YAY I finally get time to upload and blog about this!! I’ve been working on an assignment all day (a freakin one minute stop motion project….GAHHHHHHH I’m so bad at videos I’ll probably have to redo it because my frame rate SUCKS ) and my battery ran out of power, so while I wait for it to charge I thought I may as well put this up. My room looks like a bomb went off atm, it’s actually really annoying me and I can’t wait to vacuum this place up. 

But anyway, this is a painting I’ve been working on for the past week or so, it’s an homage inspired by one of my favourite authors, Jules Verne, and his book The Mysterious Island. If you haven’t already read it, I definitely recommend it if you like adventure/steampunk. It is very bloke-y (yeah not a girl in sight in its entirety ) and totally convenient and unrealistic but I love how romanticised science is in the book and it is really amazing to me that Verne was talking about electric guns and communication lines all the way back in 1874. He was way ahead of his time. 

This is a scene I wanted to depict right at the start of the book, when the company are escaping from Richmond in a balloon and get caught up in a huge storm across the ocean. They’re about to fall right out of the sky into the stormy water when they sight the island on which they spend the next four years of their life on! I drew this quite large so this is really a hugely scaled down version…and yes that is FIVE people in that basket. With a dog. 

Drawing the balloon was actually quite fun, I used a ref though and that made it a lot easier to draw. Actually, I think I spent the most time drawing the ocean – drawing a stormy sea that goes out into the distance is a lot harder than it looks.  I went over the ocean so many times because I couldn’t quite get the texture right. I used some custom rough brushes in Photoshop and it helped a bit too but not too sure if I’m still very happy with the ‘stormyness’ of the sea.

As I said at the start of the year, I’m aiming to work on drawing things I’m not that good at yet, so this painting was quite challenging for me as I usually suck when it comes to painting depth and figures and motion. Overall though I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, considering I did use a lot of elements in this illustration which I don’t usually use. I also used a lot of cool colours in this too and that was hard in itself – I usually use really warm colours and finishing this I now just really want to draw something sunny and happy!!

I also used smart filters to finish this in Photoshop – may do a tutorial later on actually because the technique is really easy and awesome and I can’t believe I’m only now figuring out now how to use them because the capabilities are amazing. I used a rain brush from here, although I hand drew most of the rain…just needed to get a few smaller lines in the background. Also used textures from here – love this site!

So yeah that’s really all I have to say…I hope you like it and I also hope it gets some people interested in Verne’s works in general because he was a literary genius and relating to his ideas and scifi adventures today is pretty inspiring!  :0

And now back to my assignment I go….*groan* 

Endnote: I drew a lot of this piece to classical music ( ) and feel like this just goes way too well with my drawing:

I always used to get kinda confused about using stylesheet/directory tags, mainly because I’m the kind of person who needs things to be explained in layman’s terms. And when you search for template tags in Google it’s kinda…overwhelming. There are so many different ways of using tags in WordPress, I have to admit I’m pretty terrible when it comes to fully understanding the different ones and when/where to use them. I am in no way a WordPress expert or professional coder but I feel like I’ve achieved something by finally figuring out how to use these in my theme, so hopefully this might be helpful to some people too! I know…it’s pretty noob-ish of me after so long using WordPress but I got somewhere in the end. 

So if you’ve used WordPress before, you’d know each theme directory sits a few folders in in wp-content:

When referencing things such as images or fonts in your theme, it’s obviously pretty annoying to type out the full URL, especially when it’s not easily memorable and/or long to type. So WordPress has some handy tags you can use to make life easier!

1. Reference media in template pages

   <?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>

   So if I wanted to use an image  in my template that’s in the same directory in a folder called ‘images’, I’d write something like:

   <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/header.jpg" />

   Note this tag only works based on your currently active theme.

2. Reference the theme’s stylesheet

   The following tag just retrieves the main stylesheet url of the active theme (usually style.css):

   <?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>

   So to link the theme’s css, just put the following in the header:

   <link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />

   If you’re using multiple stylesheets, you can simply upload them to the main theme folder and use the first PHP tag to reference them:

   <link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/style2.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />

3. Reference media in your theme’s stylesheet

   Media such as fonts and images only need to be referenced as local files, assuming the theme’s related media is located in the same theme folder.

