The Indian Artist, Revamped: Learning New Tools!

Good morning everyone! I hope that you are all doing well and that the first few weeks of the new year have passed by smoothly. It has been a busy beginning of the year for me already and am excited for the next steps in my journey. I am applying to medical schools this summer and truly look forward to moving along the process! In today’s post I will briefly speak about my new decision to teach myself Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

As a self-taught artist in classical media, I have generally always stayed far away from digital art. To me, It seemed like somewhat of a cop-out, not as academic or technical as traditional mediums such as pencil and oil paint. I was completely fine being blissfully ignorant until very recently. I was asked to do some work that required that I do vector drawings in order to product the required result. This meant that I could no longer stay in my classical-era bubble.

I have thus set out on a journey to teach myself the powerful digital tools that are Photoshop and Illustrator. I have begun my journey my watching videos on YouTube, reading articles, and just messing around on my own. I look forward to progressing in these techniques and perhaps will use them to further enhance my own paintings and drawings in the future. I have linked the videos that I have found most helpful thus far if any of you are interested.

 

As I have a large learning curve to climb, I would greatly appreciate any help and advice that I can get. If any of you are proficient in the Adobe artistic suite please feel free to reach out or comment below! I look forward to sharing my new creations with you this year! If any questions or thoughts arise, please comment or reach out to me via my socials!

 

Until next week,

Riya

 

Instagram: @riya_aggarwal.art

Portfolio:  https://theindianartist.weebly.com/

 

OTM #23: Run

I used to run every day in high school. I was on the cross country team all four years, and the track team for like, three. It was hard, yes, but it was really cathartic and cleansing for me, too. I love the feeling of running, the ability to be in tune with my body. Once it gets really intense, my brain feels full – full of joy, of adrenaline, of stress – it’s a magical combination of emotions spurted on by physical activity. I never fully fell out of running after graduating, but coming to college definitely made it harder. I lost my motivation to do it every day, I didn’t have a coach or events to look forward to. But I’ve never stopped; as of late, I’ve been getting super into it again. My apartment building has treadmills that I’ve been getting on almost every day of the week. And I’ve noticed how much harder it’s gotten – running, I mean. I used to be able to crank out six miles easy, but now I’m struggling to finish three. Sweating feels good, though. I feel like I’m sweating out schoolwork, stress, societal pressure. I love it, I can’t get enough. I have shin splints right now, and I wouldn’t have it any other way (despite these being a bad thing). I guess what I’m trying to say is, hobbies are cool; nowadays there is so much push to monetize every single hobby, but running is one that I’ve kept beautifully sacred to myself. I think it’s important to have those.

A Day In Our Lives #14

Hey guys,

This week is a little out of the ordinary, my drawing this week is on paper with colored pencils instead of on my iPad. I lost my apple pencil and I’ve been looking everywhere for it! I saw a squirrel for the first time in like two months so I was inspired to draw this little guy. I gave him a. little Starbucks cup to keep him warm. I liked drawing this week’s post on paper, so I might do something similar in the future. I regularly am a traditional artist and sometimes I feel like I am able to be looser with my drawing. It is hard for my brain to register the Ipad as some form of paper I think!

See you guys next week
Marissa