sketches of ideas for the most part. I always have this impulse to make everything a finished drawing.

What was the first show you ever exhibited in? What was your last show? My very first show was at a coffee shop called Butterfly Herbs in Missoula, MT. By most recent show was at Giant Robot in LA.

Where did you learn your knowledge of art or making art? Art School or Self taught.  For the most part, I'm self taught, though I'm currently learning woodblock printing from an incredibly print maker named David Miles Lusk and I've been learning a lot of great animation tips from my friend Stefan Gruber, who's a genius animator.

Describe your artistic process for us. It’s all pretty stream of conscious. It might be easiest to describe my process with my woodcuts. I started making the woodcut art, originally because I got tired of framing work for shows and wanted by gallery work to be something that felt really different from my illustration work. I got a scroll saw and started cutting out shapes in hard-wood plywood, drawing on them, then coating them in varnish.  I’ll go into my little woodshop in my garage and draw out as many shapes as possible on a big piece of plywood and cut out a whole pile of them, so I have a nice stack to work on. I never completely know what they’re going to look like until I’m working on. They just start out as these vague person, animal, or house shapes,and it’s a true joy to sit with each one and discover the details. I do a yearly solo show of my woodcut pieces at Giant Robot in Los Angeles that I usually make at least 75 new pieces for. I had a show there this past June. Right now I have 3 pieces in a group show at Grumpy Bert in Brooklyn, NY and 9 new pieces are about to go to a show at Radius Gallery in Missoula, MT.

What makes you smile when viewing art? What is it you’re looking at – composition, color, line? I'm inspired by all kinds of work. I love outsider art and folk art. I love weird art comics, but I also still have a huge love for 60s, 70s, and 80s superhero comics. I love ancient art and textures and patterns in nature. Any art that really feels like it was made from an inner artistic impulse usually ends up getting me excited and inspired. I love art that feels a bit crude or awkward but full of feeling and personal expression. That kind of art does way more for me than something super polished and calculated. I love children's art and I collaborate with my 2 young kids whenever I can.

What’s a common misconception about artists? I don’t think many people really understand the focus and effort that goes into a single work of art. I love having a studio that I can ride my bike to, close the door and have periods of time where I'm totally immersed with no distractions. I also like sitting up after everyone in my family has gone to bed and working on my zines or woodcuts. I get significantly less sleep than everyone else in my family, but making use of that quiet time is so essential. The most valuable thing to me about making art is simply the experience of focus and concentration; the satisfaction of putting care into something. The journey of following a vague impulse until something tangible and often unexpected has come into existence. It sort of feels like developing a photograph of something from my subconscious, like I'm actively engaging with something mysterious and beyond my understanding.

Do you have a favorite artist(s) that does a completely different medium than yourself? Oh yeah! I have a huge love for art environments. One of my favorites is Le Palais Ideal in France, made by Ferdinand Cheval. He was a Postman in the late 1800s who built a complex and beautiful homemade structure on his land. He had no prior experience with architecture. He simply followed this mysterious artistic impulse and made something startling and unique. There’s nothing else like it.

What are your favorite Vans? I like it when people draw on them and add personal touches.

How are you not just ONE thing? Everything I do feels like it’s part of the same world and comes from that same initial creative impulse, but I definitely need that variety of approaches and focuses. It keeps me inspired and seeing things from new and different angles..

What’s on the horizon for the rest of 2017? Right now, I'm working on a new series of folded paper notebooks called Thrill Mouth. It's more of a pure comic book, inner-space explorer adventure series drawn in ball point pen. I printed some copies of the first issue a few weeks back. Some of the copies have hand drawn glitter gel pen details on the covers. I usually can't stop myself from getting labor intensive and ridiculous with anything I make. I've been making zines and mini comics for about 15 years. It actually was relief when a publisher first contacted me, wanting to put out a book, and I love working with the publishers I've been lucky enough to work with so far, but making these little self published art booklets is an important personal practice and I always try to have one in the works.  I’m also working on a graphic Novel with author Jeff VanderMeer.

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[lunadax]

I love the art style of cross hatching and the pen styles but do you some advice so I can improve myself??

Hello! I’m sorry I was not able to answer you before, these are crazy times for me in my personal life :-) I wanted to make sure I made a nice a thorough answer. I will take for granted that since you mention improving, you’ve already been doing it a bit. 

