Sketchbook Therapy #2: Guardian of the River | Step by Step + Speedart

Hi, dear Aliens!!!

A few days went by, lately the days are flying by. This time i share with you another illustration i made in my sketchbook. Sometimes it makes me laugh a little bit to call it a sketchbook because it is supposed was made for drawing practices and simple stuffs but at the end of the day i did it with that intention.

Continuing with my drawing challenges and also from the need to continue exploring a little more of other techniques that I normally didn't use much, this colorful inspiration was born. Since a few months ago i was curious and i was looking for any drawing contest to see if i could participate in some to motivate me a little more to fill my sketchbook, to have that pressure to deliver something before a certain date, to create something based on a specific theme. So i found several or rather they just popped up on my instagram feed.

The ohuhu contest caught my attention because it focused on traditional art so i said, this is it. I also liked the theme as it was general enough to create a world of possibilities in drawing.

"Whispers of Summer Fantasy" is the theme for this challenge. For a long time i wanted to draw something really tropical, colorful birds or something like that so this theme was the perfect excuse. I looked up some references to help me a bit with the anatomy of these giant birds and also of the Angel Falls, the sky...etc. I started to put my puzzle together, to shape it first in my mind and then to trace everything so I wouldn't end up ruining a pile of papers because i didn't have the idea in order. The first strokes were made with a drawing pencil but then i erased a little and outlined it with colored pencils depending on the palette i would use.

I remember at this point debating whether to start from the bottom or the top. After analyzing well how i wanted to color the drawing, i decided to start with the garden, also my peaceful anxiety wanted me to advance the drawing by adding the first layers of other areas.

I admit that for unknown reasons i love making vines. I am fascinated by that greenish depth that forms as i add more layers of color.

I have always mentioned or at least on some occasions that there is always some point in the drawing that i start to get frustrated. With these challenges, at the same time that i am exercising my drawing skills, i´m also using it as a psychological evaluation.

I have been thinking seriously about those strange episodes i suffer from while drawing. Between feeling extremely impatient, dissatisfied, mild anxiety attacks, bruxism, suffocation, at certain points i start to hate what i'm doing, i remember that on past occasions i've thought i forgot to draw. I am aware that it is part of my condition and that i have been off my medication for quite some time, but this didn´t prevent such frustrating moments.

I think that starting to add repetitive and tiny patterns in my drawing was and has been that way to calm those creative psychomoments I have hahaha. I laugh but in the very past it became a serious problem. So in these challenges while coloring very innocently I am evaluating myself.

Right at the moment of starting to detail the flowers, i admit that i started to worry a little but for the first time I took it as something normal, without panicking, if i started to feel tired or stuck on something, i would just take a break and i was going to do something else. I am impressed that this drawing in particular the process was very fluid and peaceful. Although I did have my anxious moments, I didn't project them into the drawing so I enjoyed every moment, especially because i noticed this peculiar event, this time i wasn't so hard on myself.

I returned to my meditation practices and sometimes kundalini yoga and i find it interesting that now i have a strange obsession with the orange color, it´s not a color that i plan to put in my drawings but lately i do. In these practices we work with the energy of creation and precisely the color that represents that energy center is the orange. I didn't think it would become a serious case but i admit it was very appropriate for this summer-inspired drawing.

Although i thought this part would be difficult for me, because i don't consider myself an expert in painting clouds... it just flowed. I think it was even my favorite part, although the gouache i used wasn't the best. I made the final details of the clouds with lilac pencil. With my water brush i added the last details in the gardens, with some white gouache. Definitely the painting part with brushes is the part that relaxes me the most, I just noticed it.

Here i share a small video with the process and the official link to the contest gallery

As always i use mixed technique, colored pencils, some gouache... but for a while i have wanted to start adding alcohol markers to my favorite techniques. This time i just used a brown marker for the base of my Angel Falls and the garden at the bottom of it.

And speaking of these markers, for a long time i wanted to buy some that i could use to draw because, i only had a small set from the Prismacolor brand and these are more for architectural designs and that style of drawing. So recently to start i wanted to buy some cheap generic markers that are very popular these days, some have had bad experiences with them but, i decided to buy a large set to try them out and cross my fingers that they all arrive functional. And well, i already have them and they all paint well... Now i'm in mode: Try new techniques to add to my drawings.

This is also something therapeutic, learning new things is extremely motivating. Although I admit that one of the reasons I have fallen in love with this technique is the versatility and speed with which you can paint things since with the other techniques it is a little more tedious. I feel like a girl with a new toy.

So i better leave it here and then come back with another drawing.

Thank you again for reading and appreciating my little artistic corner.