Artword

Artword’s Growth Over the Semester

For those of you who didn’t know, this blog was a semester long project for a college course. Over the semester, I have seen so much growth in my blog. I’m so excited to discuss my experience in this post today.

There’s always room for improvement, right? That’s why I will first be discussing what improvements I would like to include within my site. The posts I enjoyed writing the most were ones in which the art had a really deep meaning behind it. I did a couple blog posts with a deep theme, and they were really well received. That being said, I want to dive deeper into my art from this point forward, and create pieces with emotional themes viewers can connect with. I have also only focused on digital art thus far, however I think it would be an improvement to create and post artwork with different mediums. More color is something I’d also really like to incorporate in the near future.

I only promoted my content on Twitter, which was effective to an extent, but I think it would be beneficial to promote my art on more than one social media platform. I plan to venture out and promote my content on Instagram, being art is a very popular topic on that platform.

The best experience I’ve had during this semester-long project is an overall boost of confidence. I felt somewhat unsure of my art and fearful to post so much of it on a site where anyone can view it. However, I’ve received far more followers and views than I expected and this positive feedback has really inspired me to keep creating! It makes me happy to see people taking time to view the art I love to make. I also think this experience will benefit me in the future because I aspire to become a media writer and blogging is a great way to practice my craft. I might be able to implement the tools I’ve used while blogging, such as learning to expand on a single topic and making connections between myself and the reader, professionally in the future as a writer for media.

Based on the stats and insight above, one can see during which weeks my blog was more popular. From what I observe, the stats for March 23-March 29 display my blog’s most popular week for I had 17 views and 12 visitors. The week following had more views, specifically 27, but not as many visitors nor likes.

From these stats, one can see that my most popular post of the semester was “Drowned Girl”, as it received a total of 19 views. This post also received the greatest number of likes. I believe that this was the most popular post because the art had a deep and meaningful story behind it, relating to social pressure and depression, that many readers may of felt they could connect with as they might of suffered or currently are suffering from these feelings and anxieties.

In all of the Site Stats data, I was surprised to see that my 3 most popular posts were the 3 posts I made for Website Review 2. I think that the reason for this was the requirement to engage with another blogger in the 2nd Website Review, and the addition of tags on my posts from that point forward.

Lastly, I wanted to share these Twitter stats. I found it very interesting that my most popular post, “Drowned Girl”, also had the most link clicks out of all my twitter promotions. This leads me to believe that there is a correlation between a quality promotion on social media and the success of one’s blog, brand, etc. Promotion through social media was definitely the most effective tool for drawing attention to my blog. I learnt countless advertising and marketing tools over the course of this class, none of which I found ineffective in improving my blog.

Maggie

I drew this piece to mirror the style of a mood board. One can create illustrations in a collage form to evoke a certain mood. I wanted this mood board to display my friend Maggie’s mood and personality. When I think of Maggie, I think of a dreamer. In this blog I’ll go through the different pieces in this collage and explain why I drew them and how they reflect the theme and mood: dream.

The first piece I drew was the moon. Obviously moons can be associated with dreaming, but I wanted to add a certain “Maggie characteristic” to this moon. Maggie has a very soft blue color in her eyes that inspired a grey/blue aesthetic. I only drew a single blue eye, and used the move tool to create multiples. I like the display of repetition in the moon portion of the mood board; digital art is wonderful because one can create repetition like this with ease.

The portrait of Maggie is the next piece I created. It isn’t a very realistic portrait, however I do believe it fits in well with the style of the moon. Maggie is interested in modeling, one could even say this is a dream of hers. For that, I wanted to add her portrait in the mood board. I used a pen tool for the details in her face and hair and a highlight tool, the same one I used to outline and connect the three separate drawings, as eyeshadow.

Lastly, I drew the sheep. I chose this animal based on the idea of “counting sheep” when one’s trying to fall asleep. The sheep is actually the most realistic portion of this work as a whole, and I really played around with texture in creating it. I used a pen tool in the color grey to add fur texture to the sheep, and I felt really satisfied with the outcome.

Glitch

This is a piece I created some time ago titled “Glitch”. The key to this drawing was to make it feel unfinished, leaving the viewer wondering what the missing features may look like or be. The inspiration behind this piece came from a photo of my friend, taken near a window where sunlight created a harsh white marking across her face. To me, the photo looked a bit like a glitch or mishap. I was excited by the idea of drawing a portrait with missing bits and pieces.

