Overcoming Doubts
you've still got it in you
After five months of not creating anything digital art-related, I’ve finally completed one. Here it is in all its glory.
Reference used is by Jason Ryan, a photographer who uploads his photographs on Unsplash. I came upon his photo a few months ago, intending to use it to make something, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything until recently. I’m so glad it didn’t stay in my download folder untouched, because it’s such a beautiful scenery. Look at all those interesting shapes and lighting!
I started off with a lot of doubts. I’d tried painting mountains before and they didn’t come out looking all that good. It was good enough for me, but it could have been better, and at the time, I didn’t know how to make it better. Granted, this one was a little rockier, so it would have been an entirely new experience. I knew that, but of course the doubt stayed. It only grew when I had the time to study the photograph a little more while I planned out the colours and composition.
There’s always something about how pinks and blues come together that I love. I wanted a colour to pop, and decided to go with this combination. I didn’t know how it could help with bringing the eyes to the main subject i.e. the whale, but I decided to go for it anyway, see how it is.
The more I painted the rocky structures, the more I was better at it. Intuitive. At one point, I didn’t even need the reference photo anymore to be able to make a structure that looked passable. But then the trees… as much as I like painting them and the forest, I still have yet to master painting faraway trees, I realised. I spent so much time on them, but that familiar determination rose up and guided me through the whole thing. It reminded me of when I couldn’t get the colours right in Spirits of the Wind. I wanted them to look well-defined. I thought of putting in the work, to render them one by one, but then they didn’t look right, until something came to mind: they’re far in the distance, so they shouldn’t be as well-defined as you think they should. I’d want the viewers to focus on things that are not the trees.
Video editing
To make this comeback even more interesting, I decided to learning something new: video editing. There was suddenly this wish for better quality timelapse videos that I post on Youtube. After doing some research on free video editing softwares, I decided to give DaVinci Resolve a go. It was also fun to look for royalty-free songs that I could use. Putting everything together was a new experience that left me feeling emotional (in a good way) by the time I was done. It was this thought that I did it. After five months, I’m back and on fire.
Here’s the video in question:
For shorter timelapse videos, they are, as always, available for viewing on my Tiktok page.
In other news, I’ve decided to leave Twitter (well, it’s X now) behind and return to Instagram. The once-amazing app has been ruined, and I have no more will to continue my stay there, even though the art community there is amazing. But, when it comes to art communities, I can find them all, too, on Instagram. So I’m not missing out. What’s more, I’m back at a space with so many artists I started my art journey with. Deviantart was the first ever space I started sharing my art on. Instagram’s my second, and it was where I also followed Deviantart artists I admire. It feels good to be back. Furthermore, I see that the web has got many resources teaching users how to work with the algorithm on IG. It didn’t hurt to give it a shot. I didn’t have a manual back then, it’s different now, and I would be a fool not to make use of whatever I can find.
This is one of them. If there’s something I did almost straight away, it was to turn my account from a personal one to a business one. It was only then I could view insights, even learn when my followers are most active, thus letting me know when the best time was to post. And hashtags! As someone who has a pretty low follower count (207 at the point of writing, and most of them are inactive), I shouldn’t be tagging my posts/reels with hashtags that are extremely popular and flooded with millions (e.g. #art) — even billions — of posts/reels like mine. Instead, I should choose ones that fewer people use. Instagram gives suggestions as I type in the hashtag, so I scroll down the list and find one that’s on middle-ground.
I’m not sure if all these will give results; it’s too soon to tell. But I’m determined to stay consistent with these and see where it leads. Perhaps you’d like to try them too! Or, if you have other methods you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comments section.
My heart to yours,
Elaine
P.S. With this, I’ve also decided to make my The Book Cover Designer shop active again. They’ve deleted all my past product entries, so I have to resubmit them, and it’ll take time for them to pass the review stage. In the meantime, I’ve completed a sparkling new premade book cover this morning, and I can’t wait to show it off! :)