Category Archives: art

The Japan Journal

Posted by melydia on December 10, 2010 2 comments

In March of this year, my husband and I went on vacation in Japan. I brought a special journal just for the trip, made special from CafePress with art from the first issue of BS/OD on the front. I’m not a huge fan of CP, but this was the only place I could find with decently-priced, customizable, unlined, spiral journals. (But it could be that I’m just too picky.)

Note: I have since discovered the joys of Vistaprint, which often runs free+shipping deals on their custom journals.

Partly it was because I’d never taken a trip like this before and I thought it might be nice to try out travel journaling. Partly it was because I’d heard that many JR and Tokyo Metro stations have unique rubber stamps (like these). Since my regular diary is lined (by necessity – my handwriting is out of control), I decided to get something special just to drag around Japan to record the many experiences we were bound to have.

Train stamps from Osaka

It turns out it came in handy when putting together both my own recap but also my husband’s own blog posts. It’s amazing the amount of stuff you forget unless you write it down that moment.

One of the Sanrio Puroland spreads

But of course a week’s worth of vacation isn’t enough to fill an entire journal, so I glued in a print-out of my recap, then used the rest as a gluebook for the various flyers, brochures, ticket stubs, and other paper matter I collected during the trip. It took a long time. I started by separating everything into categories: Akihabara, Parasite Museum, Sanrio Puroland, capsule machines, Osaka Castle, Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, capsule hotel, Ghibli Museum, transportation, food, and miscellaneous. I went through and cut out all the pictures/words I wanted to include in my pages, then arranged them on the page, then glued them down. I did it one page at a time, keeping the categories together and generally working in chronological order. Whenever I finished a category I would take any leftover clippings and put them in their own container. (Clear plastic sheet protectors work remarkably well for this.) At the end, I did a few miscellaneous pages using the leftovers. I still have quite a few pages left, but I think I’ll leave it alone for now. I’m just so pleased to have finished this somewhat major project – and it only took three months! :)

For more on our trip to Japan, check out my husband’s series of videos: people, Sanrio Puroland, animals, and trains.

Finished!

Nostalgic Musings: Exercise 1

Posted by melydia on November 29, 2010 2 comments

I finished my first exercise for Nostalgic Musings. I don’t intend to post every time I finish one of the assignments, but since this was my very first real attempt at art journaling, I decided I wanted to share my thoughts.

The spread itself was quite straightforward: most of the clipart was provided, and we also received suggestions for what to write. Since art journaling is so dependent on personal style and preference, I was not surprised that this exercise was specifically to learn how Hope Karney Wallace makes her own (totally gorgeous) journals. The later assignments are more open-ended and less step-by-step, easing the student into his or her own way of doing things.

I had to improvise a bit, as the journal I’m using is much smaller than Ms. Wallace’s. The pages themselves came out fairly well:

The woman in the middle is her own page on cardstock, affixed with masking tape. (I’d never thought of masking tape as anything but temporary, but I’ll trust Ms. Wallace on this one.) The text of the journal page is comprised entirely of techniques I’ve never used in my own regular diary: lists of goals/loves/etc. and inspirational quotes. As much as I enjoy making lists, it had never occurred to me to use them to describe my day.

I’m looking forward to seeing what I make throughout the rest of the course. I don’t see myself giving up my regular text diary and switching entirely over to art journaling, but I do believe it will make for a lovely supplement to my regular day-to-day chronology.

Nostalgic Musings: an art journaling e-course

Posted by melydia on November 19, 2010 None comments

I’ve started my very first art journaling e-course, Nostalgic Musings, hosted by Hope Karney Wallace of Paper Relics. I’ve been admiring her work for weeks and almost signed up for her most recent course, a collaboration with Kari Ramstrom called Winter Stories, which was ten dollars more but also live. (Nostalgic Musings ran last spring but all the materials are available, the private Flickr group is still active, and of course Hope is still around to answer questions.) My husband suggested since this was my first time through to go for the self-paced, less expensive course, which is also a more general art journaling class. Either way, I’m excited. I’ve been wanting to jump into art journaling for a while now – more than just writing in my diary or  gluebooking or doodling in a notebook, but actual art journaling – and I think this will be an excellent way to get my feet wet.

Care to join me?

The Joy of Crayons

Posted by melydia on November 17, 2010 5 comments

My pink camo book is pretty much my default sketchbook when going anywhere. I have no rules for it: doodling, drawing, gluebooking, whatever. It’s all welcome here. After all, this was bought on a whim and on the cheap. The pages are smooth, not at all like sketchbook paper. Ink takes forever to dry, but it’s a decent surface for gluing.

Pencil on pink camo paper

Most recently, I dragged this old book to Anime USA in Arlington, Virginia, to give me something to do during the slow times in the artists alley. After gluing in assorted remnants from recent trips to Harpers Ferry and the African-American Civil War Memorial and Museum, I opened my convention program and started to draw a couple of the guests in pencil. Since I was doing this specifically to kill time, I felt absolutely none of my usual impulse to rush. One of them in particular came out fairly well:

Pencil on pink camo paper

Last time I went anywhere with this notebook I bemoaned my lack of coloring supplies. A few months ago I took advantage of the start-of-school sales and picked up a 24-count box of Crayola Crayons for a buck. I love coloring, and I love using as many colors as possible in a given picture. Thus, instead of using a realistic color scheme, my next drawing turned into Lady Gaga meets Jem (or, more precisely, Aja):

Bad Romance or Truly Outrageous?