To draw this piece, I actually sketched out the entirety of the face first. I did this only to ensure that the facial features don’t look out of place. I don’t work with Photoshop a lot, but I’ve found this tutorial on sketching realistic faces on Photoshop that I find helpful and very similar to the process I typically do on reMarkable. After I finished sketching a normal portrait of my friend, I erased the area of the face where I wanted the glitch effect to be. Adding small white boxes and thin black lines surrounding the face was a decision I made in hopes of accentuating the artwork’s theme and title.

My favorite aspects of my piece “Glitch” are the subject’s eyes, for one looks to be a grey I while the other is dark. I think this detail kept the eyes from blending into the background, which could easily happen with such a large and contrasting focal point: the white patch. I also really like how the shading on the nose and lips turned out for this drawing in particular. I’ve struggled with realism for a while and I can really see improvement through the work I’ve done on this piece. I do think color could improve this drawing a lot, especially in the white areas. If I were to use colors, I would leave the hair and face in black and white and make the glitches more apparent with a rainbow spectrum.

Review of Karl Jeffery’s Blog

While deep searching every “how to” art blog that WordPress has to offer, I discovered an amazing one illustrated and written by Karl Jeffery. The blog is titled Continuous Line and Wire Drawings. It immediately drew my attention for the images he has posted of his art share the same characteristics and essence of my drawings. The pieces I create are always black and white and they present realism. These are the characteristics I saw in the first two images I viewed.

As I read further, I noticed this blog post in particular discussed how he was attempting to develop his art by trying out new techniques and materials. He talks about how he has begun practicing continuous line art, not only on paper but with wire too! I feel inspired by his boldness and ability to branch out beyond his comfort zone. I also admire how he tells the story behind the process to aid others in accomplishing the same art style on their own, similar to the purpose of my blog, and also admits the failures that helped him learn to improve.

The new style he’s developed is much more abstract and requires more interpretation by the viewer than his surrealist style does. I’ll leave it to whoever views this blog to hop over to Karl’s post through this link. There you can see multiple images that display his new found style: continuous line art. I don’t want to spoil it here. The link to his blog in it’s entirety can be found here. I recommend you read through his art journey.

Karl Jeffery is a very talented artist. I now want to try out this continuous line style on my own, but I will be using my usual digital style as my material of choice. I will also, of course, be using the tricks I’ve learnt from Karl to hopefully avoid some foreseen errors. I can’t imagine creating an entire portrait without lifting the pencil once. However, on my journey to becoming an experienced and well-practiced artist, I will take the challenge.

Please look out for my continuous line art attempt in a future post! I will include the story behind my first approach at the style and all the techniques I used as always.

Mauritius: My Home Far Away

My dad’s side of the family comes from a beautiful location called Mauritius. I drew this piece while in Mauritius, and desired for it to give off a feeling of island life and beauty. In this blog post I want to discuss first the techniques I used to illustrate this piece, then the reasons as to why this island means so much to me.

For this drawing, I played around mostly with the concept of texture and dimension. Texture-wise, I used both smooth and rough texture. The sand was created with a pencil tool that I brushed harshly to create dark shading. This technique gave the space that the subject is sitting on a rough, sand-like look. As you may notice, the subject’s skin looks incredibly slick and smooth especially in contrast with the sand underneath her. I did this by keeping her skin tone even throughout, and adding bright white highlights to make her skin look shiny. The last texture I used was an uneven wavy pattern that gives off the impression of moving water. I accomplished the texture of the water that rises up to the subject’s knees by overlapping shades of grey.

Dimension was a bigger hurdle to jump for it can be tough to make body dimensions look just right in complicated poses. This process took a lot of trial and error but ultimately, I shaded her calves and feet darker than the rest of her body to illustrate that her lower legs are folded beneath her. Shading can be tough, however the best advice I can give is to think about where the sun or source of light is located in the picture. Then, shade accordingly. Adding dimension will help you produce a realistic style.

I love Mauritius as it adds such a unique dynamic to my culture. Whenever I tell someone I’m actually African American, I always receive a surprised face and a itch to know more about my background. I love telling stories about my dad, my visits to this island, and everything I know about the location. If you’re curious to know more about my drawing or the magical land that is Mauritius, feel free to ask me through comments! I’m happy to converse.

“Drowned Girl”

This drawing has become one of my favorites, as it holds a deeper meaning than any of my other pieces. I call this piece “Drowned Girl” not only to embody what the viewer is able to see visually, but also to open a door of interpretation on why this girl feels drowned. It can be interpreted in a number of ways, however in this blog post I’d like to tell you the story I put behind this composition.

