[Traditional Art] Elegance

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This is a purly wet media drawing (excluding sketching materials), using watercolor, washable marker, white pen, and black prismacolor pens.  This is me using minimal stuff compared to the loads of stuff I normally use, I like this way because it's smoother and as a side thing the white pen is smoother than with pencil under it.

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Materials Used:

• Rapheal Watercolor Paints (and the brush that comes with them)
• 17 - Crayola Washable Markers
• 005, 01, 03, 08 - Prismacolor Pens
• White Gel Pen - Sakura
• Pencil - Sketching
• Canson Mixed Media Paper 

Enjoy!



May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends; Along With The Health Of Yourself, Family, And All Who Know You. ~ Amen

~Firefly

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Drawing Demo #3 - Eye

This is drawing demo #3!

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends, The Health Of Yourself, Family, And All Those Who Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

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Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
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Drawing Demo #2 - Rose

Here is Demo #2! This time is is a rose and it's a different style than the mushroom.

I had to make it a little faster so it might be harder to follow, but that was greatly due to my limited photobucket space and I think it would take less room to have one 6 minute video instead of two 4 minute videos; Hopefully you can still follow along if you so desire. This time it will be three parts:

1. Drawing
2. Outlining
3. Coloring

 

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends, The Health Of Yourself, Family, And All Those Who Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
All My Factoids Can Be Found At the Official Blog Archive Here.

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Drawing Demo #1 - Mushroom

This is a "demo" of me drawing a mushroom. I'm thinking about doing a series of things I draw a lot as a demo to show how I do it. They won't be slow and overly detailed but to give the idea of how I do it, everyone has their own style anyways.
 
The Object also is to be kinda like a tutorial but not exactly, if somebody wants to follow along or just make their own interpretation of how I do it results are welcomed!  - Even if the sketching is all you followed or used traditional media.

So this is Demo #1 of the possible series of my drawing demos, a mushroom.

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends, The Health Of Yourself, Family, And All Those Who Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
All My Factoids Can Be Found At the Official Blog Archive Here.

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[Traditional Art] Animal Characters

Here  are some animal characters I've drawn recently. I used watercolor, colored pencil, ink, and washable marker for them.
Enjoy!

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends, The Health Of Yourself, Family, And All Those Who Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
All My Factoids Can Be Found At the Official Blog Archive Here.

Have A Question?
Ask The Firefly!

[Traditional Art] Ink and Wash

Here are a few ink and wash images I've made.

I used Raphael watercolor and watercolor pencils for the wash and sakura pens for ink.
On the grapes I also used washable marker and wet it like paint.

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends, The Health Of Yourself, Family, And All Those Who Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
All My Factoids Can Be Found At the Official Blog Archive Here.

Have A Question?
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[Traditional Art] Female Portraits

Here are 2 paintings of women faces. These are both out of my head.

Sad Indian Woman (India Indian)

Time Taken: 2 days

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Materials Used:

Markers:

•  18 Crayola Washable Markers

 

Paints:

• 4 Crayola Watercolor Pencils
• 2  Faber Casttle Watercolor Pencils
• Raphael Watercolor Paints. 
• White Pen
• #1 Brush

Pencils:

• 10 Prismacolor Pencils
• Mechanical Pencil

Other:

• Kneaded Eraser
• Canson Mixed Media Paper (98lb)

Blonde Girl

Time Taken: 3 or 4 hours

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Markers:

• 16 Crayola

Pencils:

• 14 Prismacolor
• Normal Pencil

Paints:

• 5 Crayola Watercolor Pencils
• 6 Faber Casttle Watercolor Pencils
• Raphael Watercolor Paint

Other:

• Canson mixed media paper (98 lb)
• Kneadable eraser
• Sharpener

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends, The Health Of Yourself, Family, And All Those Who Know You. ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Want so see more of my art? Visit the Official Factoid Firefly Art Archive Here.
All My Factoids Can Be Found At the Official Blog Archive Here.

Have A Question?
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Product Review: Canson Mixed Media Paper - XL Series (Updated)

Here's my little project!

This is a product review for the "Canson Mixed Media Paper XL Series", it shouldn't be long but I'll give you an overview of how it's working out for me.

Okey, lets get started!

