My Journey in Art

Today when I was cleaning my room, I came across all my drawings and paintings I did from Form 1 till last year. And there're so many ugly ones and pretty ones. And despite the fact that I always think that I suck (because many of my friends are so much better in drawing) in it, I think I did improve quite a lot throughout the years. Flunyway, those were really nice memories and I even took some pictures for you to see! :D

These are one of the first human figures I ever drawn. Haha, back in Form 1, when my drawing sucked like hell. Started drawing cos' I started watching anime and reading manga and inspired me to draw. Typical otaku. Anyway, this is my first sketch book, a DIY-ed one. I used A4 paper and cut them half and then stapled them. I named it "My Drawing and Sketching Book" on the cover but because the drawings were too ugly, my friends changed it to "My Laughing and Giggling Book"! So funny, they practically commented on every of my pictures. :D

 

And then as I progressed, my drawings got slightly better than the previous ones. And I started drawing a lot of full figures in Form 2. I still have a lot of drawings but I'm too lazy to take pictures of them.

 Then I bought myself the second sketchbook. It was big, A3 size and I bought it to school everyday so that I could draw and then my friends gave constructive criticism. Ahh.. sweet old Form 2 days.

 After that,I started experimenting with colours so I started off with coloured pencils. To be honest, all this while, I always prefer black and white drawings except for watercolour. But then, I needed to learn colouring too, so had to force myself. And started practising more inking too. And although I still sucked, but at least, i gradually improved. :D

 I bought more sketchbooks as I finished one by one. By Form 3, I could produce better drawings, with better figures and better expressions. But still sucked. Haha..

 I still remember this drawing! I drew it in class one day, and my Math teacher passed by and said it was so pretty, and I was so flattered the entire day (with a big smile plastered on my face). Now that I look back, not so nice also.. T.T

 I still have a lot more of my drawings from the sketchbooks in Form 3, but I'm just too lazy to post it up. Anyway, by the time I reached Form 4, drawing got even better. The body posture got slightly better and my pictures are more lively and natural. Foldings of the clothes also improved better (I remember struggling like hell with it) and shadings got better too.

And then I started painting with watercolour cos' I got inspired by a fellow Deviant artist, Shel Yang. She's one hell of a great artist and her watercolour skills are so amazing that I started painting in watercolour. Above are my first 3 watercolour paintings I did. Super bad, since it's been such a long time since I last painted a watercolour painting.

 

But flunyway, as I moved on, I gradually improved my watercolour skills too. I would say, it's pretty good. Still a long way from being great, but now that I think about it, I really did put in a lot of effort into these. My watercolour skills is one of the skills I most proud of. But then, it's been a long time since I actually painted, so I guess I've gotten worse. Gotta brush up again, don't let good efforts go to waste. By Form 5, my skills eventually got better and better. But I always have so many things that I'm not satisfied with. Like, until today, I still can't draw bird's eye view, perfect three quarter and other views.   

In Form 5 (more like towards the last 6 months of it), I also started to come out of my comfort zone by practising more on human figures, because I knew that was a big weakness for me. In Form 4 and 5, I think my figures improved more because almost every night, I was up in my room drawing comics after I'm done with my studies and my homeworks. :D It was pretty tiring but I enjoyed it a lot, to be honest. Didn't take pictures of my comics, I'm too lazy to do it but they're still in my drawer. But I never get to finish any one.. because the process is too long and I'm too impatient. The only comic I was able to finish was the comic I did for Gempak competition. It was only 6 pages long, and I think I took about 3 weeks finishing it. But flunyway, I didn't get anything cos I was too bad. :(

And then after SPM, I also started sketching. Tried to do more realistic drawings, instead of just drawing anime based stuffs everyday. The above sketch is one of my first still life sketches.

In the beginning of my A-Levels, I still did some drawings but instead of anime-based like in the past, it was all pencil sketches. All are either portrait sketching or still life sketching. Since college life was busy like hell, sketching is the most I could come out with. Using watercolour can be too tiring, as I'll have to take water, adjust colours, and make a mess everywhere. But then, I stopped entirely this February. Juggling my A-Levels and time for drawing is proving to be a difficult task. Hence, until now, it's been almost a year since I last completed a decent drawing. As it got pretty tiring after that, drawing most probably wasn't as fun as in the past. A-Levels pretty much sucked up all my other aspects of life, and I'm completely dedicated to studying the 4 subjects.

Like I just said, there's a whole load more of drawings I did but I didn't post them up here. Drawing is a big part of my life, and I don't know if there's anything that I'll be this dedicated to in my future life. But for me, it was all worth it. None of my drawings are perfect but when I look back, the improvements I made towards it is tremendous. Frankly, I think if I kept moving on and drawing non-stop, I could've done even better now.

So, here's a piece of advice to aspiring artists and those studying visual arts out there. Sometimes, you might feel like in the verge of breaking down, when you don't have an idea, when you're stuck and you feel like you're not good. But you know, each great artist you see right now, they were once in your place, and they kept moving on.

To set your future with creative arts, what you really need is passion and dedication. Screw talents, I tell you. At the end of the day, it's your practices that determine where you are. Because once you've decided to move on with it, there'll be no turning back. It's gonna be a tough and tiring work, so you've got to make sure that you can push yourself to the best. The only thing that ALL artists can tell you is to keep moving on and don't give up.

And for me, sometimes, I just got too tired. The holding on is pretty hard to bear because I've got to practise everyday, never give up. If you're willing to go for it, then you really have to go for it. If you're not willing to go further, the quit art, it will just ruin you eventually.

Eventhough I don't draw anymore now, but it's something that I feel proud of myself, because I really worked towards it. Maybe not the best, but at least, it was once so important to me. It's not that important now as A-Levels kinda changed my life perception on certain stuffs but art, is the best thing that ever happened to me. :D

P.S. Now that I'm more free, I could actually start earning some stuffs from my blog so yup, if you see ad from Nuffnang at the sidebar or below the post, please click. XD