Sunday Sketch : crayon drawing and play with paint

I'm spending this peaceful Sunday watching Alisa Burke's wonderful e-class videos. I was first introduced to this super creative and prolific artist through Creative Courage course, signed up for her classes (with 50% off you just couldn't resist it) and have been inspired by her works and classes ever since.

Redefine Creativity is my second class with her. Her lessons really got me excited and inspired me to get some paint and have fun. This drawing is done with Sea Green (I just love how they name each color) wax crayon first. I already loved how it looked and almost left it as is but decided to go ahead and play with it (I can always draw it again if I want to). I painted over all the drawing with different shades of watercolor. I didn't think much just put water and colors on. The wax lines worked as resistance that you can still see the original drawing, just with different look and feel.



Then I put pink marker on some parts, making it pop out a bit and some little drawings behind the scene. I just couldn't help it, playing hide-and-seek with my characters becomes part of my drawing passion :)



I have to say I love the very first crayon drawing best but I enjoyed the process of putting colors on and watching colors blended and be resisted by the wax. I think I'm going to experiment more with this technique :)

This is only the first lesson I learn from Alisa. Can't wait to learn more and be inspired in the next 4 weeks :D

Hot air balloon : my creative journey

I'm taking Creative Courage e-course again this year. This is the third session I took with Stephanie Levy. Last year I already talked about how much I gained from the class and I think I gain even more from this third session.  In this class, the core idea is still the same, to have courage to be yourself and brave enough to venture into your own creative track.  Stephanie has made it lighter with the addition of summer recipes and photo walks. What makes me think I gain even more is the participation of the fellow students. I have been following conversations in the class facebook group and just discovered that while learning about other people's experiences, I instinctively explore my own inner self too.

One of the interesting topics Stephanie talked in the class is the metaphor of hot air balloon. Being in a creative journey, we need a lot of energy and effort. Hope, love, determination and support from the ones we love are essential fuel to get the balloon fly. But the hot air balloon is not small. It's big, enormous and needs a lot of energy. We have to learn so much about what could get our balloon go up as well as what has held the balloon down. Doubt, fear, criticism are always what we can identify but cannot get rid of completely. They are sandbags that hold down the balloon. I think in this case, it's all about focus. We will be constantly held down with flashes of fear, doubt and inner critic/ people's opinions, no way to avoid that. The trick is how to get ourselves back from those distractions and focus on what we want to focus.

My practice is to check myself. Whenever I feel down, doubtful or hurt, I will ask myself if these feeling are going to get me to my goal. If it's not why do I have to waste my time? There are plenty of things to do in my life plan. Ditch it and get going!

Again, it's easier said than done :P Sometimes I just wonder why some people (like  the old me) love to dwell in sadness rather than try to be happy. No answer to that but when I cannot let bad feelings go immediately, my second method is to imagine the time when I felt joy while making art or even daydream of the day of my success like ; my Etsy sale number gets over 1,000 or my art gets featured on famous blogs or magazines or my name is on a picture book's cover, etc. This may sound silly but it definitely lifts up my spirit and the only way to make those dreams come true is to work hard. So, I work!

Yes, it's only the matter of using focus, persistence and joy of creating as fuel for your hot air balloon of creative journey. Thanks to Stephanie for teaching this valuable lesson.

I hope I can stick with my methods and hope it can be helpful for those who are in this same struggling path :) Thanks for coming. I hope you have a merry day.

Painted Pages workshop , the joy of painting

Last month I took a painting class called Painted Pages workshop with Sarah Ahearn Bellemare. I was so in love with Sarah's book that I signed up for the class right away when she launched her first online class. The class is really in different and more relaxing pace compared with the intensive course of Make Art That Sells I took previously. It should be like that. I don't think there should be a word 'rush' in traditional painting and Sarah did a good job of leading us to a relaxing and fun atmosphere :)

While I was taking this class, a friend who worked mainly in digital illustration also worked on her painting project. She said that she struggled so much as this was not in her field. She was amazed to see me so relaxed with the painting. This is because I know I have never been good at traditional painting. I took a lot of classes in college, colored pencil, water color and acrylic and finished all of them with some mediocre pieces. I enjoyed it but I don't think I have any potential in this art field.

I didn't do any more painting until I took Make Art That Sells class and had to do wall painting. I was so frustrated with this painting at first. But when I finally let go the feeling of wanting to be perfect, I found that I really enjoyed the process.

To me, painting turns out to be not just art, it is a method of meditation and self-exploration. When I am in front of a blank canvas, I feel calm and focused. Like designing, painting is about problem-solving. The difference is, in design, mostly you solve problems to send out a clear, visualized message while in painting you don't need to do that exactly. There is a vast space for imagination for both painter and viewer. I guess that makes me feel more relaxed :)

Below is my painting process I did for the class. I had light green color in mind when I first started and tried to work through it.



Then I used my favorite coffee filter paper. Cut out shapes and played with them.



And here my final. I confess that I don't like this final much and plan to start it over. I enjoy the time though and already excited to be in front of a blank white canvas again :)



I dream of having a nice lovely paintings for my MerryDay shop one day but for now, as I'm still learning and improving, I think I will have it just for my 'play time' :)

Thanks for coming. I hope you have a merry colorful day today :)

MerryDay Goes to School : week 1 assignment vintage kitchen pattern design

Here is the main assignment for Make Art That Sells week 1. The topic is designing vintage kitchen pattern. We spent time drawing and researching mushrooms and pyrex to warm up and then here comes this assignment.

