Two Portraits

 Done in charcoal pencils I bought and needed to test. Not the best picture, but they perform pretty well. And for a quick test pic, it's not too bad. 

Captain Rolith?! WTF?!

 I don't know why, but this looks like Captain Rolith from DragonFable. I don't know how that happened, but it did. It's done in charcoal and I love how it turned out. But I still can't get over the fact it looks like Rolith.

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 10th of January, 2021

Gender confused meets charcoal

 

No. I'm not gender-confused. But the person in the picture is. It was supposed to be a male, but for some reason, it doesn't look exactly male to me. I mean, it doesn't really look like a female either... So, that's why it's probably gender-confused. I did this in colored pencils and then, when it was done, I busted out my brand new white posca pen and added the highlights. And I'm in love. Be ready for me to sing praises about that pen. The YouTubers are right about this one. It works like a charm! I don't ever wanna go back to using that old paint pen I had before! Heck, even actual paint was better than that! But this is awesome! 

Back to the picture. I think he (yes, I'm calling him a He, regardless of what he actually is) looks a little surprised. Or maybe even scared? Or, since he is, confused. The drawing was done on a rather small format - A6, whatever that would be in inches for you inch fanatics out there. I don't do inches. Nuh-uh. Not gonna. Inches confuse me. But yes, what I was saying. Done on a small format and in a sketchbook. Please tell me what you think about it, okay? 

And we got one more. And this time I busted out my charcoal. Not too long ago I bought some vine charcoal. It was on sale and I couldn't resist. I don't think I've ever used vine charcoal apart from art classes when I was still in grade school. So, I was really excited about it, but until now, I had no inspiration for a charcoal drawing. So I was happy when that inspiration struck me today. I have this sketchbook with a really smooth paper in it. And it was this sketchbook's turn to be used. I'm right now filling in five sketchbooks at once. So, I'm grabbing this sketchbook and then I'm looking through my drawers. And I spot that charcoal. So I take it out and start messing with it. Turns out vine charcoal is one of the best sketching tools. I had so much fun figuring out what would go where on the paper! 

When I was done with that, I used it for basic shading. Just blocking out the main areas that would be shaded. And then I had to find my soft, darker, charcoal. This one was in pencil format, which is great for detail work. So, I found it and started adding details. Deepening some of the shadows, and so on. And then I'm like... Nope, I'm not blending this with my fingers! Nope. I was trying to not get myself completely black. And again, I went looking through my drawers. This time looking for a blending tool. And I found my homemade blending stick. Which is basically just some rolled up paper that is held together with a bit of tape. Still, it works. It gets the job done and it worked wonders on this pic. 

One thing I should probably invest in though is a charcoal eraser. The ones I have didn't work very well. I mean, they did an okay job with the vine charcoal, but definitely not with the darker, softer charcoal. Which forced me to again add the highlights with my posca pen. Though this time I only did it after spraying the whole thing with a fixative spray. I didn't want to completely contaminate my posca with charcoal. 

I would like to hear in the comments what you think of these two pics and which one you like better. :) If you think there's a specific area I need to work on when it comes to my art, I would love to hear about that too, so long as you manage to stay polite. No need to insult each other, even though I insult a lot of people on a daily basis. They just don't know it as I only think those insults. So, see you later. :)

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 13th of August, 2020

Various

So, I have several new pictures. This first one is of a white trillium. At least that is what they said. I'm still not sure I believe them. Them being Pinterest. But I'm willing to not care. It's a white flower and that's all anyone needs to know. Anything else is irrelevant. It was done with oil pastels and giocondas. I love mixing those two together. It always give s me such interesting results! The background is just some colors spliced together because at that point I was too lazy to draw more leaves. So I left it like that. Considering it's done on a rather small-sized paper, I don't think it matters all that much. Though looking at it now, I think I should have gone way darker on those leaves. Like, black level darker. Or... No. No or. Definitely should have mixed black in that. This way it's way too light where it shouldn't be. But alas, I don't think I'm gonna fix it now. Too late for it. I sprayed it with a fixative and therefore I won't be able to do anything more with it. However, at least I know what to do next time I draw something like this. Right? Tell me what you think. I would very much like to read your comments. 

Reflection

So, while watching a tutorial on youtube by Yong Chen, I decided to draw something. Not knowing what, and not wanting to draw what he was doing in the tutorial, I went back to my trusty random word generator and got the word reflection. I went with it. Googled it and then picked a picture. Though I do need to remember to fucking switch to searching through Pinterest rather than a simple google pic search. Pinterest is better for this. Still, I settled on a pic and hopped to it. It's done in charcoal and while I didn't do much in case of details, I think that the finished product is not too bad. Especially if you don't view it full-sized. So yeah. I did no measuring, no guidelines. I just went in with that charcoal pencil and hoped for the best. As always. I almost never measure when drawing. Or, maybe even never... No. That's not quite right. I measured once. Maybe even twice. But I don't really like it. It's why I only do it on very rare occasions. And as for details. When you're using an A5 sized paper and charcoal pencil, it's really hard to do details. Yes, I am aware it sounds like an excuse, but the truth is, I didn't want to add too many details. The main stuff is there and that's enough for me. Deal with it. Still, I would like to know what you think about this. So let me know in the comments. See ya. 