I started doing ink for Inktober last year and fell in love with it. I didn’t know what I was doing most of the time (still don’t, quite frankly but I’m having fun). So the first advice i would give you is

1-Keep at it. It’s something that’s we hear a lot, i know and it’s irritating hehe, but if there’s one instance where “Practice makes perfect” applies, it’s in drawing. I really learned a lot of things just by drawing, trying things. Others I learned in books and videos, but some things I read in books I already knew because I experimented and tried stuff.

2-Buy/borrow a book. There are many on the subject, but the one I really like is from Alphonso Dunn. He’s an incredible artist! He draws mostly in pen and ink, and has a great youtube channel. Most of the stuff you learn from his channel in also in his book, Pen & Ink Drawing: A simple guide.  It is indeed very simple and so clear. There’s a lot of white space in the pages so you can pratice and try along as you read. I took a small moleskine sketchbook and tried some of the exercises he gives in the book. Like these :

It was so cool to do! I particularly liked the part about the range of gradation, made me aware of when to stop hatching to have the right value. 

3-Do practice lines. When I’m about to start a drawing, i doodle on a spare sheet. I mainly just make lines, and try to make them as straight and as evenly as possible. It loosens my hand, a warm up if you will, and then when i start my drawing im more aware of how my hand works. I don’t know if it makes sense, but there it is :-) Also, even lines are hard to make so the earlier you master making confident lines, the better your results will be. 

4- Get good tools. I don’t have a lot of money, but in art materials, i’m all for having the best stuff, so I put aside what is needed to buy what I’ll need. I enjoy a pen that works well, that won’t make me work harder to get the results i want to compensate for a lesser quality one. I just practice with cheaper pens, and use the better ones on the pieces that I are important, that I know I’ll want to keep. Of course, i was able to get awesome stuff from BIC ballpoints, and feeling no fear of wasting my money on stupid doodles is sort of freeing too, so in the end it’s as you feel. I mainly use Sakura Pigma Micron, they’re not incredibly expensive and easy to find. They have a nice pigmented ink that doesnt feather (on most surfaces) and is archival so my art will last a long time. (also waterproof so yay watercolour washes). Of course , you need to use paper that is right for your pens. Especially if you’re using markers (they can feather a lot if you’re not using marker specific paper)

6-Watch this video.  It is a demonstration of a whole drawing done in cross hatching. He explains his whole process and it is so well done and clear! he does it by layers, changing the direction on the lines to darken what need to be darker. It’s stuff I already know, but to see it done sort of unscrambles my art-brain a bit. 

so yeah, that’s about it, i think. I hope i was able to help a bit. If you want more precise info (like specific brands i like and specific tools recs) or have more specific questions, ask away! 

[eruditekid]

do you have any tips for bullet journaling?

ah sure! i didn’t know if you wanted my process on how i personally do my bullet journal, but here’s some general tips i could think of:

the best tip is to just start, and try and make it part of your daily routine! it helps to know what you like, for instance i’m planning a color scheme and doing mini doodles because i love artsy, aesthetic style bullet journals. however, if you don’t have time, it can be completely minimalistic and functional–after all, the real reason why you have the bullet journal is to organize (as much as all the flourishes are pretty).

if you’re more detailed and a perfectionist, especially in doing headers or drawings, you can always use pencil and then trace it over in pen/color it in with whatever you have! 

on that note, you don’t have to have the fanciest supplies. you can use pencils, crayons, and ballpoint pens if you really want. lots of people tend to use gel pens (muji pens, pilot juice) or fineliners (staedtler, stabilo), as well as washi tape, highlighters/markers (zebra mildliners; some people use crayola supertips!), post it notes, etc. 

you also don’t have to have the most expensive journal. you can do it out of a composition notebook or sketchbook, and it doesn’t have to have grid paper or dotted paper! personally, i’m using a small spiral notebook with dotted paper, cause it helps to have some structure to follow to keep it organized, and i love spiral because its easier to open!

the typical spreads i do are the yearly overview, monthly overview, and then weekly. then i do pages for whatever comes to mind, like a list of school supplies, music i find, books to read, tvs and movies to watch, etc. the pages within your journal are totally up to you. the bullet journal is basically a universal everything book, although the primary reason to use it are to do lists and all that.

set up a key for symbols you use in your book. it’ll help tons and plus i love drawing out all the little symbols.

look at others’ bullet journals to get some inspiration on how to set yours up! you don’t have to make a replica, but seeing how others do theirs helps a ton.

finally, don’t feel pressured to make it look perfect, or make it look like anyone else’s. the bullet journal is your personal thing. if you’re only doing it just so you can get notes on tumblr, or trying to get it exactly so, you may be missing the point. 

here’s my tag on tips, tricks, and ideas for bullet journals and this is my tag for bullet journal inspo!

