The Principles of Design - Part One Repetition and Variation

Principles of design are what make things appealing to the eye. If you are trying to improve the look of something or you have been an artist your whole life. Design Principles help you understand the thinking behind your art.

REPETITION REPETITION REPETITION - repeating a color, line, texture, value or shape in your piece.

Repetition is used a lot in patterns or in art forms like zentangling. Here is an example of both repeated shape and repeated value.

Repetition can also be much more subtle. Like if you have a picture with a house in it the repetition may be the bricks or the windows or the sidewalk. 

transition - How the eye moves through the piece. 

The transition is important for many pieces of art. For example this blog transitions downward so I wouldn't start writing the text from the bottom and go up. This gets very complicated in a comic book because you have a story that you want them to follow. Sometimes this can vary based on the viewer, like in an optical illusion. 

Here is an example of very basic transition. 

Transition can just be simply what is the easiest thing to make out in the picture. Here is in an example.

The woman pops out before the sunset behind here. In this case, this is a transition using color.

I hope you enjoyed this. If you did and you want to see the other three design principles let me know in the comments! Also, brownie points for anyone who can post a picture in the comment of n example of either of these Design Principles.

My First Sketch Book

I was in my closet the other day and I found something. My very first sketch book.

I just thought that I would post this for old times sake:)

So You Want to Draw a Character? Supergirl!

This is the final post in the So You Want to Draw a Character Series. We have Supergirl!

This is my first time drawing full color with my Prismacolor pencils. I still have more to learn but so far I have found them very easy and infective to use. 

My favorite part of drawing this was drawing the shoulders and how the cape lies on them.

It is always fun to draw a hero. Especially a female hero. I love how the show Supergirl portrays her. She is strong yet loving and supports her friends and family. She still has her own heroes even though she is one.

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So You Want To Draw A Character? - HARLEY QUINN

This is a being of a series that I am starting that will be sprinkled throughout the next few weeks. This week we are doing  a female character from the new Movie Suicide Squad. Her name is Harley Quinn.

The reason that I really wanted to draw her is her unique style. I've seen nothing quite like it before on a bad guy. Usually, action characters, especially the bad guys, are decked out in black and gray. She has her own style, its crazy but so is she.

This is the final product but let's see the process.

When drawing faces pay (especially female faces) look for the cheekbones and the chin, That helps if make it look like the characters face.

When drawing the body there are some tricks to drawing the proportions. One shoulder is the length of half a head. If you have a picture that you are drawing off of you can draw lines down from the head and ears so you can have a range. Also, measure if you really want to. It's all up to you. You're the artist!

What's the difference Between a Character and a Person?- Step One

Welcome to the second post of our series! Today we will be talking about the difference between drawing a generic person versus drawing a character. A character is usually already established as either a person that you already know, an actor, a TV or movie character, a Meme, (The one factor that would be different would be if it is a character in your imagination if anyone else out there also likes writing stories:))

Step One:  WHAT MAKES THE ICON THE ICON?

What about that character makes that character recognizable? Let's put it this way. Since Halloween was Monday think about if you were going to dress as this character for Halloween what are the first things that you would want to get for your costume. For Example, if you were to go as Harry Potter you would most likely draw a lightning scar and get a pair of glasses.  For example, here is a snippet of  a post you that will be coming soon of STEP BY STEP CHARACTER DRAWING with Harley Quinn from the new movie Suicide Squad.

At this point of the drawing, I had finished putting what is iconic about her face in. The first thing is her hair. Left side red, right side blue. The second thing that is very iconic is her necklace that says PUDDIN. I'm not a super realistic artist. By no means do my drawings look like photographs and that's okay. If you get the iconic items down than the drawing will "look like" the character. 

Here is a drawing of some superheros I made them rally sloppy but you can probably tell who they are based on some of their iconic items.

