On the Importance of Doodling

I believe in doodling.  I believe in doodling everywhere, every day, in any and every medium you have at hand.  Then again, I am a helpless doodler; I was that kid that would sit in the front row of every class and doodle.  It wasn't until I began being creative for my career, though, that I started to grasp the great importance of doodling, at least, to me. 

Creativity, I think, is like a friend who often calls to have lunch.  If you ignore the friend or decline their invitation enough times, they will eventually stop asking and likely stop contacting you altogether.  Creativity, at least for me, behaves quite similarly.  True, it certainly doesn't appear at the most convenient times.  In fact, my most creative times tend to be between 11pm and 2am.  Or when I'm trying to work on other things.  Or sleeping.  But I've learned the hard way that if I ignore those niggling ideas and "hey, what if"s enough, my inspiration will soon be zapped.  So, I doodle. 

My goal as a working artist is not only to paint and, you know, earn enough money so that I can eat that week, but also to nurture my creativity.  After all, the last thing an artist wants is to burn out or have a long-lasting block.  So, I strive every day to care for my creativity and not take it for granted.  How do I do that, you ask?  Well, I'm still very much figuring things out, but here are some things that work for me:

• Take lots of short breaks.  I like to work for 30-60 minutes and then take a 5-10 minute break, preferably outside and moving around. 
• Related to the former, I find going to the gym/doing yoga/hiking are good ways to help me when I'm stuck in a project.  Plus, they help relieve tension/frustration from sitting at my desk all day.
• Be outside!  I will soak up sunshine like a cat (albeit with loads of sunscreen), and find that I am most inspired when I'm out in a forest. 
• Switch between projects throughout the day.  Often, I'm at different stages in different projects, so if one painting is proving particularly difficult/draining, I'll work on one where I'm doing something simple like layout/design for a while for a bit of a break.
• Doodle!  The sillier the better.  Break out the box of 94 crayons!  Draw on the driveway with sidewalk chalk!  Try out a style completely different from your usual.  Heck, even arrange your recycling into fun shapes/patterns.  Anything to help shake up your perspective and creative muscles.  Most of all though, have fun!  Practicing doing detailed studies and difficult techniques is all well and good, but remember why you started doing art in the first place.  Chances are, you thought it was fun, and I'll venture it even made you happy.  So reclaim that elementary-school enthusiasm for coloring or building blocks! 

"But I don't know what to draw!" you say.  Well, too bad!  The world is filled with inspiration.  As is the internet.  Especially Pinterest.  Especially illustration boards on Pinterest.  Also, most people love getting art.  They don't care much what it is or what the quality is (the latter I can certainly attest to).  Art is a way to show people that you care about them and think they're worthy of your time and energy, which I think we show far too little.  So take 5 minute, draw your mother's cat, your friend in her new dress, your significant other being a bamf at the gym.  I think we have a duty as artists to make the world a more beautiful place, and what is more beautiful than happiness? 

Fuzzy Buzzy

I'm so happy to announce that the children's book I illustrated for Misty Baker is now out!  It's an adorable story about a bumblebee named Fuzzy Buzzy who finds a beautiful field of flowers but learns that to help the flowers survive, she must share her new find with all the other bees.

You can purchase your own copy of the book (paperback or for Kindle) HERE

I painted the spreads in watercolors, with pen and ink for the lines work.  I really like using sepia ink for my inking, because it's much less harsh than black ink, and gives a warmer, more approachable look to the painting.  In fact, I very rarely use pure black ink in my work.  If I want a cooler look than sepia, I'll mix a 1:1 or 1:3 solution of blue and black inks.  It gives it a cooler, darker tone, but is not nearly as stark as pure black.  I'll write another post soon about what supplies I use and how I mix my colors!

You too can help save the bumblebees!  One easy way to do this is by planting a bee-friendly garden.  Not sure what kinds of flowers bees like this?  Try to stick to native plants and even find new bee-friendly flowers here: http://beekind.bumblebeeconservation.org/finder

And now for some behind the scenes looks!  Have you ever wondered how your favorite children's books come to life?  I'll walk you through the process with one page, where we go from sketch to finished painting.

The first thing I did after reading Misty's initial manuscript was to start sketching.  This is a really fun part of the process because you get to explore lots of different looks and styles for your character(s).  Nothing has to look pretty (and often doesn't), as long as you can get your ideas across.  I'll generally spend a day or two doing nothing but sketch, just trying to get as many ideas as I can down on paper.  You can revise later!  Right now, just get it all down on paper.