[eastofthemoon]

Mini Lions- Hidden Skills

Title: Mini Lions- Hidden Skills

Rating: G

Series: Voltron Legendary Defender

Summary: Someone has been stealing Pidge’s pen and Hunk is shocked to discover who the thief truly is.

“Okay, who keeps stealing my pens?!” Pidge declared as she entered the kitchen. Green leaped in the room growling as she carried Pidge’s backpack in her mouth.

Hunk and Yellow glanced up from bowl of batter he’d been stirring and Lance paused mid-chewing as Blue peeked over the table.

“Um...not me?” said Hunk with a raised eyebrow.

“And definitely not me,” Lance said as he leaned back. “Especially after the death glare you gave me for borrowing your hairbrush.”

“I’m serious,” Pidge said as she took her backpack from Green and unzipped it.

“When we left Earth, I had twenty pens.” She held up two plastic packages of black pens. “I’ve used six, but somehow I’m down to ten. So, who keeps taking them?”

Lance blinked and asked “I’m more curious on why you have twenty pens.”

“I write a lot of notes, okay?” Pidge snarled. “And since I have yet to find anything similar to a ballpoint pen in space, I’m milking the ones I have.”

“Maybe it was Shiro, or Keith?” Hunk offered.

“I bet it was Keith,” Lance announced with a raised hand and Blue raised her paw in agreement.

“Shiro wouldn’t take my supplies without asking,” Pidge replied with her arms folded, “and I can’t imagine Keith needing a pen for anything. He’s either spending time training, with us or meditating in his room.”

Hunk frowned. That part was true. Truthfully, there were times he worried about Keith a bit. He seemed so focussed on being a perfect paladin that he barely seemed to do anything else. That couldn’t be healthy.

“Then maybe Coran or Allura?” Lance asked with a shrug.

“Again, neither would take things without asking and why would they want my pens?” Pidge retorted.

“Well, that just leaves the space mice,” Hunk replied as he pushed Yellow away from poking her nose into the bowl. “And if they didn’t take them, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Maybe you just misplaced them somewhere,” Lance offered. “The castle is a big place, wouldn’t be hard to lose something as small as a pen.”

Pidge sighed with a huff as she took the seat next to Lance. “Yeah, I guess,” she grumbled. “But it’s just going to drive me crazy wondering what happened to them.”

Hunk was silent as he returned to stirring. It was rather weird. It wasn’t as if pens could get up and walk away.

However, as the rest of the day passed, he ended up almost forgetting about it entirely until right before bed.

He yawned as Yellow followed him through the halls into his bedroom. “Man, I’m beat,” he said to Yellow as he patted her. “I’m ready to crash as soon as my head hits the pillow-”

The door to Pidge’s room cut him off causing Hunk to jump slightly and then paused.

Wait, last I check, Pidge was still in the hangar, so who would be in her room?

He gulped as the thoughts of ghosts popped into his head. He was SO not ready to deal with that again after what happened last time and he froze as he heard footsteps.

Yellow jumped in front and growled to protect them as a figure appeared. Yellow ceased her growling and Hunk tilted his head in confusion. “Red?” he asked.

Red paused and tilted her head to the side as she looked at Hunk with something small hanging out of her mouth.

“Okay, what were you doing in Pidge’s room?” Hunk asked as he kneeled to take a closer look. “That’s her private space and you shouldn’t-” He trailed off as he recognized the object in her mouth. “Wait..IS THAT PIDGE’S PEN?!”

Red didn’t linger longer enough to confirm as she sharply turned and dashed down the hall.

“No, wait, RED GET BACK HERE!” Hunk said as he and Yellow gave chase.

Thankfully, he didn’t have far to run as Red made a sharp turn into Keith’s room. Hunk slowed his pace and gestured for Yellow to keep quiet. Maybe, if they were lucky, they could sneak up on Red. Hunk tiptoed and opened the door by a small creak.