Before telling the story, I’d like to first break down the techniques I used while drawing this portrait. I played around with both positive and negative space for this piece. This means that on some areas I used dark colors on white and in others I laid down the dark color first, and then went back over with the white. The angler fish is an example of where I sketched over a dark area with the white colored pencil tool to achieve negative space. Positive space was used for the girls shoulder, head, and facial features. The usage of space and color were two of the main concepts I focused on for this drawing and I believe this approach gave the image more depth and fascination.

As you may be able to tell, the subject in this portrait is a young girl. Despite her young age, the viewer can also see black substance underneath each of her eyes. The black substance in question is actually mascara running down her face. In today’s society, due mostly to social media and social pressure, young girls feel strained to look a certain way. The anxiety that comes feeling not as beautiful as girls presented on mass media sent this young girl down a path of depression; the falsity of the media made the girl feel drowned. The scary looking fish underneath her represents the darkness that awaits her if she never seeks help and continues to drown deeper.

I drew this piece to bring light to this major issue and left the little girl’s eyes big and open to illustrate the hope that is still left. Everyone deserves happiness; always hold onto your faith in a hopeful future. I’d love to hear what you interpreted from this piece, or any other thoughts and opinions you may have. Feel free to leave me a comment. Lets have a discussion!

Drawing my Inspiration

For this blog post, I would like to discuss the portrait I made for my inspiration: Ariana Grande. To begin, I want to get the basic facts of this portrait out of the way so I can move into the deeper more hidden techniques I used to make this piece.

Firstly, the pose Ariana’s hitting is seen in a female interlude she did for international woman’s day. When watching this video, which I have linked here for your viewing pleasure, I felt inspired to draw her immediately after witnessing how strong she looked and seeing the repetitive phrase pop up, “not asking for it.” This phrase means a lot to women who go against rape culture, meaning going against the stigma around sexual assault victims “asking for it” by wearing a revealing outfit. I felt a strong connection to the video and it’s message, so I took out my Remarkable and began sketching the outline.

Compared to a lot of drawings I’ve done in the past, you’ll be seeing a lot of different styles from me in every post, this drawing I made in particular came out a lot more realistic and rough. Instead of using a the fine liner tool to trace over my initial sketch, I decided to layer the lighter pencil lines with darker pencil strokes. I decided not to blend some of the shading to purposefully leave rough patches on her face and body. I liked how the rugged edges looked in correlation to the meaning behind this video. Ariana looked rough and tough in the interlude, therefore I wanted my portrait to exemplify the same tone.

I hope you’ve enjoyed viewing this drawing and I’d love to hear your responses and feedback based on what you saw and felt while looking at this portrait. I feel a sense of strength and feminine power, however another viewer might feel a different emotion. All thoughts and inquires may be sent to me via direct message on Twitter, here. Please come back for more regular content!

Introduction to Artword

Hello! My name is Lauren Park and I attend Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. I’m originally from Dallas which is where the rest of my immediate family currently resides. Dallas will always have my heart. I major in Electronic Media and minor in Theatre within the school of Mass Communications. I love art and I believe I receive most of my creative energy through my dad’s genetics. I also love to write, and I hope to write and direct live production and theatre in my future.

That’s where I came up with the idea and title for this blog. Being so focused in school, drawing simply cannot be on my radar too often. The word “Artword” is a play on words for “Artwork”. Basically, my blog will consist of my original Artwork but also have detailed descriptions of the idea behind each piece, the techniques I used, and other thoughts and stories that came to my head while creating every drawing.

Drawing is the area of art I focus in. I also don’t typically draw on paper as I prefer to draw digitally and completely in black & white. This has been my preferred style for a couple of years now and I’m finally feeling confident enough in my own work to not only share it publicly on a blog but also make it a bigger priority in my life. Completing my assignments in school and receiving good grades and feedback makes me feel happy, however stress will always come along with college. Drawing is a sense of meditation and release of all this stress. It is my goal to find the balance between these two things.

I am excited to premier my artwork here on this blog and also write about everything that went into the creation. Once this blog gains momentum, I will also be looking forward to expanding my art posts outside of this domain. Perhaps Instagram, Facebook or Youtube. By using Youtube I could even begin posting tutorials. I hope this experience will improve my writing, my art, and my time management skills as well. To the readers of this blog, this is me and I hope you stick around and read whether you’re interested in art or not. This blog will welcome all personalities.

You may also follow my twitter for more updates and information here.