Tag: illustration

A Day In Our Lives #22

rissaw Leave a comment

Hey guys,

This week I wanted to talk a bit about my process and how I create a lot of my more complex digital drawings. I originally studied Illustration at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. During my time there, I spent a lot of time learning anatomy and perspective. In the illustration program, almost all of my work had to be on paper, they teach traditional art for the most part in that department.

With this, I usually start out my drawings on paper, and then take a photo of them. I then upload the image to procreate on my Ipad, where I color in the image. Sometimes I will include line work, but I really just love using value in my digital artwork. I like to think of it more as a digital painting than anything. It is a lot easier to digitally paint in the colors in my opinion. Then I am able to get exactly the right tones that I want, and if I mess up there is always the undo button.

I know this isn’t a good tutorial on digital drawing, but it is just my different way of going about most of my more complex artwork.

See you next week!

Marissa

Mixed on Campus #2 – Indira Sankaran

Alice Conner Leave a comment

Name: Indira Sankaran
Mix: Indian, White-American
Major & Year: PitE and EEB; Junior

Q: How has being mixed affected your campus experience?

A: It has definitely been an experience! I have always had difficulty understanding where I fit into society and coming into a new environment, without any strong cultural foundation, is hard. Especially with so many ethnic and cultural organizations, I always have a difficult time joining them because I did not have a similar upbringing or experience from others. However, being a junior and meeting so many new people from many backgrounds, I have cultivated a community where I feel safe to express myself.

Q: What do you wish more people knew about the mixed experience?

A: That my mixed experience is soo different from others who identify as mixed or multiracial. We should not be defined into a category and everyone expresses or represents in so many different ways!!

Q: What is your proudest moment?

A: My proudest moment was recently when I realized that my school or academic success doesn’t define me or my future.

Q: What are you most anxious about right now?

A: Presently I’m nervous about internships! But overall, I’m anxious about leaving college and my safe community in a year.

Q: What kind of person do you aspire to be?

A: That is a hard question but i aspire to be a kind and grounding person. I want to be the person that is independent and kind to herself and others 😌

Q: Who is the most influential person in your life?

A: Would it be narcissistic to say myself haha. I’m proud of myself and how much i have grown these past two years! I aspire myself to work on myself and I think that is the most influential thing a person can do.

OTM #28: Time Change

katelynski 1 Comment

So there I was, playing mobile games like a loser at 1:59am that fated Daylight Savings evening. I was deluded enough to believe that I was gaining another hour, that time would move back for me – but I could not have been more mistaken. It was a moment of downright shame as I watched the clock jump from 2 to 3; I had been successfully navigating independent adulthood until that very moment. I let myself slip, I forgot. Of course, it’s not that serious, but to that tired version of myself, it felt like life or death. After sleeping off the silly mistake, I realized that I was not the only one who forgot or didn’t remember how the time change worked; maybe I am a proper adult after all, I thought. It’s fine that I forgot. I can just sleep early the next day. It’s funny how serious things can be taken sometimes. Have a great week everyone!

A Day In Our Lives #21

rissaw Leave a comment

Hey guys,
This week I am posting some of my character sketches/studies. I really enjoy creating characters. One of my favorite things to draw is human anatomy. I really love boosting the color in people’s undertones in order to create my painting/coloring style. For lighter skin tones I start with a base of sage green, for darker skin tones I use an undertone of red or blue. I also created a new header image for this series. I feel like this frame from one of my comics fits the vibe better here. I like creating a variety of characters in order to push myself to stay away from “same face” syndrome, which is a really hard thing to overcome if you have a distinct art style. This just means that because of your style, you sort of accidentally draw the same face over and over.

See you guys next week!

Mixed on Campus #1 – Alice Conner

Alice Conner 4 Comments

 

Hi, my name is Alice Conner! The first post of this series is a self-portrait. I’m a 2nd-year undergraduate student majoring in Industrial & Operations Engineering. I racially identify as mixed (Japanese and White-American) and drawing is one of my hobbies! This series is called Mixed on Campus and was inspired by the Humans of New York project. The purpose of Mixed on Campus is to give a voice to this university’s mixed community and shed light on its members. Being mixed means to be multiracial, multiethnic, and/or a transnational adoptee. Through Mixed on Campus, mixed students have the opportunity to have their portrait drawn and share their experiences!

Being mixed has been a defining part of my life, even when I didn’t fully understand it myself. Growing up, I struggled to find a community that would accept my whole identity as it is without judgement or discrimination. Since coming to this university, I’ve been able to find a place within a supportive and inclusive community that has helped me understand my identity and uplift myself. I’m very grateful to the student organization Mixed@Michigan, whose purpose is to foster a community of mixed, multiracial, multiethnic, and transnational adoptee students at the university. I joined in the fall of 2022 and now serve as a board member for the org. This project would not be possible without Mixed@Michigan!

Letters by Lydia: Lettering Relaxation

lydnas Leave a comment

Welcome back from break everyone (or, at least, Michigan students)!

I’ve been missing spring break already and feeling kind of gray getting back into school, and one of my favorite things to do when I’m feeling a bit down (surprise, surprise) is handlettering! I like to get cozy in a blanket, put on a mindless tv show, and do some experimental lettering of various words I hear while watching my show.  It’s a really relaxing way to just kind of shut off my brain, and it also gives me the space to make art without worrying how it looks, because it’s just for me.

Because of that, I like to play around with new techniques and try things that might end up looking a bit wonky.  Today I took pictures of my process with one of the words I did.

I started out with just writing a word, nothing fancy.  This is typically how I start out, just a bare bones word to build off of.

Then I’ll add the first detail–in this case, a shadow or 3D effect.

From there I start to have fun with it.  In this specific piece, I picked the original green color randomly, and then kind of took off with the green theme and thought it would be cool to try doing some sort of leaf effect, and I honestly (no pun intended) love how it ended up looking.

Once I’m done messing around, I’ll take a step back and see if there’s anything else I can think of that might tie the piece together.  Here, I really liked the leaf effect, but I felt like the word itself got lost and needed something to help differentiate it from the background.  So I added a classic black outline–you can never go wrong with one of those.

And that’s it!  After that I did a few more words while finishing up my show, but I forgot to grab pictures of those.  Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as it’s fun and relaxing 🙂

I hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse of how I use art to relax and focus on the process!  Are there forms of art that you find particularly relaxing or restorative after a hard day?