Creativity Show and Tell: The Anti-White Space Project

The month of May is proving to be very eventful for me despite the lack of updates in my blog (sorry about that)! I'm so glad that I have enough time to draw and paint these days, but things might change as I start a new project at work. I learned last week that my new team will be reporting to our Global One office starting May 15, which means I will be traveling daily from B.F. Paranaque to Eastwood and back again (eeeeep!). That's more or less 4 hours of my life spent in transit, so I'm looking at options for temporarily staying somewhere in Mandaluyong or Makati so that I can save some time crossing the south super highway to get to the office. The start of a project means more time for work and less time for life, but uncertainties aside, I'm really looking forward to this new endeavor and the other things that are lined up for me this month--a couple of weddings, a trek to Mt Pinatubo, and possibly, a 10km run!

I also just got back from Bohol with my family but my trip felt so bitin (short) even if we stayed there for 4 days and 3 nights. There were a bunch of hits and a couple of misses during the trip (*ahem*Cebu Pacific*ahem*), and I can't wait to post pictures and write about it!

But before I do my rant and rave about Bohol, here's an update of what I've been doing for my creativity show and tell this week:

The anti white space pattern! 

This took me almost a day and a half to finish. I wanted to do a negative painting, but I didn't have any masking fluid so I did a rough sketch of the pattern first then outlined the white space. I covered the rest of the paper with paint, trying to overlap the colors. Unlike my usual take on color, I chose reds, violets and blues for this pattern so that blending would be easy, and the washes would somehow look seamless. The colors were a joy to blend using my Prang watercolor set, and I like how the painting turned out. What do you think?

It's another addition to my watercolor pattern series. Hope you like it!

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Creativity Show and Tell: I Heart Patterns

Ever since I created my first watercolor pattern inspired by the wrapping paper that I bought from The Met, I've been creating a series of foliage inspired patterns to practice my watercolor skills. I discovered that it's a good exercise because it requires me to draw repetitive images in which I can apply watercolor techniques over and over and really remember the process on how to do my washes.

This is the watercolor exercise that started it all. I was still into the traditional color scheme with this one-- Green leaves, yellow and red flowers, then added tiny blue branches to fill up the white space. Seems easy, but since it's done entirely in watercolor, it was also a tedious (but rewarding) process. 

This one is inspired by the cherry blossoms that I should have seen in DC while I was in the U.S. Haha. I didn't have a chance to go as my time was limited, so I just decided to draw the cherry blossoms. This was also triggered by my fascination with Helen Dardik's playful vector patterns. While I am more of a traditional medium kind of girl, I wanted to channel some playfulness in my work by choosing bright colors and making the paint more opaque. This is actually my favorite pattern so far. 

This is a recent creation. I made a tropical pattern inspired by summertime! I was initially thinking of drawing lilies, but ended up making up an entirely new species of flowers. Berries and peaches were added as accents to the flowers which is the focal point of the pattern. I think this can make a good design for a stationery. What do you think?

Most of my subjects before were flowers and other plants, but since my visit to Coron, I've been really inspired by marine life. I realized that I didn't really know how to draw fish from my memory, so I researched on the species of fish that I saw when I went snorkeling with my friends at Siete Pecados diving site. Here's what I came up with. 

This pattern took a while to finish since it's the most detailed one I've made so far. I think I'm going to make more drawings like this using different species of fish. I will be going to Bohol this May, so I'm sure there's plenty of inspiration coming my way  next month. 

I can't wait to draw more! The possibilities are endless! I'm planning to open an Etsy shop soon so that I can sell some of my calligraphy + doodle works as well as handmade postcards and stationery! I have yet to look for suppliers for printing and framing my work, so for the meantime, I'll continue with refining my techniques so that I can make more detailed drawings in the future. :)

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