"A Fairy Tale Christmas Carol " Poster.. from Start to Finish

Hey guys!!  I thought I would post all the progress shots I took from working on my latest poster art for our community theater!! This poster is for the upcoming Christmas show, "A Fairy Tale Christmas Carol", and I'm also going to be running the light board for this show!!

I was asked to draw up some concept art before I sketched out the poster design, and as I did with the "Charlotte's Web" poster, I talked with the director first and made sure I had clear ideas as to what she wanted to see. 

Above are some of the concepts I came up with, with an idea for the poster art on the bottom. I sent this rough sketch to the director, and she approved and set a deadline, and I've been piecing it together since last weekend. 

 I decided to try doing the colors with watercolors, because the director asked for a subtle color scheme, and also didn't want too much of a "Christmas" theme in the poster. I felt that watercolors would show up better once scanned and pull off subtle better than pencils or markers would. 

First things first, had to sketch it all out, then start inking! I love inking, and I took some time to do this part one afternoon with a cup of coffee and our portable DVD player on my desk too... xD 

The inked version!!

No matter what medium I use, I always start with skin tones first. After that, I laid down a light red for the base of the mouth coloring.

I think my favorite part of the poster is this... the three little pigs hunkered down as they pop out of the book.    =-) 

Close to being done!! I had laid down a lot of base colors in one afternoon. I recently purchased a smaller sketchbook from Canson, and the paper quality is incredible for water colors. As long as you give it time to dry so that it doesn't warp, it's magnificent!! 

And this is what the final version looks like... I had something holding the page down as it drys completely. Yay!!!   


Here are a few other creations from this week... 

I finished up a custom order of "Finding Dory" notecards, and ran off a print that the customer also ordered for framing. 

I have a set of "Disney Princess" notecards started, and I managed to color Merida and Pocahontas... but I'm just sharing Merida today, because her hair just makes me smile. It's so loud and crazy looking.   =-) 

And a Howl that I sketched while catching up Miyazaki Mondays... I also have a Sosuke (from Ponyo) and Arietty pieces inked, but I haven't had time to color them as of yet. I colored Howl with pencils and did a wash of watercolor in the background and then tried to splatter a bit of purple watercolor over the whole thing. But I'm pretty new to that method, and was afraid of going crazy and ruining the picture, LOL....   =)

So! That's what has been accomplished this week. I had hoped to do more, but my afternoons have sort of gotten away from me... That's OK! With my upcoming "disconnect" month in August, I should hopefully have a lot of time to focus on some major art accomplishments!!!  

Until September, I'll be doing lots of this....  

Have a great August!!!   =-)

-Stasia-Chan '16 

August Drawing Challenge

As previously announced, I plan to take a total hiatus from the internet and social media for the month of August. I've been making a list of some of the goals I hope to accomplish during this time away from the distractions, and I have quite a few in mind!!  One thing I had decided on right from the get -go, was that I wanted to do a drawing challenge for the month of August. 

Have you ever done a monthly drawing challenge? I have done them randomly before, and I have loved doing the last two years of "Inktober"... I have a special little sketch book I set aside just to be used in October for this challenge!!!  I have also done some daily drawing challenges from time to time, but when life gets busy, well... the drawings stop. That's why I've been doing "Miyazaki Mondays"... it's still challenging me to draw, but on a weekly basis and not a daily basis (and at this moment I'm currently three weeks behind on these). 

Anyways, I decided it would be fun to try an OTP (One True Pairing) challenge for the month of August. I was looking through some of my oldies of Clintasha and thought, "I miss drawing them!!!". So I searched for an OTP drawing challenge, and came up with two that I liked different challenges, and sort of mashed those together, and added a couple of my own ideas to replace ones that I didn't like (for example, death... who wants to draw death?? That isn't a fun challenge!!!).  And so, I present to you, my 31 day drawing challenges....


AUGUST OTP DRAWING CHALLENGE (CLINTASHA)

1. A Selfie Together
 2. Sharing a Milkshake
3. Balloon Hats
 4. Cosplaying
5.Under an Umbrella
 6. 1950's Version (I did not make that one up!!)
7. Wedding Day
 8. Building a Cabinet
9. Ballroom Dancing
 10. Lazy
11. Medieval Times 
 12. Movie Date
13. Clothes Swap
 14. First Kiss
15. Stargazing 
 16. Morning Ritual
17. Something Sweet
 18. Shopping
19. Coloring
 20.Couples Date
21. Ugly Sweaters
 22. At Work
23. Sunday Cruisin'
 24. Ice Skating
25. Water Fight
 26. Holding Hands
27. Reading
 28. Housework
29. Taking a Walk
 30. Dinosaurs
31. Whatever You Want!


