(The artwork I did today! Pic cred: The author)
Doing art again after a long time
DP2 is certainly a bit chaotic! Amidst the syllabus and tests, university deadlines are forever looming. Thus, it’s no wonder that sometimes I find myself unable to leave time for myself to work on projects that I do out of personal enjoyment. While I do have personal time, it’s not quite the same as taking on something productive and creative.
So I found myself not doing art for quite a long time – mainly due to lack of time and tiredness from school. Therefore, on Friday with my Biology IA out of the way (yay!!) I found the time to do a bit of art. Last year in DP1, art was quite a large part of the creative aspect of my CAS goals – I want to expand on that a bit more in DP2 as well.
It was quite hard to get back in the groove of doing digital art, but I think that after a few practice sketches I effectively re-familiarized myself with the stylus and digital art tools once more. The process of drawing and colouring were the same as always – starting off with the base sketch that evolves into a final lineart. This is then coloured with base colours and shadows/ highlights. It was quite interesting to observe the extent to which my art style had subconsciously changed in the time period of not doing art. My newer art style had a darker colour scheme and was less “patchy” with the highlights as I relied more on blending in the colours. I think I like my current style more than my previous one – as this one had a more “painting” look to it which I found aesthetically pleasing.
(An artwork from June 2022. Pic cred: The author)
Doing this artwork was definitely very calming, it took my mind off of a few school assignments for a bit (EE, oh no) and allowed me to indulge in my creative side more. I forgot how much I enjoyed doing art, and therefore, I want to make time for myself more often in order to do some artwork.
While doing this artwork I also brainstormed about how I might want to implement this creative activity into my CAS project – which I plan to carry out sometime after the mock exams are over. Despite not having a firm idea of the final product of my CAS project, I want to base it on digital art as it will be something relating to my CAS creativity goals that I firmly enjoy.
Learning outcomes:
- LO2 – Challenge and skills
- As aforementioned, it was challenging to start drawing automatically after so long going without it. Thus, I had to be forgiving toward myself if I made mistakes or took some time to remember how I conducted things when drawing regularly.
- I definitely refined some of my skills, likely after being influenced by the media I’m encountering – such as darker manga – my art style included new tools and techniques. Therefore, this session was quite valuable today in not only remembering old skills but forming new ones too.
- An example of new skills that I acquired was playing with the lighting of the artwork, this was something that I had seen an artist on TikTok do – thus, I was quite excited to try it out today.
- LO5 – Showing perseverance and commitment
- I plan to carry forward my CAS creativity goals from DP1 into DP2 (and potentially as my CAS project as well). I am quite determined to improve my art skills and have reignited my passion in indulging in art as a way of relaxing from schoolwork.