Art swap : Merry Girl in the flower garden

Last year I had a chance to meet wonderful ladies through Creative Courage facebook group. One day the idea of having a sketchbook swap group was posted and I immediately asked if I could join. It's quite strange for my timid self to ask something like that and it was going to be an international activity too. But then I was in the course talking about courage and creativity, I guess that's why I surprised myself :)

I have to say it's really one of my best decisions in life. We finally formed a small group around May 2013 and now is July 2014, the group project is done. Since we're still figuring out how to reveal the whole project, I'm going to go into details later when we are ready. For now, I guess it's ok to talk about my very first contribution to the project.

I remember posting above picture on my facebook page last year. It's the first stage of the page I was doing for the project. I didn't think much at first what I would do. I just sat down and drew flowers (my usual subject when doodling). Then a picture of a field of flowers started forming in my head and I kept drawing more.



I wanted to play with depth so I tried cutting out the flowers. (I hesitated for a second but this was supposed to be playing and fun so pick up the scissors!)



At this point, I knew how I would like the whole image to turn out. I traced the outline of the first cut-out paper on another sheet, lightly with pencil. This became a guideline for drawing another set of flowers. Then my character, Merry Girl, came in on the stage. I cut her out of another sheet of paper too.



I also cut out the second flower set then tried layering the pieces. The idea was to make it look like my Merry Girl was admiring flowers in the garden.



The last step was to add the big smiley sun and little fluffy clouds in the background. I was thinking about adding something more but I already learned how to stop when it's enough. I just didn't want to ruin the whole scene ;)

You may have a glimpse of adjacent page on the right. It's another member's contribution in this sketchbook and I can't wait to show them all!

Thanks for coming. I hope this bright drawing can make you feel merry :)

MerryDay Goes to School week 4 : wall art assignment

So, Make Art That Sells class has already ended but the energy of the students in the class is still going. We are talking about how far we have developed in just only 5 weeks. But to complete my record of this class experience, I need to talk about week 4 and week 5 homework first :)

For week 4, we learned about wall art market. As usual, Lilla introduced us to beautiful wall art in the market. She emphasized that as this kind of art would be hung in someone's place for a very long time, the piece would have to be charming and refreshing enough so that you wouldn't get bored too easily. It should be something that you can find new things or feel refreshed whenever you look at it. Colors are key and we started this week assignment with a lovely mini exercise : to find items based on colors of our astrological signs.  My sign is cancer and pink and yellow are my favorite. I was so glad to have this duo as they are colors that I always relate to my MerryDay. Happy and merry colors :D



In each week, Lilla always encouraged us to go beyond our familiar boundary. To try new things, new techniques, look at things with fresh eyes. If I normally work digitally, this is a chance to try traditional medium and I did. :)



The main assignment is to create a collage-style wall art for a shop like Anthropologie.com or UrbanOutfitters.com. The piece should have floral elements, either as a focal point or just tiny details. I haven't done collage and complete canvas painting since college time, felt a little nervous at first but decided to dive in anyway. Knowing that acrylic paint could be painted over, I felt more at ease and actually painted white over the first layout that I didn't like and started all over again :P



Then it came the part of collage, gluing things on surface. This was very difficult as I was so used to hitting delete or command +Z  buttons. I really just didn't know what and where I should put on the piece. I ended up pasting only a few scraps of wrapping paper and cutting shapes from coffee filter paper. I really liked the subtle texture and color of this filter paper (the light brown flower pod shapes below) although it absorbed too much ink and you couldn't draw a lot of details on it but it's really a nice touch :)



I really liked the details on the big flower pod but when I tried hanging it up on the wall, it just lost it own charm. The details got lost and there's nothing popping up to you when viewed from afar.



So, as mush as I loved what I did on the flower pod, I decided to cover it with bright yellow paint. The solid yellow shapes helped, I think, make the overall image look better. Now it had a strong focal point and here is my final painting.


To be honest, I don't think this painting suits Anthropologie or UrbanOutfitters. I believe they want to see something with more exciting elements. Something with strong visual contrast? But I do think this is for my own MerryDay shop and the fact that I tried to do something I was not comfortable with at first makes me proud. After all, in this class, the process of working and learning along the way is much more important than the end results. :)



I had so much fun painting acrylic that I did another design. This time, it looked more like me and MerryDay.  I did the rough sketch above and then painted the final on watercolor paper below. I think I love this design better and began to think of incorporating acrylic painting with digital drawing and maybe a bit of collage. There are so many things to learn and the idea makes me excited and eager to experiment. Who knows It can be a great step that leads me to even more unique style of mine :D




You have to love this inspiring moment. I haven't reached my goal yet but it feels like it when I know which way I will go :)

Thanks for coming. I will talk about week 5 assignment and my thoughts after class very soon.

Have a merry day!