Since I think primarily in color, I decided to do some watercolor sketches as well.  As you can tell, not all ideas made it into the final book.  The important thing at this stage is just to have fun playing with all the possibilities!

From there, I began storyboarding the book.  While it might seem intimidating at first, storyboarding is a great way to see the book laid out all together so that you can better control the flow of its illustrations and color palettes.  Once the storyboards have been approved, it's time to start in on the individual pages!  Most of the pages in Fuzzy Buzzy are two-page spreads because I wanted to really give the reader a feeling that they were looking out over a vast field of wildflowers.  Before I ever set brush to paper, though, I created digital comprehensives (or comps) for each page, to get everything laid out and make sure that my values and colors made sense and matched the author's idea of the story.  Also, watercolors are incredibly difficult if not impossible to edit later on, so I needed to be sure that everything looked a-okay before I began!  Then, much sketching, inking, and painting later, we arrive at the final painting.  This painting is then scanned in and cleaned up digitally so that it's ready for formatting!  And there you have it: illustrating children's books in a nutshell.

Want to learn more or have specific questions about the book?  Just send me an email at kakingillustration@gmail.com ! 

The Color Master

As most of you know, I'm a pretty die-hard fan of watercolors, but that's not to say I don't enjoy experimenting with new mediums from time to time.  Sometimes that choice is voluntary, other times, such as when one is in school, that choice is not.  And despite the frustrations of trying to blindly find your way around a new medium, I believe that, in the end, it helps to further one's development as an artist.  Sometimes that development just means that you're very cranky for a while as you struggle to get your paintings to turn out as something other than colorful glob-monsters.  

One of my final courses for my master's degree was a narrative painting class, and in order to replicate the look (and suffering?) of the great narrative painters, we had to work in oils.  For my project, I chose to illustrate Aimee Bender's short story "The Color Master" from the anthology My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me  (which, incidentally, is a fantastic collection).  This is the part in the story where the Color Master's apprentice works to put anger in the dress so that the princess will not marry her father.  The emotion is so strong in the story, and the women's anger so compelling that I couldn't help but paint it. 

I really haven't worked in oils since high school, so I had a lot of learning to do, especially since oil techniques are nearly opposite of watercolor techniques.  Especially when you're working on a giant 36x48" canvas (okay, well, giant for me who prefers to work pretty small).  In the end, there's still a lot I would like to fix/improve on with this painting, but sometimes, you just have to be done and stop swearing at your canvas.

Sketchbook Studies

I make an effort every week or so to do at least one realistic watercolor study.  Not only does this keep my watercolor skills from rusting if I happen to be working in another medium, but more importantly, helps me to continue to grow and improve as an artist, as it trains both my eye and my hand, so to speak. 

Speaking of hands, they are, in my opinion, one of the most expressive features and have always been difficult for me to paint.  So I started off the week trying to rectify that:

I love all the subtle colors hiding in skin tones, especially in the hands.  You get everything from rose-hues at the fingertips and knuckles to the pale blues and teals of veins on the backs of the hands (at least, with crazy pale skin tones like mine you do).

It being springtime now has also made me crave pinks: light pinks, hot pinks, warm pinks, I love them all.  I've also enjoyed getting to break out my favorite wearable pinks from Chanel: at the moment, Rouge Coco Shine lipstick in Candeur and Coco Mademoiselle parfum (my top pick as far as perfume goes).  So I figured, why not experiment with some quick sketches?  There is something so effortlessly chic and feminine about light pinks, I think.

Disney themed

So it's really no secret that I absolutely love Disney: from classic Disney movies to DisneyWorld to the modern Animation Studios.  As I've been trying to sketch more, I thought I would channel some of their bright, colorful aesthetic into some quick paintings:

How could I resist painting Elsa's gorgeous new dress from Disney's "Frozen Fever" ?

My dear friend Lindsay of Tales of Sheaves

The beautiful Charis of CharismastarTV

Fun with Fashion Illustration

I recently came across the work of Katie Rodgers (http://paperfashion.net/) and have been very inspired by her fun, whimsical style.  Besides, how could I resist incorporating glitter, crystals, and iridescent paint into my illustrations?  Short answer: I couldn't.

New Site, New Adventures

I am notoriously bad at using Dreamweaver.  So bad, in fact, that it likes to crash almost as soon as I open it, just to save us both some trouble.  Thus, after playing around with a few new website designs and design interfaces, I give you, dun-dun-duuuun, the new site!  Hopefully this one is much easier to navigate.  Plus, I've added lots of ways for you to follow my creative journey, such as on Facebook and Tumblr, as well as on Instagram @akkaiyan .