.... It looks a little intimidating now, but I have ideas for a few of them. When I was doing the daily Clintasha drawing challenges before, I was doing lots of Chibis, but I may swap back and forth between chibi size and normal sizes.. I haven't decided yet, and you'll have to wait until September to see!!  ;-) 


Today I was busy cleaning my mom's rabbitry, and I had a few minutes this afternoon to rough sketch the three Miyazaki Monday's that I'm behind on... I'm hoping to get up early tomorrow to work on a theater poster I'm due to give by August 1st... Afternoon art time has not been working out too well lately, and I guess I need a change up in that "me time" anyways. I'm just not a morning person!!

Anyways, the first week of August will be hard for me personally, because August 4th is the 2 year mark since my great grandma passed away very unexpectedly. We were very close, and she died the day before her birthday. I miss her every day, but this month will really be hard, remembering all the birthdays we celebrated with her while she was here. Also last year, on August 5th, my spoiled rotten pet rabbit, Mufasa, died unexpectedly. Even though I have three other bunnies in my life now, Mufasa was special, because he was the first and loved the longest. That first week of August we have our church VBS going on, so it will be busy and maybe help keep my mind occupied off of how sad I feel. Not that it's a bad thing to feel sad and remember these things, but you can let sadness take you down into a dark place, and I don't want that to happen. 

I have a whole list of things I hope to accomplish in the month of August, including, believe it or not, starting on CHRISTMAS CARDS!!! I also plan to do some Christmas crocheting, LOTS of reading (more than I do already), organizing the materials for Lucy's starting Kindergarten in September (we have decided to homeschool), some new stuff for doll photo shoots ( I should blog about that soon), and of course, LOTS of art. Hopefully I'm not setting my hopes too high about things only to become upset when they don't get accomplished, but I'm really looking forward to this coming month and all the things that I have planned!!!  

-Stasia Chan '16

The Truth Is...

Doesn't that title sound spectacularly dramatic???

I wanted to do a post letting people know that I've decided to take a complete internet hiatus for the month of August. It's probably going to be a bit hard at first ( I love instagram and pinterest at the end of  a long day!!), but I have been cutting down on my social media time recently, and I'm looking forward to living without the distractions.

Honestly, it's something that I really need to do. For a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons is for my art. I haven't really let on in my posts and such (not that comes right to my mind), but I have been majorly discouraged with my art lately. For awhile, actually. A slump is something you can find your way back out of, but discouragement is a hard one to grapple out off.

Part of the reasons for being discouraged are, I have majorly lost sight of what it I most love about art: Art is my outlet. I have a hard time socially. I'm shy and have a hard time letting myself really get to know people. Art lets me compensate for those times when I feel really lonely or bummed about friends that don't really talk anymore (actually, a lot of my friends have let me know that they don't care for my art style, manga/anime, but that's another story..). This year, I keep finding myself worried about NOT making it as an artist, and that's never why I started drawing in the first place. I started drawing because I was inspired to, and I loved the process. I didn't pick up a pencil thinking that I would become a household name or make enough money to let my husband quit his job (wouldn't that be nice, though!). And because I've lost sight of that, my art has felt so forced. I have produced a few things that I've been really proud of, but most of it has been because I felt I HAVE to, not because I wanted to.

I have also taken the summer off from some things, like theater, so that I could use the time to focus on creating concept art for the fifties project I want to do. And I'm proud of a lot of the things that I have drawn for those concepts. I'm just very frustrated because I'm not sure what to DO with it all now. I see artists that have their stuff put on things to sell, like stickers, and stationary, etc., and I don't have the money to get into that process. When I try to sell things, I end up losing money because it doesn't sell, or I have to undersell a project just to sell it... and again, it's not about money, but it can be very discouraging. Especially when you've become addicted to Copic markers... which I have slowly started buying refills for, but it's still been a pricey process, and when there's nothing coming in to go back into the art, it slows the process up.

So, I've decided to take a month off. To regroup. To fall in love with art again, and continue on from there. I have some Miyazaki Monday's I want to get all caught up with, and I also wrote out a 31 day drawing challenge to do for the month of August (I'll post the challenges here before my hiatus starts!). I'm excited about it, and hope that I can find my artistic "get up and go" again in the process!!!


-Stasia-Chan  '16

Mini Comic Con, #2!!!