Then I decided to try something different, and instead restricted myself to black, white, and gray, and was impressed with the range of tones you can get with crayons:

My husband says he looks like Brett Hart

Yes, he’s all smeary and rough, but my post-elementary-school experience with crayons is rather limited. And my patience for monochrome was short-lived:

yay kitty! :D

Do you ever use basic school supplies in your art? Any favorite kiddie brands?

Office Politics

Posted by melydia on November 16, 2010 3 comments

I have trouble paying attention if I have nothing to do with my hands. This is the primary reason I am such a judicious note-taker. However, I’m not always writing anything related to the subject at hand; often I’ll just blather aimlessly on paper, somewhat akin to Julia Cameron’s morning pages. It’s a good way to keep my hands occupied so my mind doesn’t wander too far. And if my mind does wander, I have a handy place to jot down stuff I want to remember later.

One day I started running out of regular things to doodle. I was in an interminable meeting, during which I had no notes to take and no thoughts to contribute, so I ended up vaguely sketching the other people in the room. They weren’t exactly perfect copies, but I found it was good practice since I was using a somewhat leaky Bic Velocity Gel pen on plain old notebook paper. No erasers, no correction fluid, none of that.

Then one day one of my coworkers recognized himself. I was both flattered and embarrassed, but mostly surprised. I hadn’t expected my drawings to be good enough to be at all recognizable. My other coworkers started showing interest in my doodles. I’ve gained a weird sort of notoriety as an artist among engineers. One in particular has been encouraging me to draw the entire office. Anyway, I’ve decided to share the lot with you all here, just in case you’re curious. I’ve made them all the same size, though the quad-rule in the notebook makes it fairly easy to discern relative sizes. Not all of them resemble their inspiration; often I’d start drawing someone, screw up irreparably, and just make the rest ridiculous.

Do you doodle in inappropriate situations? What do you draw?

No Frills Prompt #1

Posted by melydia on October 19, 2010 1 comments

I did a quick sketch of the photograph from Daisy Yellow’s No Frills Prompt #1 over my lunch break, then took a photo with my crappy cell phone camera, then played with brightness and contrast. I like how it turned out kind of like an old-timey movie.

Wandering Watercolor

Posted by melydia on October 18, 2010 None comments

I am not a painter. At least, not an experienced one. The only paints I own are cheapo watercolors in the impulse-buy art sets I’ve picked up on clearance or at garage sales. Today, on a whim, I decided to try out the paints in my 80-piece Creatology Art Set. (This is just the only link I could find, not an endorsement of this retailer. I paid something like $4 for mine at Michael’s.)

A note on this kit: the markers are nothing special, but I haven’t tried out the crayons, colored pencils, or oil pastels yet. Considering I tend to use one medium at a time, an all-in-one carrying case like this actually isn’t all that convenient for me. The paint tray, for example, is part of the case so you can’t remove them. It was a bit of a pain attempting to balance such a large, bulky item on my overstuffed desk.

The Setup

I started by laying down a bunch of scrap paper and wrapping my keyboard in magazine pages. I am a slob with food; why should I be any different when I art? And before you ask, yes, my desk is always at least this cluttered. I feel accomplished to have cleared off enough space to paint.

Cheapo Watercolors

I suppose that watercolors are by nature pretty inexpensive to manufacture, especially since they can’t dry out the way acrylics can and thus have a near-infinite shelf life. I don’t think I’d used watercolors since I was a child, and fully expected to make an utter mess.

I always keep a stash of free/ad postcards around for just this sort of thing. I went through the stack and pulled out a few made from rougher cardstock so the paint wouldn’t bead. I drew a quick pencil sketch on each, then played with color.

A couple sitting out to dry.

Once they dried, I inked them, erased any glaring pencil marks (a little tricky since the eraser also wanted to remove the paint), and got them ready to mail to some folks on my mailing list (and yes, slots are always open). I have no idea how well they’ll mail; there’s a possibility the paint will all flake off and everyone will received mysteriously blank postcards from me. But hey, at least it’s not another bill! :)

The finished product.

On Drawing Upside-Down

Posted by melydia on October 5, 2010 2 comments

I don’t mean that quite the way it sounds. I learned this technique from my second Basic Drawing course at The Art League. The idea is twofold:

  1. When drawing something with defined corners or parallel lines, turn it upside down to check your angles.
  2. When drawing from a photograph or other movable object, turn it upside down and draw it that way.

The first notion is excellent for drawing things like cubes. I fixed many a wonky corner by turning it upside-down and giving it another look. I have absolutely no idea why this works. Shouldn’t parallel lines look just as (in)correct from any angle?

