Little Adventure
with a little sheep
I recently made a friend who inspired me to have more fun with art. Just let things go, focus on the process and let it be a form of a de-stressor. Because of that, I’ve gone back to traditional art more often these days than before: finally taking out my colour pencils after months and filling out my colouring book (Fragile World by Kerby Rosanes), and following watercolour tutorials by Let’s Make Art, as recommended by the friend, and Jillee Arts. Let’s Make Art has an endless number of tutorials. The first time I tried following one of their videos, it was great fun mixing colours under guidance while also learning fundamental techniques of the craft. Previously, I was trying to push myself to learn on my own, so I did it by having a look at a photo, then figuring everything out myself. The difference was profound, and so much more a breeze with help. Jillee Arts usually posts timelapses. I’ve been a huge fan of hers for the longest time, always admiring how she draws and paints so freely, so when she began posting real-time videos, I caught on to that and thought to myself, I am going to follow a video of hers one day and paint. It makes me want to dive more into watercolours knowing how much fun I can get from it.
Unfortunately, I feel that I’ve gone past a point of no return in the case of digital art. There’s a standard I’ve set for myself, and if I don’t reach that standard, then all is for naught. It’s the self-critical comments, and social media plays a part. I think I’ve gotten better at ignoring the number of likes I’m getting, but the long-standing habit of doing that has taken a toll on me, made it a part of the wires in my brain. So it all comes down to unlearning that slowly but surely.
But then it leads to the next question: if I want to sell commissions and premade book covers, and my digital art isn’t given the attention it should be getting, then what am I to do with the potential pool of customers? I shouldn’t care anymore if my art sells. Is that what I should be thinking? Just go be a hobbyist. I became a hobbyist at a certain point in time, but without realising it, I’ve started selling my art again.
It’s hard to let go of a dream that has been part of your life for a long time.
Still, I decided that dwelling on this isn’t the way to go. I love making digital art. I realised I just needed to venture out of what I was usually doing to make things more fun, but we’ll get back to that.
I created A Sheep’s Misadventures with a sheep in mind. I was just so inspired by this picture book called The God of Everything that’s still in the making by Sina Simbürger. She introduced these sheep in her earlier pages, and they were adorable! Which made me realise that hey, I’ve never thought of including sheep in my art before. Why not? An image gradually came into my mind, the symbiosis of a dragon and a sheep. I had intended to make this art for a premade book cover, and wanted it to look pretty epic, with dramatic lighting and all. But when I started to look for reference photos, I decided to change my perspective a little bit. My idea had involved a whole flock of sheep, but I’d scrapped that.
With the dragon, though, I wanted to veer away from the ones that the West has created and move towards the designs by the Asians — because I’m a Chinese (Singaporean) myself. I’ve been trying to find different ways to encompass a part of my heritage into my art more, and I’m really excited to see what else I can do with that. This is my first time painting a dragon, and I’m darn proud of how it turned out.
Everything went pretty smoothly with this piece, I’ve to say. It made me really happy. The only thing that didn’t work out very well was the colour of the sky. The thing was, I’d wanted the sky to be an orange-red colour, but because it turned out a little too over-the-top, even though that pop of colour made my heart sing, I eventually forced myself to change it into blue and add red clouds instead. But that didn’t come out well at all. So the other way I could have made things a little less boring was to make the dragon a different colour. Perhaps red — but why would a dragon who lives in the mountains be red? It didn’t make sense to me. Even a brown would be more logical, but even that sounded boring to me.
I played around with the hues, until it finally worked out.
Remember what I said about wanting to make digital art more fun? I’ve been going into a comic-like structure lately, giving me more chances to sketch and let loose, exploring with different ideas and the stories behind my art. Here’s a little bonus:
With this, it marks the beginning of this poor character who’s destined to meet a dragon with a pair of menacing red eyes. Will he/she (I haven’t decided yet) make it out alive?
Oh, and that planned premade cover with this piece of art isn’t happening. It’s mine; I’ve decided to keep it for myself. :)
My heart to yours,
Elaine