Illustrators calendar

A while ago I read at MiuMau about the concept of Illustrator's calendar. All of us have some kind a calendar, be it a digital or an analogue. We put there important dates, meetings, birthdays and holidays. So what she suggested is to create an illustrator's/artist's/crafter's diary. The idea is to create a calendar where one can put reminder prior to important events, such as holidays, family events and such. What for? So he/she could start preparing for the event prior to the event itself. Like if you are a stock seller, you should remember that it is always best to start creating New Years's  images several months before the holiday itself. Or if you have an online shop maybe you should announce about your discounts a bit earlier than you usually do. Or if you have a relative's birthday coming up maybe it's better to buy and wrap the gift at least 1 day in advance.

I actually always had list of these holidays but it never worked for me for some reason. But this year I decided to give it another try. I bought myself this calendar, something very simple and pretty uninspiring. I will be using lots of color in this one - maybe green for the beginning of the project, red for the red-light date and blue for the last deadline. I'll have to think of something for the event's date itself. Maybe pink? Although I hate pink and I doubt want to use black. Maybe a Yellow marker? We'll see. The important thing is simply to start using it...

This is the journal I bought.

It's pretty small, like a size of my palm but since I'm not going to write poems in it - that's ok.

I plan to hang it on the wall so I could see the whole week and not just one day.

My only doubt was if I should have bough a plane monthly calendar and not a weekly journal.
Time will show how useful will it be. 

Happy Rosh haShana everyone

... and may it be sweeter than the previous one!

50 sketches per day - is it possible?

A while ago Yana Frank suggested in her blog the concept of 50 sketches per day. The idea is to just sit and draw 50 sketches per day. Crazy as it sounds - it might be an interesting project.

I actually tried something like that once and a burnout came quickly. It was suggested that one does a drawing per day, in any possible format and publishes the outcome. I held it only for a month or two.

The challenge is interesting but very intimidating. The good thing is that it's very motivating.
So I might try it again. Maybe.

How to draw a Pyramid in 1 point and 2 point perspective

As I already mentioned it one of my latest post most, or maybe even all of the figures drawn in perspective are based on a rectangle of some kind.

Same with a pyramid.

This is a wonderful and simple explanation on how to draw a pyramid in 1PP.

I based the 2PP Pyramid on the same tutorial.

After completing this task I decided to draw a pyramid based on a triangle. And this is a bit more complicated than doing a rectangle based one.

This is a 1PP Pyramid.

And a 2PP Pyramid.

Did you manage to create yours? Did it go well or were there any difficulties?

Learning while illustrating.

One of the things that I like the most about illustrating is beside the fact that I constantly learn how to draw new stuff I also get some general knowledge.

Resently I've been working on my Rosh haShana greeting card and I started reading - again - about the Shofar, a horn that Jews blow into after their annual holiday prayer. It appears that only a hollow horn can be called a shoffar - which is kind of obvious - and the process of preparing it for use is pretty time consuming.

This is my last year's Rosh HaShana card.

Wishing you all a Happy upcoming holiday.

How to blend with colored pencils

I am constantly looking for drawing tips and several days ago I found this beautiful shading technique for colored pencils. If you follow the given link you'll find an example with the video presentation.

There are three shades of the same color - light, medium and dark - and the order of shading is as such: light, medium, light, dark, medium, light.

I obviously wanted to try this method to see what will happen. I decided to use my Snail again, redraw and shade it anew.

My first one was a complete fail, as you can see I didn't even finish it. I thought that the dark was too dark and that I wouldn't be able to blend it properly. Of course, I was wrong, but I decided to redraw it anyway. 

So this is the second try and I love it. The only thing I regret is not drawing some decoration on the sail's body so it would be even more gorgeous :).

And then I decided to draw some carrots. Looking at them now I don;t know wich one is better. While finishing the upper one I've noticed that because the dark one was too dark it didn't blend too well/I did the other one but in this case there was not enough of the dark and the carrot came out really flat.

So I might just keep on trying and use this technique because I simply love it :)

How to draw a triangle in perspective

Funny thing - I didn't find any proper explanation on the subject so I tried to figure it out in my own. One thing that is mutual to drawing geometric figures in perspective is to find it's center point. So with that in mind I began my sketching.

After several tries I've realized that anything to do with 1PP triangle is very simple. You just draw it. Any kind you wish. As simple as that. Just change your Vanishing point (aka a triangle top corner).

It gets more complicated when it's a 2PP. And here, apparently, it's the best to draw a rectangle and then work from there.

You draw a rectangle, find its middle and draw a line to its upper side edge. And then you connect the three points, as shown.

It's not too complicated but I'm surprised that there is no tutorial on the subject. Should I write one?

Cube in 2 point perspective

Another part of perspective drawing - this time its a rectangle in 2 point perspective. I found the right video straight away so I stopped there.

After finishing I've realized that there is no reason to keep looking for cylinder perspective drawing, I could simply combine this method with 2PP circle method.

It was weird working with a ruler, I usually don't do that. But it felt very methodical though. very relaxing and almost meditating. It felt good.

Drawing a circle: two point perspective

Today I decided to continue exploring the subject of circles in perspective. I already wrote about Circles in 1 point perspective (1PP) so today it will be Circles in  2 point perspective (2PP).

This video is almost the only thing I found on the subject so that's what I'll be using.

I also tried to do some cylinder in 2PP but it didn't go very well so I will dedicate another post to it.

It's coming soon :)

Developing Creativity: how present the color wheel in a creative way.

All those who deal with colors know what a color wheel look like. Usually, like this.

Now several days ago I found this image on Pinterest which led me to this blog.
It is about teaching art to kids and there are some really nice things about it.

So the post I came upon was about creating a different kind of color wheel. Just to do it differently from the one everyone is used to.

So I decided to give it a try as a creativity exercise of this month.
This is a classic color wheel.

At this point I felt like I was simply coloring with really expensive pencils. But I guess that this is the very experience that will help me to understand the color theory a bit better than before.

These are some ideas I came up with.

For some reason snails started to fascinate me, so I included a snail in this one too.