So it has been a busy week of Comic Con fun around here!!!    This past Wednesday, I participated in my second Mini Comic Con at the New Philadelphia Public Library. We had a blast!!! Then on the following Saturday, I attended the "Mini Comic Con in the 'Burg" in Millersburg, OH, for the first time.  It was their second year of doing this comic con and my first time attending it!!!!  They actually found me through my blog here, so that's really neat!!! It means more people might be out there reading my blog then I think there are!!! 

They had a really neat set-up at this mini comic con, it resembled an actual comic con, with many different tables for artists and vendors and activities!!  I had a real nifty sign behind my table!!

My table display. I took a board with some of my favorite pieces and also some originals and prints to sell.  I passed out a lot of business cards and had several people take free bookmarks and information sheets.   =-)

They had several vendors set up with merchandise to sell. There was a gaming shop, a comic book shop, another artist selling prints, and a hobby shop selling things like Funko Pop figures. 

Pictures from the group participating in the costume contest!!!  My sisters were there again, this time as Asuna from "Sword Art Online" and Anna from "Frozen".  There were lots of Star Wars cosplayers, including a young Obi Wan Kenobi, and an old Luke Skywalker!! 

Some scenes from the drawing tutorial lesson. We worked on drawing a head in the manga style.   We had a nice little attendance group of all ages. (Someone drew a TIE fighter instead, though??)

The BEST thing ever was the Boba Fett Cosplayer!!! I fangirled so bad... He's my favorite Star Wars character!!! 

There was a caricature artist too!!!

Some more random fun... making buttons at the button machine, posing for pictures with Obi Wan and Boba Fett, and taking pictures with the standees!!!

It was a really fun day, and the set up was really well thought out. I didn't include pictures, but they also had set up a mini "Super Hero Training Camp" outdoors for the little kids that came, it was an obstacle course they could "train" with. And they concluded the afternoon with a "Poke'walk" where they walked outside the library trying to catch Poke'mon with the Poke'mon Go app. It was a great day, and we all had fun!!!

I do still have all these leftover prints (and originals too, but I forgot to take a picture of them!), so I'm not sure what to do with them. I might try opening an etsy and just see where it takes me. I've honestly held off doing so for this long because I was afraid that I would get discouraged if I didn't sell anything after so many months, and that it would be a waste of time. But, I suppose it doesn't hurt to try, so I guess we'll see. I have a busyish sort of week so it's just a matter of it I get around to it or not!!

Thanks to the Millersburg Public Library for having me participate in such a great day!!!

-Stasia-Chan '16

Some Pics from Library Con!!

Hey!!!  I thought I'd share a few pictures from the library mini comic con that I was a part of yesterday!!   We saw a great turn out and had a great time!! 

I chose not to dress up this year, and I didn't even have anyone take a picture of me the whole day wearing my "Kiki's Delivery Service" shirt...  But my sisters cosplayed as Elsa and Anna and did a boss job with it!! 

I had my caricature drawn, which I was super excited about!!!  I never have had anyone draw me before, so this was a nice change, LOL!!!  ^^   (And I had to wait in line for an hour to have mine done!! She was a popular lady!! )

The most popular event of the afternoon (besides the Cosplay contest) was the panel on "Cosplay and Conventions 101", given by two local young ladies that have been to several comic cons. They did a great job explaining everything and had a fabulous turn out for their talk!!!  I didn't get to hear the whole thing, because I was getting ready for my segment, but what I did hear was explained very well and in an exciting way!!

I decided to do a tutorial on some basics of coloring. I didn't allot myself enough time to get through the whole thing, but we covered the basics of skin tone at least. I had a nice little group attend, and then afterwards, we judged the Cosplay contest. =-)   

It was a fun day, but just those few hours wiped me out, LOL!!! I'm not sure I could make it at the real events like some people do.. xD   

I'm excited to be attending the second comic con at Millersburg Public Library this Saturday, the 16th!!! It's my first time attending, but their second year doing one, and from what I've seen on their web page, it looks like it will be a fun event!!  I'll be spending most of my day tomorrow getting all my print outs together to take with me there!! 

I've been working on a few originals to sell, and I'm taking some of those on Saturday. I'm also working on the poster for the theater's Christmas show, and finishing up a custom order of notecards!!!  But since it was a busy week, I took some time today to work on roughing out the sketch for the poster and then I did some more watercolor on my Cleopatra piece. I'm excited to keep adding more princess to this "Royal Diaries" series as I read through some of the books again. I'd love to make these a note card or mini poster collection once I've compiled several!!

Hope it's been a great week for all!!

-Stasia-Chan '16

Five Things Artists Wish You'd Stop Doing

There's probably already a blog post out there about this somewhere... But my thoughts on this probably vary from what others thoughts and opinions may be. Anyway, it's a list that's been on my mind this week, so I thought I'd try to blog about it!   



