Weekly Art Dispatch, No. 13 🎨
Welcome to Vega’s weekly Art Dispatch, issue thirteen.
First things first--
My work is appearing in an art exhibit!
Yes, this was Big Art Project that dominated my art life during February. Transept 2021 is a themed exhibit of art and performance held by the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts, at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. They sent out a call for artists (professional and amateur) in late January and I spent all February creating a series of drawings for the exhibit.
This year's theme is In/Break. Transept's online exhibit will open from 19 March - 2 April, here's their Facebook page with details for the events. I'll post with more news later when the URL to the exhibit is released.
Creating art for a themed exhibit was a great learning experience for me. I'm planning to write a reflection about my experience later on, but for now -- I'm honoured that my art can be part of Transept.
Now, to the rest of this week's Dispatch...
The Art Life
Alas, I broke my streak and didn't write an Art Dispatch last week. In RL news, I recently took up some new job employment, which was a bit stressful and took my attention away from art for a portion of last week. Furthermore, right after I wrapped up last Dispatch #12, I experienced "project drop": the slump that happens after accomplishing a significant goal (or two goals in this case - the Transept art project and Figuary), but before resuming old projects or picking up new ones.
My creativity tends to suffer when I get stressed, so it was a challenge to keep on drawing in spite of the RL events. Thankfully most of the stress is now past, and I've been able to focus more on drawing again this week.
Study Art
I enjoyed Figuary's month of figure drawing, but now that's over, it's time to resume Drawabox. I'm on Lesson 4, which is all about drawing insects and other arthropods through constructional methods. A few of my insects (construction, without textures or shading, drawn from photo reference):
From top: jumping spider, some species of fly, Australian spiny leaf insect.
I'm about halfway through Lesson 4 and should be finished by next weekend, after which I will probably do some value studies for study.
Fun Art
I've fallen short of my two-illustrations-a-week goal due to RL commitments, but I did manage one per week since the last Dispatch.
I've never been that interested in drawing anime/manga, but I decided to try it as a way of decompressing from the Transept art project. I was surprised to discover that my usual drawing process can be adapted for an anime style. Drawing Black⭐Rock Shooter was so fun that I might start exploring anime in future!
I also haven't inked an image for a while, and not in this solid style. There's a lot yet to learn about inking, but I'm happy that I made a start anyway. Using ink is a fair jump from drawing in pencils.
Black Rock Shooter. Her colour scheme in the OVA/original character art is very monochromatic anyway.
This week I resumed a new work for my sort-of series of Anthem fanart. (Rest in peace, Anthem - maybe BioWare will revisit the setting again one day.) This is one of the major NPCs of the main campaign, Owen Corley, overshadowed by the Javelin of Dawn. I was practising more shading techniques here, and I think I've come a long way since my earliest attempts in Dispatches #6 and #7.
Owen Corley and his regret after betraying the player character and stealing the Javelin of Dawn.
That's all for now, and thanks for reading this week's edition of the Art Dispatch!