Red was sitting up on the floor offering the pen from her mouth, and he spied a familiar gloved hand reach for it.

“Thanks, Red,” Keith’s replied as he took it. “I have no idea where you keep finding these-”

“Keith?!” Hunk exclaimed as he shoved the door opened and Yellow peek through his legs. You’re the pen thief?!”

Keith jumped as he shoved something small inside his jacket, but once he regained his composer. “What? Pen thief?”

Hunk groaned as he rubbed his eyes. “Man, Lance is not going to let this one go.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith said as he waved the pen around.

Hunk peeked through his fingers before letting his hand drop to his side.

“Pidge’s pens have been going missing and it’s been driving her crazy,” he stated. “She’s been paranoid and looking for clues everywhere...Well, more paranoid than usual. You remember last week with the baking sheet and the signal boost and Coran's moustache catching fire?"

Keith gave a slow nod.

"Worse than that." Hunk stated. “Anyway, point is, she thought someone was taking them, which didn’t make sense, but...well..you have them.”

Keith gave a thoughtful look as he studied the pen and then looked to Red. “Is that where you’ve been getting me the pens?” he asked. “From Pidge?”

Red nodded and growled as if she was saying “Of course! What’s the big deal?”

Keith moaned as he rubbed his eyes. “Should have known it was too good to be true,” he muttered and looked to Hunk as he handed over the pen. “Sorry, I swear I didn’t realize Red had been stealing from Pidge.”

“Pidge is the one you need to apologize to,” Hunk said as he took the pen, but then frowned. “Although...why did you need so many pens?” He gave a shrug. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you write anything down.”

And on that note, why did you keep going through them so fast? Hunk thought.

Keith froze, and suddenly seemed shy as he fiddled with his fingerless gloves.

Hunk winced. “Sorry, Dude, did I..ask something I shouldn’t?”

It really wasn’t Hunk’s business, and if Keith wished to keep it secret that was his right. “Look, I can just tell Pidge I found this on the floor-”

“No, no,” Keith said with a sigh as Red rubbed her head against Keith’s leg for comfort. “I owe an explanation, but…” He chewed his lip, “just promise me you won’t laugh.”

Hunk frowned and exchanged a confused expression with Yellow. “Alright, I promise.”

Keith seemed to relax a bit and Hunk noticed Red got rather excited as he reached inside his jacket. He brought out a small leather bound book, at least that’s what Hunk had thought until Keith handed it to him.

Keith was blushing like crazy as Hunk took it and realized from the feel of the paper that it was a sketchbook. Hunk suddenly felt uncertain if he should open it, but with an approving nod from both Keith, Red and Yellow, he did.

The first couple of pages were doodles. Some of animals, designs, and even some comic characters he recognized, however, the next few pages were rough sketches of landscapes and more detail drawings of wild animals.

Hunk studied the sketches, and then grinned slightly as he found various sketches on the space mice, Red and even random head shots of the others. There was a cartoony version of Coran twirly a mustache that made Hunk chuckle.

“You said you wouldn’t laugh,” Keith said with a pout.

Hunk stopped and realized what Keith meant. “Sorry, Dude,” he said as he held up the sketch. “But this is funny.”

Keith blinked and his frown tightened. “Oh..um..that is meant to be funny.”

Hunk’s eyes softened as he stepped closer. “Did you sketch these?” Hunk asked dumbfounded.

Keith nodded with the blush still on his cheeks.

“Dude! Where on earth did you get a sketchbook?!” Hunk asked.

“I’ve always had one,” Keith replied. “My jacket has a large inside pocket, so I’ve always kept a small sketchbook in there.” He fiddled with the tip of his hair.

“Doodling helps me relax when I’m feeling anxious.”

“Ah, okay, I get ya” Hunk said as he flipped through the pages. He could relate to that, it was why he enjoyed baking cookies so much. “Does Shiro know about this?”

“Shiro gave me that sketchbook,” Keith explained as Red growl, “but besides him, no one knows.”

“I see,” Hunk said quietly as he found a sketch of himself smiling and laughing. He even sketched me, Hunk thought in shock. I can’t think of ANYONE that ever tried to draw me.