~AnnElfwind 

Written on the 2nd of June, 2020

Painting with Charcoal

So, been a while since I posted anything. About a week? Well, actually, it's been longer. I pre-prepared most of the posts you've been seeing. But now I got some free time so I decided to post more. And again, it's some pictures I drew and painted. This first is just a "study" of a nose. Just some practice with charcoal to see what I can do and how the sketchbook I was using would perform with charcoal of all things. Lately, I got really into charcoal and I'm doing a bit of experimenting here and there.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. Only, the tutorial I was following, somewhat, was using toned paper so that kinda screw with it but oh well, I wasn't gonna hunt down toned paper just for a quick sketch. Maybe for a full drawing, but not for this. Also, this sketchbook seems like it won't let the charcoal be smudged as much as I would like to, but I'm learning how to work around that. So we're good.

This next one is a painting I did that was inspired by Bob Ross. Again. Most of my nature-themed paintings are inspired by Bob Ross lately. Not all, but most. And this one, well, I really like the big tree and the smaller trees on the left side. I also love the grassy area but I'm bit bummed out about not doing the sky first, as this created a sort of a glow around the trees and bushes because I couldn't get too close to them with the blue without going over them. So, they're glowing. I'm also not too happy with the water, but that's my own damn fault for fucking around with a fucking fan brush. But I just wanted to test it out! So sue me!

Last one in this batch. Painted before the nature-themed one but is in the last place because upload positioning is a bitch and I uploaded the other one first. So it was first. This one was done following a Paul Priestley tutorial on youtube. Well, somewhat. I didn't have the exact colors so I made do with whatever I had. Also, I did not follow his instructions on the direction of the strokes because I think horizontal ones make more sense on pottery. Also, I don't understand how green equals blue with light shined on it, but oh well, there's a lot of things I don't understand when it comes to Paul Priestley tutorials. And not in the way that I'm a beginner, but in a way where it simply doesn't make sense. So sometimes, I'm not even trying to understand anymore.
However, I like the finished look of this. The only thing I would have done differently is the shadow. I really don't like how that turned out. Still, doesn't mean I'm gonna go back in and fix it. Not now when it's all dry and finished and done with. It's just something I know I will do differently if and when I draw/paint something similar in the future. 

Written on 14th of April, 2020
~AnnElfwind

Charcoal tree

So, I tried to do something with charcoal. I had to since I bought a pack of it just a few days ago. So I was watching videos on youtube. Art related videos. Tutorials and other stuff. And then there's this one that features charcoal. So I'm like, I'll try to follow along. And I did and this is the result. Mine's a little different and the highlights are probably not as bright. He was using chalk to do those, I used white soft pastel. And his paper was toned. Mine too, but nowhere near as heavily.
Still, looking at it, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The reflections in the water are somewhat believable, nothing is too weird-looking, the bushes look kinda like bushes, the grass is not too stylized. I'm happy with it. And I'll definitely try to do more of these. But how about you tell me what you think of it? 

Charcoal, pencil and a merman

I was watching a charcoal tutorial on youtube. It was about drawing an eye. But the main problem was, that my charcoal was not the smudgy type. So I had to take out my soft pastels, which I coincidentally, only have in black, white and gray, and try to see if they would work. And boy, did they! They worked wonders. I mean, the iris could have used a bit more highlights, but oh well, it still looks cool! I love how it looks! Done on an A4 paper with some tooth to it. The sketchbook it's in was a Christmas gift. :D And so far, it's working pretty well for me. 

This one was done while I was watching some youtube video about basic proportions. It was all about measuring and comparing distances. And the guy is like still doing the nose while I'm googling hairstyles. Basically, remember what's-his-name from the post titled "Who the fuck are you?"? Well, this was a similar process. Just this time, I did a female, just like him. But the end result is completely different. The size is a fourth of an A4 paper. Done in a basic pencil that I don't even know the hardness of, but it seems like it could be a standard 2B pencil. Or something like that. Well, anyway, I'm happy with how this looks. What do you think?

Heh. Frankly, I don't even know what to say about this one. I mean, it's not horrible, but compared to the other two, it's like a complete noob drew it. And maybe it's because it was done in oil pastels and on a rather small paper. So I couldn't really fit enough detail into it, but still. The hands are pretty horrible. Though my thought process is this: If I don't draw them, regardless of how horrible they are, I'll never get better at drawing them. So that's why I'm posting even this. It's not my best work, but it's not my worst either, so there you go. Tell me how bad it is. I can take it.

~AnnElfwind

Written on: 8th of January, 2020