Product Review: Canson Mixed Media Paper - XL Series

Many people call themselves artists, some paint, some draw, some do both, some use one media some use many; For those who use many or "mixed", there are many options for paper and canvas, and I've done a reasonable review on paper that can be found here: Paper, Canvas, and Artist Boards – Which is best to paint on? (Only thing I'd note is I focused on painting more than anything else.)  But today I'm going to review "Canson Mixed Media Paper").

Paper itself:

Paper Type: Mixed Media

Paper Maker: Canson

Series: XL

Poundage: 98lb

Binding: Spiral with Perforated Edges  for easy removal

Media Usage: Pen/Ink, Watercolor, Marker, Colored Pencil, Acrylic

Note: I'm only talking about the pads not the sheets or rolls.

 

Canson mixed media paper is a paper that is thicker than normal paper (printer) and sketch paper  but thinner than full out watercolor or acrylic paper, it's a reasonable texture, not ough but not perfectly smooth, if you want a textured paper this isn't really textured, just has a small tooth.

It's 98lb which means it's not very thick compared to even student grade watercolor paper (don't let this turn you off, keep reading.), but it holds up pretty well overall, the key it to let anything wet dry almost totally if not fully before adding anything wet.

Price-wise, it depends on the store, Hobby Lobby and Micheals want up to 15 dollars per pad (9 X 12 inch 60 pages) but Wal-Mart costs 8 dollars, but that depends on where you live. I'm not sure it's worth 15 for one pad but that is my opinion and I hate spending a dollar on pencils to sketch with so I'm a cheapskate.  It's up to you. Buying online will cost more, I would try to avoid unless you can't get it in your town or country and even then don't get excited and BUY BUY look and find it cheapest. ( I say this with anything)

Sizes in Inches:

8½" × 5½" 

10" × 7"

12" × 9

14" × 11"

17" × 14"

Media Usage:

I don't use acrylic paint other than highlights so I won't address that.

Watercolor:

I'm going to start with the most destructive to paper in general, and that is watercolor.

For me, this paper isn't good for full out watercolor because it's too weak; However, it can be used for light washes if you don't load the brush and paper too full of water, I should also note that I was using Crayola Watercolor Pencils (which aren't that bad I'll have to do a review on those too).

When using it for watercolor, it's not horrible if you leave it to dry before working anymore on something. Wet on Wet in my opinion is NOT an option for this paper, stick to actual watercolor paper for that, even if it's 144lb or student grade watercolor paper.

I practiced a technique of watercolor base then marker/pencil over it (inspired by Mark Crilley), and here is my result:

I also used water over washable markers which added lots of color and tests the paper, in the end after letting it dry as I worked and letting it flatten out it wasn't too wrinkled in the end. But the balloon bot too wet and in the back you see a small fold dried from too much water.

Key to using watercolor for this paper is - Not a lot of water because too much WILL make it buckle.

Marker:

For Marker, I haven't used Alcohol Based only Water-Based markers, but for that it seems stronger than for the watercolor, it doesn't bubble up with it. For a little background Water-based markers don't bleed as much as alcohol based (Prismacolor, Copic, Sharpie etc). So fast it stands up to a lot of abuse with marker, but after a while it will peel a little, but if you let it draw in between layers it behaves fine.

The Image beside the text, was colored with a marker and watercolor base, and it help up much better with the marker than the watercolor but when I let it dry it flattened a bit.

(Update:

I used a Sakura IDenti-pen which is a lot like a Sharpie and the paper held up alright, but if you go over it a lot while wet it will from what I can tell...For sure bleed through, I'd put a paper underneath if you pick this paper to work with.)

Pencil:

For pencil, this is a perfect paper I believe. It stands up to much erasing and even with dark lines if you use a good eraser it erases almost totally.

Colored pencil-wise, I colored this entire drawing (minus the birds and bugs) with colored pencil first then marker over it and nothing bleed through it didn't ware out it help up nicely!

Here Are Some Sketches:

Ink/Pen:

For Pen, it holds up great, I haven't used a thick pen though, I used a 03 for a moment and a 005 used to make both thick and thin lines, which means repeating ware and tare over lines. So far, no bleeding. I used this pen:

I really like this for pen drawings so far, and I'm sure I'll be adding more in to my book.

Here's a result if an ink drawing:

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Overall, I give this paper 4.5 of 5 Stars, only because it's not as strong as I figured for water but it holds up pretty decent and I still love it!

