On Top of Strawberry, All Covered with Strawberry

Completed this rather simple but still experimental painting of the perspective of a scoop of strawberry ice cream in a bowl.

I'm planning to sell the original to any lucky ice cream business owners whose interested in having it for decoration in their business.

Painting for the 4th of July

Happy 4th of July to you all!

It was my first time experimenting with a painting without penciling directly on the canvas. A bit of an expressionism illustration, if you will.

It was fun to go straight into painting on the canvas with only reference to sketches on my sketchbook and tracing paper.

A good use of symbolism and minimalism put together.

Happy Easter everyone!

A bit of my attempt of doing a child-oriented painting. Love the colors, the colored outlines and the skies.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone

Well, after a week of penciling and another week of painting, I finally finished this, just four hours before 2024 came along. I anticipated I would have finished this before Christmas day, but other things came up.

I'm just glad I finished it.

Experimenting with perspective, depth and minimalism.

Here's the pencil version.

Donutville

Boy, this one took the longest to do. Took about a whole week to complete. Had the most fun with this, either way.

This painting is for all the donut and coffee lovers out there.

Eye Glossary

Had a lot of fun with a pretty challenging illustration on a 12×16 canvas. 

This bizarre painting consists of 46 pairs of eyes with different expressions, aside from the generic and more easy to read reactions, such as happy, sad and mad. Experimenting more with impressionism my own way and the observation of everyday life and people.

A few titles that come to mind is "Eyes Speaking To You", "Eye Vocabulary" and "Eye, Eye, Eye", among others.

(Original pencil sketch)

Yet, another beautiful acrylic painting I did yesterdays

Back to doing more acrylic paints. 

This is what I call "Color My Day": from the crack of dawn to nighttime.

Gave me an opportunity to experiment even more with color theory and dry brush effects, too.

Original pencil sketch

Watercolor painting of the family cat

Had more fun painting something a little easier this time around. 

The family cat.

Pencil drawing

Finished version

Real life photo

More watercolor practice, of my dear ol' dog

Doing watercoloring is a wonderful way for me to calm down for occasions, but can be quite difficult to master. I adore the slow craft of traditional art, compared to the faster, but still relatively slow craft of digital art.

After doing my first watercolor of my backyard, I decided to make it easier on myself and something that wouldn't require much details. And, more importantly, something I love near and dear to me, personally. 

                        

A watercolor of our family dog my sister named Charlie (from her favorite movie, "All Dogs Go to Heaven"). 

Had her for about nearly 11 years now, so I want to a chance to do something for me and my sis as well.

Pencil sketch 

Questo's World title card

A hand-painted promotional title card for Questo's World I did for nearly two days straight.

I figured this title would give those who are not familiar with the comic a good idea of what it maybe about, from the look of the illustration.

Pencil sketch of the title card

'Cel' painting of Questo (front)

Questo 'cel' painting (back)

Part 2 of my animation cel experiment

After 12 hours of painstaking painting cels front and back, and mixing different colors and lack of color ink (only brown ink), I finally managed to finish my experiment of a cel of my characters from the Questo's World webcomic. I had to paint the outline of Ms. Amor's hair and Candy's stripes on her sweater, as well as Candy's tail outline being black instead of pink, as there was no purple, pink and yellow ink.

Front:

Back:

Now, as I said in my previous post, I wanted to compare the look of the characters from cel to digital.

Now there's obviously always a differences between the look from cel and digital ink-and-paint. The colors are less vibrant and the outlines are thicker. I've been undecided of the size of the outlines of Questo's World, wanting to make thick and thin to give it an old cartoon look.

As I've said, if it's possible, I would want Questo's World to be cel-animated.

Doing my own animation cel

I finally got much of items I needed to do what I've been desired for quite a while; making my own animation cel. I've been thinking for a while: how would my characters look like in cel animation, as well as other animated shows that were initially digitally animated. 

I still wish this technique was still in use today, getting to nice feeling of that the animation done by human hands rather than technology, especially with the rise of A.I. supposedly taking over. 

Did the pencil sketch of the Questo's World characters; Questo, Mickey Houndfair, Ms. Amor and Candy Cottontail.

Partially finished inking of the characters

This is my first time doing something like this. It's, of course, very difficult when compared to digital ink-and-paint.

Obviously, the inking is pretty rough, but it'll be cleaned up once I do the painting.

Got me some:

*Speedball Ink Pen 

*Different color ink 

*Acrylic paint 

*Blank stencil sheets 

Next post will include the finalization of the cel, and likely compare the colors and overall look to digital ink-and-paint.

Watercolor practice

I forgot to make a post of this months ago, but here's a watercolor painting of my backyard (September 2022). Mind you, this is my first watercolor painting. I would've done a post of the penciling of this, but it's too late.

I've been using digital art softwares more than I do traditional art. But, thanks to my love of experimenting, I'm willing to try out traditional art, at least, after a short while. There are a lot of things I love about traditional art that digital art makes too easy and a little boring for me, is mixing colors, feeling paper and painting with patience. 

Watercolors does calm me down, so I do these things on occasions. 

One day, I'd like to do a cel painting of my Questo's World characters, just how animation was done in the Golden Age.