I really enjoyed drawing these little things and realized how much I loved doing details. It seems that recently I tend to rush myself in doing each illustration that I didn't pay enough attention to making details. I should remind myself constantly that what I like to see in other people's work (details, interesting color palette and composition) should be in my work too :)

The class has been a great experience for me and it's only the first week! :D What I love most is facebook community there. Everyone is so eager to create and generous to share what inspires them. I'm glad I eliminated the feeling of competition just in time before other students started sharing their works. You cannot work well on your own way if you keep looking at and comparing with other great works. Without that feeling, I really enjoy doing my piece while letting myself be inspired by other's.

This final design came out just as I wanted it to be even though there's a point of repetition that I can't figure out how to do it properly yet but this could be learned along the way. I especially like my color palette which derived from one of my previous sketches.



The original sketch has fluorescent look of yellow, purple and pink. I managed to have the yellow and purple but couldn't make pink glow as I would like. This palette looks a bit different from what I did for MerryDay but I think it still conveys the feeling of happiness and merriment which is my main concept and I'm so happy with that :D

One of my friends said that this could look great as a scarf, the other said she would love to see it on kitchen wallpaper. There are all the possibilities to make my art into various kind of products and it excites me :D

But just like Lilla said 'great art is the best promotion'. I need to make my art great and this is a good time to learn and use my time wisely to make that happen :)

Thanks for stopping by. I will continue sharing my class progress here. Please come back. I'm so sorry that I couldn't reply your comments and visit back your blogs right away but I will do. I think you know I appreciate every comment :)

MerryDay goes to school ♪

So, I have been away, trying to clear my work and figuring out how to work best on drawing new collection while promoting my shop at the same time. Unfortunately, a terrible artist's block just got in the way and slowed things down :(

But it's all gone now :D. What helps it is the fact that I'm going back to school! Not an actual one but an e-course called Make Art That Sells by Lilla Rogers. I think I learned about Lilla Rogers Studio via Kelly Rae Roberts' blog (another inspiring artist to follow) and have been following her since then. When Lilla announced this e-course, I was so thrilled and although I was a bit worried that the school's cost would be too high for me, I decided to jump in anyway. Just had a feeling that this would be a great part for my future :)

I have been thinking about my career for some time, for years actually. My work so far has been mostly about book, cover and layout design and some spot illustrations. It's not long before I discovered I enjoyed looking at all wonderful illustration on the web. I began to draw more everyday to improve my illustration skill until I found a style I thought I could call my own.

But it's really just a beginning. There's so much out there I need to learn. I read blogs and books and have just finished Lilla's I Just Like to Make Things, just in time before the class starts.



The book is really easy to read and straightforward. I wish it had more details in each business and interviews. But, in all, Lilla answers most of the questions I have had in mind and I'm even more inspired and eager to learn more from the class :D

The school starts on June 3 which I think in any minutes now while I'm writing this. The school team is really wise to open a facebook group a couple of days before to let students get acquainted with each other. We are such a large group with different stages in art career but with one common thing--a passion to create. That makes the group so fun and inspiring.

I spent last weekend cleaning up my work desk and even cleared out my mood board, leaving blank space for new inspirations. I hope I will see improvement after the class and it should be fun to record my progress here on this blog.

So, MerryDay is going to school! Wish me luck :D

How do you find inspiration each day?

How do you find inspiration each day?

I used to live my life as I like it. I mean if I woke up one morning and didn't feel like working or creating, I wouldn't do it thinking forcing myself to do things when I was not inspired was fruitless. I would never do good works anyway. But now I realized that that was a kind of giving up without even attempt to start. The key is that when you get uninspired, don't let such boredom bring you down. I could be bored and depressed for days or even week! That's not good for my creative work at all.  So, I try to adjust myself, to try to find something to inspire me whenever I begin to feel bored.

Generally, I would go to books, browsing through beautiful illustrations, reading lovely words. Or I would go through all the lovely blogs or go to coffee shop, sketching and watching people. Today I have realized that you can get inspired on a daily basis with some payment.

That doesn't sound good, right? To buy inspiration? But I have learnt that it's really worthwhile to pay some money to support those who work so hard with their words, their research and their inner selves to get people inspired.  This I mean some e-courses I have taken. One of them is Creative Courage, Not sure if I talked about this class on this blog yet. I have enrolled for this course twice already and both session give me so much.

Another class is Treasure Hunt photo prompts from Andrea Scher's Superhero life. This is a self-paced class where I get photo prompts in my mailbox everyday. The thing is that Andrea doesn't send me just topics and tell me to shoot this or that. But she sends her little stories along with the topics too. It's just like reading mini inspiring posts everyday. The topics get me curious and want to go out take some photos, her voice gets me inspired and want to do more of creative things. She makes me think, that is.

These two classes made me write the word 'each day' How do you find inspiration each day? These classes give me inspiration each day and I think it's very important to wake up each morning and ask myself what will inspire me today. Don't wait for inspiration, sometimes you have to find one for yourself to keep your creative life on track.

The picture above is what I'm working on, to build up my work for my shop and my portfolio. Yes. I'm still working and I think this is the reason I wake up and try to find inspiration so that I can keep this work going :)

How about you? How do you find inspiration each day?