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friend; Along With The Health Of Yourself, Family, Friends, And All Who Know You. ~ Amen

~ Firefly

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NotePad ++ stuff and project for you..

I have a project I'm working on for this blog, and I've gotten a lot of interest with my notepad++ review and people want more...I don't know what that means exactly so if people could post here what they mean I can see if I can help yous out any!

okay that is all...

~ God Bless~

~ Firefly

{CG) Paisley Butterfly

This is a splash-screen for a virtual piano I'm working on!

Enjoy!


~ God Bless ~

~ Firefly

Tilly's Rose Garden - Seasons: Winter - Splash Screen!

Working on some mini-games whenhttps://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1570159499480629859#editor/target=post;postID=6099737624747463781  I can for TRG, atm working on winter and as such needed a splash..
Enjoy!

May God Bless and Heal All You Know An Love, Amen.

~ Firefly

My Process For Inking -

My Process For Inking -

I've been questioned on "how do I create ink-drawings?"; Well, this is how in a nutshell!

I've done a much more detailed post on this, that can be found here.

First I sketch me out a drawing:

When sketching I start with a normal #2 pencil for the lines that show off the form then making the initial lines; Then I switch over to a mechanical pencil to tighten up lines so I see for sure what I want. - When I sketch I do actually sketch out the hatching and cross hatching but it's just as a guide I'll stray a little bit but I do follow it a lot as well. I'll also sketch out shapes for shading just so I know where to go. (More on sketching with 2 pencils here.)

Inking:
Before the actual inking I use my kneadable eraser to ghost out lines (for more information on that click here) then I actually take out my pens. - And speaking of which, I start with a smaller sized pen tip and go thicker as I go along; For pen brand(s) I normally use Sakura Microns or Prismacolor pens, sometimes I use something else like a sharpie or something but not always. (Reviews for pens here)

I ink the main lines first then move on to the details like hatching or patterns, it takes a while but it's easy to make a mistake and you can't really fix it; Correction fluid isn't really ideal although you could use a white pen but it's not a perfect correcting agent.

Once inked I erase my pencil lines, depending on paper and eraser I might have to go over lines to darken them again; Often when erasing the lines become dulled.

Tips:

• If at all possible, ink at a table or at least use a clipboard, the harder the surface the smoother your lines look.
• Don't press hard on a pen, you could: bend the tip, force too much ink out, or cause not enough to come out causing your ink to look sketchy.
• Keep a paper behind your picture when inking (if you are using a sketch book), this is so if ink bleeds it won't go on the next page.
• When you want to add shading and you already added hatching, make lines got the opposite direction of the lines you've already set, this will make a criss-cross effect that will make it appear darker.

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I hope this was helpful to those who asked!

May God Heal and Bless all You Know and Love. ~ Amen ~

~ Firefly

Tip of the Week: Doodle

Sometimes when you have no clue what to do, the best thing is to doodle! When you work at drawing so much you might get discouraged and the fun and enjoyment is taken away; the best way to avoid such things is to doodle, get some paper and just draw whatever!

You might get some of your best ideas from doodling, I got my idea for African drawings that way, I've gotten other ideas as well from it.
Doodles can also help when making characters and stuff just play around and you might find something great come out of it!


~ God Bless ~


~ Firefly

[Traditional Art] 2 Paintings

Here are 2 paintings, both done on watercolor paper, the mushroom one is 8X5-1/2 the other one is 11X15 (Inches); I used colored pencils, markers and watercolors.

Quality is bad as I had to use a cellphone camera and try and fix on the computer...

Enjoy!

~ May God Bless and Heal All You Know and Love. ~

~ Firefly

[Traditional Art] Disney Sketches + My Own Sketch Idea

I've been looking at some kids books trying to copy Disney style stuffs, so here they are!

Plus:

~ May God Bless and Heal All You Know and Love ~


~ Firefly

[Traditional Art] Some Ink Drawings!

Here are some ink drawings I've done over the past month!

I used Prismacolor Pens for all of them; Process-wise I sketch with a normal pencil first, tighten lines with a mechanical pencil, use kneadable eraser to ghost out lines, use pens to ink, erase pencil, add crosshatching as needed.

~ May God Bless and Heal All You Know And Love


~ Firefly

Sorrrry!