Challenge: On your own draw some characters making the iconic elements clear but don't worry about the rest. I know that I have done a lot with super heroes but they are a great place to start because it id easy to find what is iconic. If you desire a warm up that is a little more of a challenge you can go for fairy tale characters.

Note: When you are just drawing a face remember that every face is unique. Look for what makes that face iconic if there is anything specific, (beauty mark, gold tooth, etc.) Sometimes it's not as obvious so you can just focus on these things. Face shape, Lip shape, eye shape, hair style, and than the color of all of the above.

Good luck on your drawing!

So You Think You Can Draw a Character? - Colored Pencil - Marilyn Monreo

I recently got a big new set of Prismacolor pencils. (Please put in the comments if you want me to do a review of the pencils.) I learned from a recent art class that I took that when you are working with a new medium it is a good idea to start with black and white so you can practice working with your darkest dark and your lightest light. Value is a big part in making any picture look realistic.

Always start with making a value chart so that you can see what your medium is capable of.

Then you can take a look a what you want to draw. First looking for the darkest dark and lightest light.

Then you draw everything in between. Soon you will have your full image. You can then go through randomly and fix any details that you noticed that are wrong. 

Of course, you won't get everything perfect but that is what practice is for.

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The Lion with Oil Paints

This is the very first oil painting that I have every done. It is a painting of a lion in Africa. I choose a lion because lions are my favorite animals. The techniques that were used were lifting the paint. All the hair done on the mane was done by dipping a pallet knife in paint, pressing it against the canvas, and then lifting it up.

On the face, I took full advantage of the length of time that the oil painting gave me to work with the material.
I'm looking forward to have the chance to work with this medium more and more.

Oil Painting

I am pleased to announce that the theme of this week will be oil painting!

Oil paints are a unique paint. It takes a very long time to dry, enabling you to have plenty of time to work with the material. This allows for blending and smooth edges. The downside is that the oil paints themselves are very expensive as well as you need to buy more additional tools when you work with oil paints as supposed to acrylic.
I hope you enjoy what I have in store for you this week!

Charcoal

This week was kinda of a warm-up week for the blog. I wanted to show you guys some more pictures and examples of some of my charcoal drawings. Next week I am planning on doing a  more step by step drawing project.

The one above her is an example of what my art instructor calls five-minute warm ups. When you finish the warm up then you can go back later and really work on the details. 

This one is a spaceship! Just kidding it's a cup. This is an example of staring and staring at on object and then putting all the highlights and shadows on the paper.

So, why use charcoal? 

Charcoal is very easy to blend. It is a fun and easy way to really practice highlights and shadows which are very important building blocks in realism drawings.

Multimedia Eye

Multimedia Eye,

This is the picture of an eye that I drew. What made this project fun was that I had no original intention of making this at all. I had simply been warming up with a stick of charcoal. I had drawn the outline, eyebrow and  the shading fo the nose. Later that night i had gone to Michaels and had seen that they had a sale on white charcoal. I bought some and when I went home I saw the eye and decided that it need the white of the eye. I put that in and forgot about the whole thing for a few days. I had been working on a painting for my Nana when I saw the eye again. I was working with blue paint. With the paint brush already in my hand, I got to work to completing this eye. The final result is what you see about. Please put in the comments if you like drawing, painting or just in general creating eyes.

Here are some more pictures of the eye:

Welcome

Welcome to Creative Indulgences!

My name is Emma this blog is all about exploring different art mediums and technics. Every week I will post some of my creations with the weeks topic. I encourage you to join in the fun and go on this journey with me!

Somethings about myself are that when I was little I was bitten by a Zonkey. I did not receive any super powers from this experience. I have a love of art, playing guitar and writing. Right now I am working on a novel. I play guitar as part of my churches worship team. I have won 10 different art competitions throughout my life so far.

 I really hope you enjoy my blog! I want to hear from you guys! Please post in the comments a little bio about yourselves. What if we made it a game? If you would like you can post two truths and a lie and I reply back guess which one is a lie.