Time Drawn: June 2012
Wow, has it really been a year and a half since I made this? It’s one of the most recent pieces I’ve made using my watercolors, after all. Well, not counting the pile of half-finished works, that is.
…I suppose I should clean off my workspace at some point so I could work on those again. It’s always tough when you’re trying to fit more stuff into a room than you have storage for. Leads to, well, giant piles on top of your desk.
Although, there’s still the problem of my not having a functional scanner, so I can’t show any pieces I make off anyway. Well, technically the scanner functions, but it’s so old they stopped releasing drivers for it a while back, and the old ones don’t work in 64-bit operating systems like Windows 8.
(Yes, I’m using Windows 8. Yes, I know it has a poor reputation. My computer died right after it came out, and I was able to buy it on a very steep discount thanks to their “Please swap to the new OS, pleeeeaaase?” sale. Certainly cheaper than Windows 7 or XP, if I could even find those for sale. It’s very good on the technical side and very poor on the user interface side, but I’ve wrangled it around to a form I can work with. And it boots up in less than a minute, which I love.)
I haven’t talked about the artwork yet. Silly Sharayah, going off on tangents all the time. Double tangents, even.
This piece was really just a random doodle I drew to test out some coloring techniques. You see the soft gradient on this random guy’s hair? That was made by painting with clear water right next to a still-wet section of watercolor. The color bleeds into the water, forming that interesting gradient.
…Huh, I’d forgotten I’d given him cross earrings. No, there wasn’t any symbolism in that, though I’m sure you can find some if you analyze the piece enough. Symbolism’s like that.
And the burning lighthouse is just because I like doing something odd in the background to mess with the viewer. I also haven’t really figured out how to draw fire. You may have noticed. Next time I need to draw a burning lighthouse, I’ll have to burn one down- I mean, use reference photos.
