My art area

Rainbobo The Clown: watercolor

Ah, what a breath of fresh air after the last epic watercolor fail from my previous post.


Rainbobo The Clown by ~SarahSlam on deviantART

This was a fun piece to create. Mostly because I completely intended to create a soft emotional feel by painting a girl with deep blue eyes and flowy dark hair.

Well half way through, this painting took on a life of itself and just kinda guided my hand to create what it wanted to become...
Ok, enough artsy fartsy flakiness, this is by far the creepiest artwork I've done I think.

It was created on 140lb paper using cheap Crayola brand watercolors with the exception of the red which was Loew-Cornell?? I'm not sure if that's cheap or not. I'm a self taught artist therefore I have no idea how to properly use any art medium. Enjoy and hopefully it wont(will) give you nightmares.

Watercolor FAIL!

A friend of mine suggested I post some of my failures.
Although I'd like to mislead everyone into thinking I'm some awesome artist who never creates a horrible work of art, I decided to lift my veil and reveal the hideous face of truth... (ignore that last analogy)
So here it is... the horrible watercolor. Keep in mind, I didn't finish it. I knew in the beginning as I was laying down the blue wash that I wasn't going to like it and I guess that attitude stuck with me until I called it quits.

I didn't give much real effort. It felt more like when I was in highschool and I waited til the last few hours to complete an assignment I had two weeks to do. It was a half-ass effort and it showed. So, lesson here is if you're not feeling it, don't do it! Unless of course you have too... :P

In the House of Flies

In the House of Flies by ~SarahSlam on deviantART
I named this painting, "In the House of Flies" because while painting the hair I was listening to "Change (In the House of Flies) by Deftones. That's probably why it has a darkness to it.

Sugar Ants love Watercolors too!!!

Beware!
Sugar ants love Prang brand watercolors!

Recently sugar ants have taken over my craft area. They aren't in my kitchen that I usually leave less than spotless. They haven't infested my livingroom that has now become a combination of my diningroom/bedroom/collection for all Styrofoam cups with leftover sugary drinks and misc crumbs from previous meals. No, theses little black critters only want one thing, my best watercolors!!!! They don't bother with the Crayola brand watercolors, just my Prang!

I have no idea why sugar ants would be so attracted to the paint, but it's fun to squish them and see all the different colors smear out of their tiny little bodies. Muahahah!


I made a water/bleach solution and have been spraying their trails and every little gathering area of theirs. But they keep coming back. So, Mr. Prang has been sealed up tight in a zip-lock bag and tomorrow I shall buy weapons of mass ant destruction!
The Ant Apocalypse is coming....

My Tragic Talent

My artistic talent is like a plastic bag drifting in the wind; Although it's reusable, it gets tossed out into the wind floating from place to place, but it will never degrade.



I'm not having much luck in watercolors after my awesome self portrait. I've wasted four sheets of good quality watercolor paper. :\ My expectations must be too high.... All I can do is try again after each fail.

Watercolor Self Portrait!!!!

Yay! I'm so terribly, horribly, excruciatingly proud of myself! Haha

I absolutely love my first self portrait.

First, here is the photo of me I used as a reference:
Funky face, I know. I purposely wanted to look that way.

And with the inspiration and guidance from the lovely agnescecile (I have posted a video of hers before on a previous blog) I was able to create this:

Splatter and Drip. Awkward to say, but fun to do!

Watercolors are my new art fling.
Something is just so addicting about it's free flow, color blending, randomness, and my creative tooth is craving it so badly right now.
My favorite watercolor works are the abstract "grungy" splatter-all-over-the-place-then-draw-a-random-object(s)-right-smack-in-the-middle. So, I decided to practice the splatter and drip watercolor techniques. This is what I came up with:

Not too bad, huh? I wanted to draw a shoe because I was inspired by the catchy tune Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People.

Watercolor Octopus!

BEFORE- sketch:



AFTER- finished watercolor and ink



I painted this on Canson XL Watercolor cold press 11 x 15" 140lb paper.

As you can see, I added the boy who is summoning the beast that was not present in the sketch. This image doesn't show about an inch from each side due to my scanner being too small. This was the first time I have used watercolors in three years, so I'm no expert.
I may redo it, but for now I'm decently happy with this one. :)

It was my idea FIRST!

Okay, maybe a giant octopus terrorizing a city isn't technically an original idea...


BUT what about a dream I had a few years ago about an octopus 100 stories tall summoned from outer space by a powerful young boy who seeks revenge on a city full of people who have hurt him.... Sounds unique, right???

Well I thought so, until one day I turn on Netflix and I watch a movie made in 2010 called "Monsters".

Six years after Earth has suffered an alien invasion a cynical journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through an infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.