   So if I wanted to use a background image from my theme folder, I’d just write the following in style.css:

   background: url(images/bg.jpg) repeat;

And that’s pretty much the basic tags you really need to start making WordPress themes. There are of course others, well actually loads, but unless you’re making child themes or doing other funky stuff I think as long as the tags do the job everything will be fine.

WOO NEW BLOG!! I’ve been working for what seems like ages today – I finally have a little breather to do some things I want to do!!! This week is actually the second week of my break. However I did not foresee the amount of actual work projects I’d be doing this week. The good news is I’ve finished most of my college work so that’s all good…although I’m planning on doing a bit more tomorrow. Good thing it’s break time at the moment though otherwise I’d be swamped. I actually really wanted to finish Lonesome Road in Fallout:NV sometime this week but looks like that’s not really happening lol. Too many things getting in the way…which I suppose is a good thing but also means I get to have a less relaxing break. 

So anyway I finished off this painting last week- I really wanted to paint that in the zone moment you get when you’re working on something with full concentration. I did take aggees drawing the clouds…well actually everything in this generally took a while. I was working on this in between doing college work so it was kinda hard to fully concentrate on this for long periods of time IRONICALLY. I went through so many different final versions of this because of the glare at the top. I don’t know if it’s my monitor or just my crappy editing skills in general but there was this ugly white contrasty patch which kept showing up and annoying me in the saved file. So I had to keep going over and over and over it until I finally got it to look somewhat decent.

I’m working on another painting at the moment but to be honest I don’t really know where it’s going. It started out as an exercise drawing a beach but I kinda wanted to turn it into something…more.  Been trying to work on it for days now but it hasn’t really gone anywhere. Hopefully I’ll find some inspiration soon. 

Actually I might try work on it right now. Because I’m staring at it right now and it is really annoying me 

On one last note I want to add a few more tutorials and stuff here. I dunno, something which might actually help people and make this site a bit more interesting, lol. Not that I don’t think my blog is already amazingly captivating already, hah. But if there is something you would like to see from me let me know.

Ooh I also ordered business cards for myself! I really should have gotten some AGES ago but never got around to it because I can procrastinate a lot. But I decided since I’m getting more work in I might as well order a few. I ordered two sets – some mini cards for this blog with some illustrations at the back and a set of 50 good ones for my business website, Meep Media. To be honest I haven’t really advertised Meep anywhere or told many people so this is the probably the first you’ll hear about it! But I will be working on it a lot more in future.

I love this website and all, and I was actually just thinking of using this website for professional work too, but I feel like this is more like my personal space to rant and share my creative journey. So Meep will really just be my business page/design portfolio. I’m pretty rusty when it comes to designing websites though so that’s another thing on the growing list of things for me to do!

On ANOTHER sidenote, I finally was able to get responsive videos on this site!! Thanks to the Responsive Video Light plugin.  Done in less than five minutes. Another reason why I friggin love WordPress. 

I drew this for a contest on DeviantArt last week – kinda rushed it because I forgot about it then realised the deadline was in a few days  But the deadline’s now been extended so I didn’t really need to worry at all.  The contest is pretty cool though, you’re basically just given a word and you have to draw something around that. My word was witch- I don’t draw magic/supernatural stuff all that often so I decided to take the stereotypical image of a witch and do my own spin on it. I really didn’t want it to be like those tacky halloween pictures you see everywhere around October though, you know with the orange pumpkins and all that jazz? Ehh not too sure if I completely like what turned out though…but I do like the colours I was listening to The xx whilst drawing this hence the title. I love the iridescent, dream-like quality of their music and I really want to try incorporate that into my drawings in the future.

Drawing different times of day is still kind of a challenge for me, mainly because of colours, but the colour theory class I’m doing this semester is actually helping me a lot. We’re on a two week break from next week so I have quite a bit to do to finish off some assignments. I’m also planning on doing a lot more drawing during the break though! I have a few concepts I want to do digitally, and I also want to do a tshirt design around Beastie Bay and Fallout although designing for tshirts still kinda confuses me.