1.-  DON'T ASK IF WE WILL DRAW YOU


...for one thing, it's just rude, and also catches me as "attention seeking". Not only have I seen this with many other artists on social media, and had it happen a few times myself, it always seems that these people expect you to a.)  draw them for free, and b.) have plenty of time to do so. Both are rude assumptions, because artists DO like to be paid (for some people it's either a job or a part time job), and we don't just have scads of time to draw followers on a whim. Not only might we be busy with art commissions or personal projects, we also have personal lives that are busy!! Is it flattering to be asked? Well, sure... But it's definitely more rude then flattering. So please stop asking!!

2. -  DON'T ORDER SOMETHING AND THEN COMPLAIN THAT THE PRICE IS                UNREASONABLE

Dudes and dudettes. Seriously. I've had this happen on a few occasions, and it just left me feeling really... awkward. Because I didn't know how to handle it. But I will say, it's not fair to jump all over an artist about pricing, especially when you knew what the price was before ordering commissions. My prices are already set so low that I always undersell, and I also don't charge shipping in the USA. So to ask me what my price is for an 8x10, to give me the OK and have me start an order, and then message me and tell me that my price is too high and is there anyway I could do this for free...?  That's really demeaning and rude. I understand that we all have weeks where we need to pinch pennies. But to say that the order is OK and then ask me if I'll just give it to you after I already started the work is unfair to the artist.


3.-   DON'T GIVE A GOOD REVIEW AND THEN COMPLAIN ABOUT THE PRODUCT

I don't have an etsy account (yet) or anything where people can leave a public review about any work I sell. But one particular customer sticks in mind from a year ago. They ordered a custom 8x10, and mailed me a check, with which they included a letter saying that they thought the picture was "cute", but then at the end included a criticism that left me feeling really bad about the whole thing and I think I even completely deleted that picture from my computer files and all social media accounts, because I felt so bad about it. If you have a complaint (and it wasn't even a valid complaint... it was very nice picture) you should let the artist know, but I felt that by telling me first off that they thought it was cute and then ending with what the complaint, reading between the lines, felt to me like they didn't really like the picture at all. I probably shouldn't have taken it quite so personal... after all, some people out there WILL complain about everything... but it felt like a messy way to give me a review. 

4.-  DON'T ASK WHAT ART SUPPLIES WERE USED IN THE PICTURE WHEN IT'S STATED IN THE SAME POST... AND YOU JUST DIDN'T READ IT 

I see this all the time. Especially on instagram. Artists will post a picture and include in their post or hastags the art tools they used for coloring. First comment on the picture will be, "OHMYGOSHTHAT'SSOAWESOME... What did you color that with??"  And the tools they used are RIGHT. THERE. You just didn't read it!!  Read the whole post before asking those kinds of questions. And, generally, most artists are friendly and will just smile and answer those kinds of questions anyway... But I have read some answers from ticked off artists that are just tired of answering the same question when the answer has already been stated a bazillion times. So make sure to read the whole post before you ask a question!!

5.- DON'T ASK US TO FEATURE YOU OR TO "FOLLOW FOR FOLLOW"

When you're an artist just starting out, especially, you want to be noticed by the artists you look up to. But some people have no couth, and will just pester and pester and PESTER people to death for a feature on their account. Or to ask "will you look at my work please???"  Follow for follows are the worst... I don't follow everyone that asks me this. If I don't, it's most likely because I'm just not really into the type of art that you're doing, or because there were very vulgar things on your page. I have no problem with following a young person that's starting out in art and liking or commenting on something they worked very hard on, because I've been there and I know what a big ego-booster that can be! But to pester an artist to death is not cool. It will get you noticed... but it can also get you reported and blocked from said artist's account. So be cool about it! If you're worth noticing, most people will notice you without you asking.   =-) 


Off the top of my head, those are the first five things I think most artists might get frustrated by. One thought I could have included is when people comment on your work something like, "Wow! How did you learn to do that? Did you just copy it from a book?"   Any type of art is a thing to be mastered. The picture or piece you are looking at has a lot of hard work behind it. Great things do not just happen overnight, nor are they "copied".  The best advice I can still give to any aspiring artist is to just KEEP AT IT. If you keep at it, you'll get better!! 

This past Monday was July 4th.So I'll end with this patriotic picture from one of my doll photo shoots. =-) 

Do you agree with these five things? Have any of these happened to you, and if so how did you react to them? Is there something different you would add to the list? 


-Stasia-Chan '16