Artist Progress 2016 - Faces

I looked over my older blog posts recently, and realised that not that much was really documented. It was interesting to see what was there. Each post was like a moment in time that I was taken back to. I didn't write a lot about my personal life or anything like that, but memories were still there, attached to the art and the words. It made me realise that I'd really life to blog more often, to keep more of these little parcels of time to look back on.

One thing I'd really like to start doing is practicing more, and having a set point to look back on, which I can say "this is what I could do then" and "this is what I can do now." I've decided that I'd like to create a few different artworks in about January and February each year, then try to recreate similar things at the same time next year, to see what progress I've made. I don't really have a set point to compare to from last year, but I have to start somewhere.

"January 2016 Traced Portrait", Digital, January 2016

I've been wanting to draw some more portraits, so this is hopefully the first of many. For full disclosure, this one has been traced over the top of a photograph, not drawn freehand. I know some people have a problem with that, but I find that tracing over an image helps you to look at lines in a different way than if you just look at the image as a whole, so I think it still has merit as a learning tool.

"January 2016 Freehand Portrait", Digital, January 2016

This one was drawn freehand while looking at a reference photograph. I added the flowers in her hair because I was getting bored by that point. That's also the reason I didn't shade this one, but I imagine the shading would have been pretty similar in style to the traced portrait.

This one is also available on my Youtube channel, Renee Dillon Art, if you'd like to watch me draw it and ramble a bit about nothing. Hopefully now that I've learned to record and add my voice to videos I'll have more important things to say in future,

30 in 30 - "The Plan"

I felt like playing with my Wacom tablet again today, so I made a digital abstract painting. I like the colours in this one. The blue/indigo shades layer nicely together. Maybe I should create digital mockups of my abstract paintings more often. I feel like it comes out more naturally when I'm not worried about 'wasting paint'.

Day 11

"The Plan", Digital, January 2016

30 in 30 - "Springtime" Repeating Design and Handbag Concept

One of the hardest things I find about creating something is creating with a purpose in mind when you start. It's easy to tinker about until you create something you really like through experimentation. it becomes difficult when you want to create a product, have many copies manufactured and shipped at great upfront expense, and just hope people like it enough to buy them. If you think you're self conscious about your art, try backing it enough to spend several thousand dollars on the hope that someone will like it. It's scary stuff.

This is my latest creation. I've been trying to come up with some more designs to print on handbags. I think this one would make a nice bag, so I hope people agree with me.

Day 10

"Springtime", Digital Art, January 2016

I made a mockup of what it would look like repeating on a bag.

Let me know in the comments section what you think of this bag design. Your feedback will help me to decide which bags to have made. Thanks for looking!

Color Throwdown 374 - "Tints and Tones" Abstract Digital Art

I really like the inspiration picture for this week's Color Throwdown challenge. I think the dining set is from Anthropology or somewhere like that? I seem to remember seeing it before.

I decided to make an abstract this time, just doodling in Photoshop. I used a few tints and tones of the orange and turquoise colour, to mix it up a bit. I quite like how that turned out. This also counts as Day 9 of the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge. Still not sure if I should stick to abstracts for the whole month, but at this point I haven't felt like doing much else. Follow the inspiration where it strikes, I guess.

Day 9

"Tints and Tones", Digital, January 2016

30 in 30 - "Summer Nest" Oil Pastel Abstracts

More artworks for the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge. Still experimenting with oil pastels here. I find that I work very differently creating abstracts with oil pastels as opposed to paints. I don't try to cover the surface quite so much, which allows some of the original colour of the paper to show though. 

I'm using a keyboard with an attached mouseball at the moment, which makes it hard to edit these images. I'll crop and reupload them later when I have a proper mouse. For now, I just wanted to make sure they were posted before I went to bed.

Day 6

"Summer Nest", Oil Pastel, January 2016

Day 7

Day 8

30 in 30 - "Sunrise" and "Celebrate"

Apparently some people are having trouble uploading their links to the 30 Paintings in 30 Days blog. I wrote a how to article explaining How to Join a Link Party to Increase Your Blog Traffic a while ago now. Looking back, I'm not sure if it goes into enough detail, but hopefully it will help someone.

I like how brightly coloured today's entry is. I'm enjoying the opaque oil pastels on the brightly coloured papers. I should try doing some layering next and see how that turns out.

Day 4

"Sunrise", January 2016, Oil Pastel

Day 5

;

'"Celebrate", Oil Pastel, January 2016

30 in 30 - "Time Capsule", "Olives" and "Hieroglyphs" Abstract Art

First post of 2016. Happy New Year, everyone! Looking back on the past year, I've accomplished a couple of things that I wanted to get done. I've been blogging for about two years now, on and off, and I've started to get more serious with it late last year. I wanted to average at least one blog post per week, which I've done. This year, I'd like to do more in the way of tutorials and posts that people might learn something from. 

But first, I'd like to try the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge again. It's been a while since the last time I tried, but it would be good to get back into the habit of seriously trying to create something new every day. I know I can do it, I've done it before, I just have to make sure I do it now.

I've been a bit undecided about what I want to create for this month's challenge, so I might mix it up a bit as I go, and experiment with different abstracts, portraits, whatever strikes my fancy. We'll see what happens.

Day 1

"Time Capsule", January 2016, Acrylic Paint

Day 2

"Olives", January 2016, Oil Pastel

Day 3

"Hieroglyphs", January 2016, Oil Pastel

I'll probably put a couple of artworks on each blog post if I don't have much to say about them. That makes it easier than making a blog post every single day."