"Alien" meaning octopuses. (No, I didn't give away anything because they have octopus images throughout the movie). There's even a point in the movie where the "aliens" are floating in the sky...... Although the plot is completely different from the dream I had, it still made me feel a little too late to express my dream as original. I have been hoping to one day either write or draw what I had dreamed but I never felt comfortable enough in my abilities to pull an awesome creation out of my butt to match the awesomeness I felt after waking from such an awesome vision.



Finally, today I decided to just force myself to sit down and create a sketch. I probably wasted five sheets from my sketch book to come out with a drawing I was happy with.

As you can tell, I still have A LOT of detail, color, and artsy fartsy what not left to do, but I'm super excited. I wanted to share the sketch before the final product, because honestly I have no idea what medium I want this to be created with....

Pen Art Collection: The Girl and Her Beast

This is a collection of three pen artworks created by ME :D. Its meaning is up to be interpreted into any message that a person feels when he or she sees it.

I don't really get too fancy with the pens I use. Usually I draw with a black Pilot Precise V5 needle rollerball pen. Sounds a bit fancy but it can be found at any main retailer in the school supply section.

But after a couple of years of using this pen and countless times of being frustrated with smearing the slow drying ink, I switched to using Sharpie Pen. The Sharpie pen's ink drys almost instantly so I don't have to worry about any random movements I make with my wrist...
I can say some of the integrity and gritty artsy fartsy-ness the V5 pen was able to produce doesn't really come out in the Sharpie Pen. Instead, the Sharpie gives it more of a non-messy kinda look.
Really I think it's all about someone's personal preference. I've seen some great artwork done with a Bic pen. So all power to saving money. :)

Inspirational Video #1

Thank a higher power for YouTube.

Anytime I need a little pick-me-up for my artistic motivation I just search the good ol' tube for amazing artists' instructional videos.

Today I searched for watercolor paintings and found two incredible artists.

First is Leilani Joy.


She is such an amazing artist. She not only shows step by step instructions but she also connects with her fans with a little introduction, verbally gives instructions as her artistic process is sped up on camera, and then ends it with a concluding small convo and final product. She has a whole series of videos so PLEASE check her out!
Leilani has a website, LeilaniJoy.com that links to her blog, facebook, and etsy shop.


The next artist I found while searching tutorials for abstract watercolor painting and came upon a mystically amazing artist, agnes-cecile.

Just so captivating. I'm actually speechless. I don't know how to even describe how I feel when I watch her videos.... Her websites don't give much info about her, sadly. But, there are a few youtube videos. She doesn't give verbal instructions, but she shows her artwork from beginning to end sped up.

I subscribed to both of these very talented ladies and for sure will be visiting their sites when I need extra enlightenment and motivation!!! ;D

I'm BACK!

Three months later....

Thanks to my intelligence and grace, I broke my laptop's screen by tripping on either a cord or a exercise weight (I can't remember) and ultimately kicking my laptop (that I so responsibly set on my living room floor).... Not only did I kick it, but I had to stomp on it to catch my balance or my face would've smashed into my entertainment center.... la sigh

Thankfully though, my computer still works except the screen. I found out it was going to cost 100 bucks plus labor to fix it. So after three long months, I bought a new monitor for $25 off of Craigslist.

So now I'm using my laptop as a keyboard and mouse. This is my new computer layout..
It's bulky and a little nonfunctional but it works for me. :D

By the way, there are some real flaky weirdos on craigslist. One guy was willing to trade video games for a $30 monitor. "Ok, cool", I thought in my naive little brain. "I have some games I can give up." But then he got extremely picky on what condition the games should be in, like to the extreme of not even the slightest blemish be on the case. Uh, should've mentioned that on your post, douche. I understand having standards, but if I was a collector and expected something to be perfect, I'd explain it to people on my post so I wouldn't waste my or someone else's time..... So I was like, "Dude, I'll just give you $30." Then he seemed real demanding on meeting up the same night I responded to his post. It was like 8 pm, could it not wait til the morning? So, I stopped responding to his emails. hehe...

Anyways, so I bought a monitor for only $25 from some other seemingly normal guy. We met at Ikea's parking lot, did the exchange, and no chainsaw or gun fight went down. :D

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I will get to post more random posts of my life.

Currently, I'm working on a new line of illustrations called "the aDORKabots". As the name implies, it will be a comic series of adorable dorky robots, dealing with everyday situations but just in a robot world.... Sounds totally cliche or lame, but I swear it's cute.
I'm also going to try watercolor as the artistic medium. So we'll see. I'm working on the first little illustration now and I'll post when it's complete.

Peace, muh nugga cheeses!!