Once Upon a Winter
Once Upon a Winter, digital VS analog, self-judgement
Drawing challenges are all over social media and a lot of them sound exciting and fun. But I give up every time after making 1 or 2 prompts. This year, I was invited to join the “Once upon a winter” drawing challenge (from Orange Beak Studio) together by Jenny and Catherine, two lovely illustrators I met in Sketch and Cafe. We agreed to join together to keep each other accountable. We even had a zoom meeting to talk about our ideas and thumbnails before the challenge began. I am really grateful to have this support group. Both of them are super supportive, encouraging and generous.
As I usually work digitally, I want to challenge my self by using traditional materials this time. I planned to use watercolour and colour pencils, with some paper cut collages as final touches. This year’s prompts are
The Guest
Frost
Key
Glasshouse
Song
Comet
Here’s are some of my sketches and thumbnails:
As an illustrator, I usually start brainstorming visually. I first sketched out the characters in mind. I wanted to create a story with a character related to trees. My brain was flooded with all the lovely trees I saw in Japan. This is how my Christmas tree boy came to life. The second character, the bird, was created naturally as bird is always a guest to trees (Amber A, 2023). I then started to build a story using the 6 prompts provided. All of these took me 2-3 days. I went back to the character for a few times as they have to be changed to make the story works. And here’s the final sketches (to be honest, they are not final yet) of the story:
Hope you manage to read my rough sketches! I changed the pointy glasshouse to an igloo as I think a round igloo stands out more among the pointy trees than a pointy glasshouse. I was happy with all the compositions by this stage and I started to transfer them on watercolour paper. And here’s where the disaster began……..
I struggled a lot while painting with watercolour and gouache. They just do not look right to me. I was not satisfied with the results.
“What should I do? These are not what I expected. They look so unprofessional and rusty. I am running out of time. Shall I go back to digital for this challenge?” I thought.
I ended up creating the first two drawings digitally. Disappointment, guilt and shame are things in my brain while creating the drawings. I promised myself to try traditional materials and put my play hat on. Although I let myself down, I still wanted to make this challenge meaningful so I tried a new set of brushes in procreate and applied collage effect digitally. I would have given up already if it weren’t for accountability (thanks to my pals!)
Analysing my feeling is a habit I have built since I started my recovery of eating disorder. I realised I was so eager to draw traditionally because I have heard someone mentioned before, “ Digital artists are not real artists. ”. I am not saying I don’t enjoy drawing using analog materials, but I am better at drawing on my iPad in terms of skill level. I have been drawing digitally for 6 years so it makes sense I can produce better illustrations digitally. Shortcuts may promise quick results but can never replace the deep knowledge and skill set gained through hard work and practice. Furthermore,
No matter digital materials or analog materials,
they are all created by my brain, my eyes and my hands.
They are all handmade.
I didn’t expected I would experience all these emotional roller coaster in this drawing challenge. Yet, I have learnt to accept my ability and my progress. Making art is pointless if you are not having fun. Art is suppose to be fun and enjoyable!
Check out my instagram for the rest of the artworks for “Once Upon a Winter”.
Hope you have a nice weekend!