For the second one, the purpose is to remove your preconceived notions about what something is supposed to look like in order to concentrate on the shapes you are reproducing. This is actually a very good idea, especially when working with human figures, but I’ve found that sometimes very strange things occur. For example, these two drawings are of the exact same thing, except one was turned upside-down:


(Click on the images for larger versions.)

I have no idea what was going on here. I don’t have the original to share with you, which is probably better for my ego, but it was a fairly generic etching of a woman. I put a “viewing box” (that is, a piece of cardboard with a square hole cut in the middle) to define what part of the image I was going to draw. So I know these were of the same section of the same image. I dunno.

The rest of the turned out okay.

I like copying, but sometimes I wish I could create things like this from my imagination.

24-Hour Comics Day

Posted by melydia on October 1, 2010 1 comments

For the first time, I will be participating in 24-Hour Comics Day, wherein you produce a 24-page comic in 24 hours. I’m doing it at home alongside my dear husband, whose 3D art is not exactly portable. That’s fine. The closest host venues are Baltimore and Norfolk, both a bit of an unwieldy drive away. If I’m going to stay up late being silly, I’d much rather do it from the comfort of my own home, where at least I can walk around in my jammies.

Because this is my first time, I’m going simple: retelling a famous tale with chickens. Just which famous tale will be revealed afterward. Look for a recap post early next week.

Anyone else participating in this (or any other) ridiculous internet challenge?

September Creative Experiments Recap

Posted by melydia on September 30, 2010 3 comments

As I posted at the beginning of the month, I decided to take part in the Creative Experiments for September over at Daisy Yellow. Let’s see how I did, shall we?

♥ Carry a notebook with you for a month, adding notes, scribblings, to-do’s, sketches, doodles, coffee stains and whatever you wish.

I always drag a beat-up old spiral around with me, but I was only a few pages away from the end so I decided to finish up that one and start a whole new kind of notebook: a National Brand hardcover, quad-ruled Lab Book. It was certainly a new experience, but I felt more free to doodle and otherwise not just write one big, unbroken paragraph of rambling prose. (But I still did that too.) I also felt more compelled to fill the entire page, perhaps due to the lack of defined margins.

♥ One day this month, write a thoughtful description of 5 sounds that you encounter.

I love this prompt. I’ve never encountered anything like it. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to do it, even during the most perfect time for it (the Celtic Classic), so I just took a few minutes here and there during an ordinary Monday.

  1. My coworker talking on the phone in Persian. It’s so beautiful, and yet I’m so used to hearing him speak in English that it always takes me a second to realize I can’t understand what he’s saying. It reminds me of when I’d listen to another coworker at another job speak Polish on the phone. I swear it sounded like English backwards.
  2. The printer hums and ticks like a vacuum that just sucked up a pebble. It’s a happy noise – printing something out generally signifies completion of a task.
  3. The racket of the locker room at the gym: a child squealing, over and over again. There comes a point in every child’s life when they discover they can produce a high-pitched shriek that makes adult ears bleed and dogs take note. I guess the mother has learned the quickest route to quiet is to ignore the noise. Anything else will just encourage more. I’m not sure I can hear that sound without shutting my eyes and taking a deep breath.
  4. A cell phone ringing (jangling?) from inside a locked locker. Surprisingly clear, not muffled at all. Reminds me of a sound from an old video game, like a laser pistol on an old Atari or Nintendo. I’m positive I’ve heard this specific noise before in some game I used to play as a child, but I can’t place it.
  5. My cat’s strange, creaky greeting. Sort of a “meh-eh?” – like a question. Often she opens her mouth before speaking as if she has to force out the noise. It doesn’t sound especially friendly, but it’s one of her “I love you/pet me” meows. Over the years I’ve come to find it cute, even endearing.

♥ Create an itunes playlist or mix CD with 15 songs that make you feel just right.

This was by far the most difficult. I almost never listen to music anymore: in the car it’s audiobooks, and it’s rare for me to spend enough time in my study for listening to music to even occur to me.

  1. “Time to Start” by Blue Man Group
  2. “Sin” by Pet Shop Boys
  3. “Send Me an Angel” by Real Life
  4. “It’s Good to be Alive” by DJ Rap
  5. “Running in the Family” by Level 42
  6. “Mess” by Ben Folds Five
  7. “Magic” by Ben Folds Five
  8. “Blue” by Eiffel 65
  9. “Asshole” by Jim’s Big Ego
  10. “Lifeline” by Copper Sails
  11. “Ana Ng” by They Might Be Giants
  12. “Never There” by Cake
  13. “Anna Begins” by Counting Crows
  14. “Always” by Erasure
  15. “Puttin’ on the Ritz” by Taco

♥ Read four (4) books this month, fiction or non-fiction.

The books I read (and reviewed) during the month of September:

  1. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
  2. The Immortals by John F. Ferrer
  3. Time of the Twins by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
  4. Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson
  5. Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
  6. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

That’s fewer than usual because Crime and Punishment took roughly half the normal human lifespan to get through. Holy crap that’s a long book!

This was lots of fun, but I wish I’d put more concentrated effort into it instead of just signing up and then promptly forgetting all about it. Maybe next month, eh?

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