I’m kinda obsessed with Kairosoft games at the moment – they make simulation games for the iPhone/Android, and to be honest some of them do start off a bit slow but they are so. addictive.  Their games are pretty expensive at around $4.50+ each but I think it’s worth it. Anyway one of their games, Beastie Bay, is completely free. And they have the BEST creatures in it, like PUDDLEKING and MECHA CHIMP and DRAZILLA:

Best creatures.

I actually really like the design of Puddleking and Drazilla, which is why I want to do a design around them. Although I may get Puddleking and draw him with the other kings in the game (I think there are four..).

Anyway I’m also planning on finally working on the new website for my actual work portfolio and business-y type stuff too over my short break. Probably moreso during my lonng month break coming up middle of the year though. More news around that soon hopefully, haha.

I actually should be doing my colour theory homework AND proper work at the moment but getting kinda distracted. Gotta love Saturdays.

On a sidenote, I’ve merged the drawing and illustration categories on this site. It was just confusing the heck outta me and it’s pretty much the same thing anyway!  Don’t really know why I made two different categories to begin with….;_;

Ahaha yeshh very original… I know this blog is a long time coming but I’ve just been so busy with other things Forgive me.

I drew this a few weeks ago, and was experimenting with a minimal colour palette. We’ve been learning a lot about composition and colours this semester which has actually helped me with my drawings a lot. I really wanted to try using some of the different elements in art so I did a reimagined version of little red riding hood, which I know has been done a bazillion times before…but only because she’s great subject matter and always provides a strong focal point. 

So I learnt from this drawing snow and shadows with so much white is challenging.  But it’s also really fun. Drawing the girl in this was probably the fun-nest thing about this drawing – and I even designed her outfit with cute little gloves with scalloping and everything. Of course you can’t see it because the image is shrunk down so much I would make a horrible fashion designer but there’s just something so much fun about drawing outfits sometimes. I’m going to keep working on drawing actual people this year….I think you just have to go through a crap tonne of crappy drawings before getting to a stage where your drawings at least looks somewhat decent.

Something I think I still need to work on is depth though. It’s just….so friggin hard for me when I just imagine layers without thinking about shadows or any of that. I’m pretty happy with how this turned out anyhow. I didn’t plan on ‘designing’ this at all with the text or frame or anything but I like how it turned out so I think I’ll do a similar format in the future, perhaps with other fantasy/fairytale type stuff. I think it’d make a pretty cool series, and I do want to do something ‘collective’, just because it’d be nice to see a few drawings with a common theme, instead of the randomness that spews forth from my imagination.

Another thing I’m planning on doing is more traditional art this year. I have so much love for digital, but I got some coloured liners recently which look really cool. And we’ve been doing a lot of pen drawings in class and it’s actually a lot more fun than I previously imagined.  One thing we have to do is design a one-off promo bag concept for our ‘client’ (mine is a bookstore) , and it’s one of the more recent projects we can be a little more creative with. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I love reading so much but I have so many ideas for our assignment, and I did a drawing which I am totally in love with and would buy if it were available. Buuut I don’t know if it’s bookstor-ey enough because it’ a little but more out there than the conservative stuff you see at regular bookstores lol. So yeah, I’ll hopefully show that to you all sometime soon.

I do have a heap load of ideas I would like to get through digitally though – there are so many things I want to finish, but of course not as much time to do everything all at once (which is usually how I work…or want to work, lol). I do have two more paintings to blog about though so stay tuned; I’ll probably have them up in the next week or so. 

On a completely different note, I went to see The xx last week!! It was so. amazing. They are one of my favourite bands, and they played pretty much all my fave songs I loved how each song sounded different but even more amazing than the album version…and how they all kinda flowed in with each other. I also can’t believe they’re pretty much the same age as me. Pretty inspiring, and totally makes me want to pursue my dreams a lot more too. 

This is their live version of Crystallized which they played when I saw them. Excuse the first ten seconds or so..it gets better.