Keith gave a sigh. “Look, you don’t have to pretend,” he said, “I know they’re bad.”

“Bad? What are you talking about?” Hunk said in amazement. “I’m not expert, but this is incredible to me.”

Keith was taken aback and looked to Red in shock. “Really?”

“I’ve only ever been able to draw stick people,” Hunk admitted, “but this is way better than anything I could have ever drawn.”

A thought then struck him and he closed the sketchbook. “So...you’ve been using Pidge’s pens to sketch?”

“Yyyeeaahhh,” Keith said with a deep sigh as he cast a glare in Red’s direction. “I lost the one pencil I had and Red had been bringing the pens.” He shook his head. “I swear I had no idea they were Pidge’s.”

“Pidge will probably forgive since you didn’t know,” Hunk said with a shrug, “but you should have just asked for a pen.” He raised an eyebrow. “Frankly, it’s a bit weird to see you so shy about this.”

“Why is it weird?” Keith said as he blushed a bit again. “I’m not allowed to be a bit uncomfortable with people seeing my drawings?”

“No,” Hunk said as he sat down on Keith’s bed. “I mean, you’re so confident in flying and sword fighting, it’s just a bit surprising to see you not be a hundred percent certain on something.”

Keith tapped his fingers against his elbow. “It’s just a private thing I’ve always done,” he said slowly. “I tried showing an art teacher when I was a kid once and she said they were just chicken scratches.”

“Seriously? That teacher had to be like crazy,” Hunk said as he flipped the pages of the sketches. “These are really great…” He trailed off as he reached a page that was full of random scribbles and dots.

Hunk blinked as he flipped. “What are these?” he said as he pointed to the page of scribbles. “Some kind of abstract art?

Keith glanced and sighed. “Those are Red’s drawings.”

Hunk blinked and glanced down to the small lion. “Red’s?”

“She saw me sketch and decided she wanted to draw too,” Keith said as he held out a pen to her.

Red gleefully snagged the pen by holding onto the tip and then pawed at Hunk’s leg to lower the sketchbook. Curious, Hunk complied and watched Red happily scribble all over the blank page and even added a few dots for good measure.

“Huh, I feel like I’m watching a scene from How To Train Your Dragon,” Hunk commented as Red continued.

“How to what?” Keith asked.

“A movie, think Pidge actually has that one on her laptop,” Hunk explained. “Will show you later.”

When she was done, Red dropped the pen from her mouth revealing the top part was now a bit crushed. Hunk frowned as he picked up the pen.

“Is this the other reason Red keeps stealing pens?” he asked.

“With both her and me sketching, we’ve been going through them a lot,” Keith explained as he took the notebook back.

Hunk went silent as he shut his eyes in thought. He glanced to Yellow who tilted her head and nodded as if she had been thinking of the same thing.

Hunk relaxed and patted Keith’s shoulders. “Alright, here’s what we’ll do,” he stated. “We’ll go tell Pidge what happened and as a result you’re going to tell everyone about your sketchbook.”

He shook a finger. “You don’t have to show them your drawings if you don’t want to, but you’re going to tell them.”

Keith looked ready to argue, but he gave a nod. “That’s..fair.”

“In exchange,” Hunk said, “I’m sure, Pidge and I can find something you could use for a makeshift pencil.” He grasped his chin. “For all we know, Coran might have something you can sketch with.”

Keith blinked surprised. “You guys would do that?”

“Course we would, you need a way to destress too,” Hunk said as Yellow nodded in agreement. “Cooking is my way of doing it, and clearly sketching is for you.”

Keith chewed his bottom lip. “You..don’t think Lance would tease me about it do you?”

“He’ll only tease that you felt the need to keep it a secret,” Hunk said. “He won’t mock your drawings themselves, and even if he did, I’m certain the others would tell him to knock it off, okay?”

Keith gave a half smile, looking more relaxed than he did before. “Alright, I trust you, Buddy.”

Hunk smiled, but jumped slightly as Red gave a growl. Keith sighed as he glance down. “Yes, I’m certain you can get your own pencil.”

“If not, we’ll make you one,” Hunk said in agreement. “And chewable proof one.”

Yellow growled as she pawed at his leg.

Keith snickered. “I’m thinking that means Yellow wants in on it too.”

Hunk sighed. At the rate they were going, the lions were just going to cover half the castle in art.