I haven't forgotten about here, I've just been out of it a lot without anything really to say...How about comments for sth I can write about maybe I can get back in the swing of things! :>

Eyyyyyyyy

Hai evr'yoneeeee!
I'mma thinking on what to do to update on here odk what atm.

ttty soon!


~GB~
~Firefky

The Closed-Minded-Ness of Art Schools:

It's amazing to me that such places as art schools where the sky is the limit in the relm of art that they have closed-minded-ness, sure once you read this I might sound closed minded but please hear me out.

Art schools, including those who teach game design and other arts not simply painting have this knack of sticking to one way and one way only in things, I don't know if it's because in the public schools they have to do it because of governmental control and a money trail or not but I know this much, the private ones should be a bit more opened minded since they aren't supposed to be controlled there. Here are some key issues I'd like to address: Drawing people who are naked, Opened source software, Japanese style cartooning.

1; Drawing People Naked:

Before I'm called a prude hear me out, lets say you are a man/or woman and you have a spouse, I'm pretty sure the only person you want them seeing naked is you, right? Well, from what I have heard, maybe there is an opt-out in some schools but what I have heard and researched myself you can't opt out. so wait...My husband loves art wants to get better but he has to look at other naked women? 

If you as a man or a woman have a problem with this I don't blame you, nearly every person when I researched this did not want to draw anybody naked but they had to, they got "used to it" but that's not the point, there is something in us that says we don't want to do this but in art schools from what I have researched they force you to, and what about those of religious stances like, Christian who believe it's wrong, or in Islam who's enforcement is even more intense where in some forms of the belief they cover the very hair on their head? What, they can't go to school for something they enjoy? 

I don't push this as never have this in art school those who want to it shouldn't be withheld, but what about an opt-out option? Or, at the very least make an opt-out class and have them in a bathing suite, it's better than naked. - I understand it's for "learning the figure" I see how it could be helpful but those who feel it's uncomfortable, wrong or disrespectful to a loved one like a spouse should have the option to opt-out. - Again I read in research there is no opt out, but if some schools do that's a good thing!

2; Opened Source Software:

It seems that if one doesn't use Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or Maya 3D, they aren't a good student, those who want to learn digital art, game design or other things of the like have to use very expensive software because it's supposed to the world's standard. 

It's like Adobe and the big companies are all that's "good" in their eyes. Am I  "against" using them? No! But not all students can afford it, and if it's given free to learn and use still, there are other things they can learn why do we need to be a robot all learning the same thing? I have seen countless people who have moved from Adobe Photoshop to GIMP,  some have moved from Adobe Illustrator to Inkscape, and many prefer Blender over the big 3D software like C4D and Maya because it's free and powerful. Do I degrade these big programs? No! But it's very closed minded to say only the ones that cost up to hundreds of dollars are the only good ones. The Free and Opened Source programs are still great.

3: Japanese Cartooning:

It seems Anime and Manga isn't art if you go to art school, they will flat out tell you not to draw it anymore or at least not for homework, it doesn't count, those years you spent drawing Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece doesn't count people! I'm sorry!

If that's not closed minded I don't know what is, I don't say make it a major or anything of the like, but a span of  styles from both the west and the east should be encouraged not discouraged, art school is supposed to help you grow, not diminish what you know already.

At the very least a history of other styles should be shown if they don't want it as homework to draw at least teach the history of it, right? Many kids in my Generation and the Generation before us including myself  got their start in anime/manga and if they didn't stay there they at least started there, the idea that Anime/Manga is not art is a misconception at it's finest.

Here's my view, you're free to think it's wrong!

May God Bless and Heal all you Know and Love.

~ Firefly

3 New Drawings - [Traditional Art]Sunny Scare; Mushroom Forest; Old But Beautiful

[Traditional Art] Sunny Scare:

Haiiii, I know I've been away but it's cause I have lots of problems and can't get to internet or even use the laptop much. Here's a drawing I drew while waiting for a lot of hours in the car, I turned the whole front seat and dash-board in to a art studio. I used prismacolor inking pens and colored pencils, 2 copic markers (I only have 3 so don't think I'm rich), come crayola colored pencils and a lot of markers, random other pencils, white paint and a white pen.

I had to use a very old phone with a camera so the quality isn't the best and the red overtone is because the sun was setting behind me.

