Hi there, Hive friends! It's Abby, your introverted artist. You are probably thinking right now, "Is she really an introvert? Why does she ramble a lot and share many things about herself?"

Well, to tell you, my friends, that's how most introverts are, hahahah, though I am not generalizing. But yeah, we tend to talk a lot and show quite a bit of confidence when we write. Let's just say writing, rather than a mask, is an armor that gives me courage to be more like myself, to share my thoughts and creations.

Before I get lost in thought, if you have seen my previous blog where I showed the process of painting a dainty little teacup, you probably remember that I mentioned the virtual art gallery I wanna hold. Now, here it is!

The beginning of my ARTchive series.

The idea of this ARTchive series came from another favorite artist of mine—Ciara Gan. She has this vlog on her YouTube where she captures her moments while creating art.

For my ARTchive, I will be talking about my collection of artworks all through the years I have been creating. Basically, it's an art gallery, my art gallery, where I'll tell you about the story behind each work and the process I've been through. It's an artwork tour!

Here's the first set of artworks!

During the year 2020, amidst the pandemic, that's when I invested more time and attention in my interest in art. I started buying graphite and charcoal pencils in different shades, and I bought a sketchbook for the first time. And when I say a sketchbook, I am not referring to that one we used at school, the "drawing book," with literal thin bond paper as its pages. That was also the time when I started learning how to draw portraits, leading us to this first piece I will be introducing to you all.

Pencil Portrait

This one is a portrait I made for a very precious friend of mine for her birthday. For those who are acquainted with me in person, I am not sure if you can tell who this was meant to be.
Can you tell? Can she tell? Hahahaha I would not have dare to say who this is supposed to be, cause it might not resemble her and my eyes could be just deceiving me, but yeah, this is supposed to be Deb ( Hive account@lizhavesomefun ).

Portraits were never my forte and still aren't to this day! But yeah, I tried, hahaha.

Fan Art : A Portrait of Nicholas Sparks

The second piece, hmmm well, I'm not trying to brag, but I am pretty quite proud of this. It is a portrait of the writer Nicholas Sparks. The story behind this one, well, during my 18th birthday, my older sister gave me a Nicholas Sparks' novel since she knew how much I enjoyed watching all of the movie adaptations of his novels, especially the movie "A Walk to Remember." I cried a lot watching that movie.

After receiving the book, I was so happy that I grew motivated to draw Nicholas Sparks. I honestly respect his creations a lot; for me, he is a really good writer. My definition of good books are those that make me bawl my eyes out from crying. Anyway, back to the drawing: I drew it using the grid method.

That's how I drew portraits before, but I stopped using the grid method since I'm too lazy to draw grids every single time I make portraits. And one more thing: I just hate anything that involves measuring and rulers. Let's just say rulers are not really my best pals.

Despite that, I am happy with how this drawing turned out. And to tell you, come on, hold your breath, everybody! This exact drawing received a heart from Sir Nicholas Sparks himself, and he even reposted it on his account, tagging me on it. It was a dream come true, really!

Enamel Painting

The next piece is an enamel painting of a moon in the night sky. I painted it on my diary's cover. Yeah, I keep diaries!

Now, here's the thing: I was in 11th grade at that time, and one of my teachers required us to submit a diary. And since I was too lazy to have another diary just for the sake of compliance, I decided to submit my real personal diary, where I wrote all of the embarrassing stuff.

Like, what was I thinking?! T-T

I literally dug my own grave by letting my teacher read my diary. But the worst part of it is the fact that I wasn't able to get it back; our teacher kept it. And I lost that wonderful painting, which I really liked.

Bright Win Fan Art

Here's another portrait! It's a portrait of Bright and Win; they are Thai actors, and if you know which series they starred in together, then you know which series I watched. My sister and I loved that series; that is why I agreed to draw them when my sister asked me to.

I used graphite and charcoal pencils in drawing this one. I drew this portrait on a vellum board. Although I suck at shading, I'm kinda satisfied with how I did this portrait.

Silly Lil' Fantasies

Now, on to the next piece! You can laugh at me; I'll take it. T•T
Nah, honestly, I am not embarrassed hahaha, not at all!

Really!

To tell you all, another good thing about being an artist is that you can support yourself for being delulu haha. You can draw a portrait of yourself with your celebrity crushes.

Yeah, you got it right; that girl is me, and that guy is one of my Thai actor crushes. He also starred in the same series where Bright and Win starred. His name is JJ, and he has a twin brother, like for real, and his name's AJ. Embarrassingly, I made quite a lot of fan art of him before, and every time I post it on my story, I mention him, and he views it ToT. I am deeply embarrassed thinking how he saw all of those horrendous drawings. You know what, guys? I made a lot of silly, embarrassing decisions in my life as a teenager.

Inktober Entries

Well, moving on to the last two pieces for this gallery tour are these two ink sketches I made for Inktober.

If you are not familiar with the term, basically, Inktober is an art challenge in which artists participate, and it is held every October. In this challenge, there is a given prompt, or the artists could create their own prompts and will draw it using inks only starting from the first day until the last day of the month. It is a fun challenge but quite overwhelming as well, which is why I never completed this challenge, not even once.

The first one is a sketch showing a vampire's mouth with fangs and everything else. Meanwhile, the second one is a sketch of a favorite character of mine from the anime Tokyo Ghoul. His name is Uta, and I just love his character. I think he is cool and handsome even though he is a ghoul.

AND that's it for this little tour. Did you all have fun? I hope you did; well, if you did not, then that's fine, because I had fun myself looking back at these old artworks of mine. This is just the beginning, and I hope you'll stick around until the end.

In this ARTchive series you will be able to witness changes in my art, from its style and subjects to the variety of mediums I used.

With that being said, I will see you all around in my next ARTchive.