anika mari

In my last post I shared some drawings I’d done, but only the outlines. I went ahead and colored in a few of the images with Prismacolor markers.

First I colored the Fishies Under the Sea Drawing with blues and greens.

I’m particularly happy with how the waves turned out.

Next I used only green markers on the more simple waves-only drawing.

I love these two greens together. I was also really happy with how the light green “sky” turned out. Because the marker is starting to run dry, it’s “juicier” when I first start drawing, which lets me slowly build up color when it doesn’t have as much ink flowing, so I was able to achieve a nice gradient.

As I added color to the “lightning bug” pattern, I intended to fill in the whole thing, but I really liked how it looked after just coloring in a few of the shapes, so I left it that way.

I also drew a few new patterns, and I colored the next one in before scanning in the outline, which wasn’t that exciting.

I am really liking multi-color palettes lately, including this one. I managed to avoid using yellow. I think it’s a little more interesting when you leave at least one color out when using many colors.

Usually I dive right in and add color to my drawings, but I wanted to get digital scans of the line drawings so I can try out different color combinations. I’m working on a little project for my brother James and his wife Rachel (a few drawings for their daughter’s nursery), and I’m not exactly sure what kind of colors they want to use in the room. I might try my hand at digitally coloring them, but if I have the black and white digital files, I can always print them out and color them with markers, not unlike a coloring book.

I’m still not sure of the direction where I’m taking the drawings. James and Rachel picked out a few drawings of mine that they liked, but it wasn’t clear to me how to make a cohesive group of four images, so I’ve been fleshing out some drawings, and coming up with new ideas.

I worked a little more on the “Heart Flowers” drawing.

I think the little bees are so cute!

I think the stems of the flowers need to be a little longer in proportion to the grass, but I like where it’s heading. The clouds are similar to some of the cloud drawings I’ve been working on (see below), which might work or might not depending on what happens with the other drawings.

From the original clouds drawing, I made the composition more like a landscape, which matches the heart flowers drawing a little better. I used the rain texture from another raincloud drawing.

It seems a little overworked to me, so I next tried a more simplified approach.

I think the rain could be “lightened up” a bit, but I really love the clouds.

With the landscape idea in mind, I tried to figure out another image to draw. The ocean came to mind, and I drew some waves that were inspired by the cloud texture.

The waves on the bottom didn’t leave much room for anything, except for maybe some clouds, which didn’t seem too exciting to me. I thought it would be cute to work in some little fish, so I drew another set of waves, this time toward the top of the paper.

I got in the swing of things after drawing so much, and I came up with a new pattern.

I think it’s really cute, and reminds me of lightning bugs, which would fit in with the nature-theme of the nursery, so maybe there’s a way to work them in? Who knows! Things are still a little scattered, but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually, and I’m having fun doing it!

I’ve been keeping up some momentum with drawing. This makes me very happy.

My art has a way of communicating with me. When something is complete, I definitely know it. When it’s missing something, that becomes equally obvious to me. Sometimes I think I’m done with a piece, but then over the following days it still tugs at me. Eventually I’ll realize what a piece needs to be finally finished.

I did this first drawing, and after coloring in a light gray brown and blue, I really thought it was complete.

It wasn’t.

I kept looking at it over the next days. I really liked it, but it gave me an empty feeling whenever I looked at it. It needed something more. Another blue.

The addition of the lighter blue did it for me. In my eyes it went from “good” to “yes!”. I love it when art says “yes!”.

Here’s another that I initially thought was done:

It isn’t.

I’ve been sitting with it for a few days, and I’m definitely being drawn to add something more. In this case, I’m pretty sure I’m going to add some line work for texture.

I’ll post the results when it’s done.

I got a few new markers for Christmas that I was eager to try out. I got all my sketch stuff out, ready to start, but I ended up having to wash out all my rapidograph pens, since it’s been so long since I’ve really drawn; some of them were out of ink and some of them were all gunked up. It took a while, but now they are all squeaky clean and ready for scribbling.

All the following scribbles are on grid paper because that’s what I had handy.

First scribble:

The new colors in this one are “pale jade” and “lime peel”. It’s a simple drawing of flowers, but I like the color combination.

Second scribble:

I used my new chartpak ad marker in “pink” for the background. It’s the first chartpak marker that I’ve tried. The fumes are intense, but the coverage is really nice, and they seem to have a nice variety of colors available. I also got a really nice dark purple that I hope to try out soon. I used my new “magenta” prisma color marker as well as a couple of old green ones (”dark green” and “parrot green”). In the end I wish I’d left off the green. I might have to do another version with just the pinks.

Third scribble:

I didn’t end up using any of my new colors in this one. The background is “goldenrod” and the other color is “spanish orange”. As I was drawing this one, I paused every so often to look at it skeptically. It’s a little odd, but I like how it turned out.

I’ve been working on some larger drawings that I hope to post about soon. It’s fun to have new colors to play with!

Over the past few weeks I’ve been in a creative lull. I’ve been somewhat busy with other stuff, but I just haven’t felt incredibly inspired to do anything. I’ve been working on some daily drawings in my sketchbook, but that’s about it.

However, at the tail end of my last creative burst, I did a few drawings/painting that I just now got around to photographing and uploading. I love being in Saipan, but there are a few things working against me: the humid heat which makes me prefer to swing in the hammock with a cool drink instead of working on art, and the slow internet connection which makes me want to do almost anything else than hover over uploads that can take hours. It took me almost 8 hours and a few false starts, but I eventually got the new photos uploaded.

My sister-in-law, Rachel commented that she really liked seeing photographs of my art in their environment. I started taking photos of the artworks hanging on the clothing line or carefully propped on one of the back steps because I don’t have access to a scanner here. I also zoomed in and took some closeups, but uploaded a variety of shots to give a good sense of the scale of the drawings and prints. After hearing her feedback, I embraced the idea and worked with the concept a little more deliberately. I am pretty happy with 2 of the art in environment shots in particular.

I think it’s fitting to photograph my drawings in this manner since I get so much inspiration from everything that I see around me. Not that I can pinpoint exactly where the inspiration for these works come from–they tend to be a general response to visual cues that surround me. Although the cinder blocks didn’t directly inspire either of these works, I like the visual similarity they offer to the drawings, as well as a certain amount of contrast to the surrounding plants.

Perhaps I’ll continue doing this when I’m back home, and I can use my scanner just for the details.