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[Traditional Art] Mushroom Forest

I'm not fully happy with this one but I do like the mushrooms. :3
The Picture is VERY LQ and I tried to fix colors best I could and make it not look so messy in GIMP but oh wells... I used Markers and colored pencils.

[Traditional Art] Old But Beautiful

Here's a new drawing of an older African Woman, I discovered about myself that I rarely use cool colors as a focal point of a drawing. I just happened to do cool colors for the dress with the blue and green so I added purple to complete the cool accidental theme.

The base colors for the dress, hat ( I don't know the technical name for it) and skin were all done in child's crayon first then colored pencil then marker. - I actually drew this on a slant, I tilted it in GIMP after I was trying to fix colors since I took with the phone camera....came out a bit over contrast but oh wells.  Yet again drawn in the car but hey I'm learning to brave the elements! 

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 May God Bless You, Your Family, Friends; And The Health Of yourself Family and all that know you! ~ Amen


~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Would You Like To See More Of My Drawings? Click here.

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Year older...

As of 4/13/2014 This blog has reached a year old!
Thank you for all the views of those who have looked I hope to continue to be helpful!


~ God Bless ~


~ Firefly

Tip of the week; Sketch and Shadow, and Clipboards.

I've been away, still kinda am but I figured I should post something new here to not appear that the blog is dead.

Tip of the week; Sketch and Shadow, and Clipboards.

Sketch:

When you sketch I'm sure you often get smudges from the moisture of your hand moving the graphite around, well a way to prevent this is to put a paper or a cloth under your hand as you go, also when you sketch it helps (if you are doing cartooning/illustration at least) to sketch with a normal pencil (like you'd use for school) first, then to use a 0.7 hard lead mechanical pencil, this has a never flattening tip which will chisel out the fine details are you go over the lines you know you want.

Shadow:

Once you draw your sketch and you know the lines you want to keep (most likely by darkening) you can use a knead-able eraser and push it against the pencil, this will gently erase to the light lines go lighter and the dark lines go in to a ghostly or shadow like outline, so when you ink you don't get the hard sketch lines and the inked lines confused. - Note: DON'T RUB, Just Press and lift.

Clipboards:

When using a clip board with a virtical opening sketch book put the bottom where the clip is and not the spiral, this will keep the paper snugly in place so when you erase or move fast the paper won't scrunch and ruin your piece.

____

I hope this was helpful to all yous out there! 

May God Bless You, Your Family, Friend; Along With The Health Of Yourself, Family, Friends, And All Who Know You. ~ Amen

~ Firefly

Useful Links:

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Would You Like To See My Drawings? Click here.

Have A Question?

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AFK for a bit again

I'm sorry I've been afk I still will be for a little while longer but I'll be back soon!

~ God Bless ~

~ Firefly

{Digital Art} Landscape Practices

I don't draw landscapes much but today I drew a mountain-scape (of which I took in mind some things I've seen Bob Ross do although I don't think I did nearly as well as him with oils) and a beach-scape. Both are drawn in GIMP took a few hours between the two and I used no sketches just let it go as I went along which is kind of freeing in a way! As usual I drew these with my mouse.

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Enjoy!

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May God Bless You, Your Family, Friend; Along With The Health Of Yourself, Family, Friends, And All Who Know You. ~ Amen

~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Would You Like To See More Of My Drawings? Click here.
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Have A Question?

Ask The Firefly!

[Traditional Art] Some learning sketches.

A few drawings I did over the past month and a half, the dates aren't all right but I put it all on the same day so I forgot to make the different dates....Anyways here they are!


Enjoy!


These are 2 poses in Christopher Hart's "figure it out" how to draw bodies book, I tried to draw them only in my own character.

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 This one is from following this tutorial by Mark Crilley.
 I used a few colored Prismacolor colored pencils to color it along with a few crayola markers.

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 These are from this tutorial also from Mark Crilley, only I changed a bit to be more "my" style than a pure manga style. - I used prismacolor pencils to outline and color; not the prettiest coloring job but it wasn't meant to be "good".

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This is a watercolor ONLY drawing, minus the pencil I used to sketch. 

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And a few emotions from Tilly!

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May God Bless You, Your Family, Friend; Along With The Health Of Yourself, Family, Friends, And All Who Know You. ~ Amen

~ Firefly

Useful Links:

Would You Like To See More Of My Drawings? Click here.
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Have A Question?

Ask The Firefly!