New Art - Thanksgiving Kiki

You may remember from my Halloween post that this year I've been working on three holiday illustrations to match my household's three cats.  It's a little bit late, but this is my Thanksgiving entry!  It features Kiki, the youngest of our brood (and the only female in our home aside from myself and, perhaps, our single goldfish) which makes her the most playful and naughty of the bunch!  A lot of thought and effort went into this piece's creation; it may very well be my most intricate illustration to date.  I hope you'll enjoy seeing how it all came together~

Thanksgiving Kiki by AnimeGirlMika on deviantART

I started this piece with a handful of thumbnail sketches to work out ideas.  I tried several different compositions and poses, but the idea of Kiki with a cornucopia kept coming to the fore.  The iconic cornucopia is inseparable from Thanksgiving in the US, making it apt for the theme.  Plus, "Kiki" (or even just "cat") and "cornucopia" have a nice bit of alliteration!  Once I decided on the thumbnail, I sketched it out at half size so I could work out the finer details.

The grid was drawn in warm grey ink so it would remain even after erasing.

 
I did a lot of research at this stage.  I started by looking up the origin of the cornucopia, which ended up being a good idea.  I usually visualize a wickerwork horn but I discovered that those woven icons are actually meant to represent a mythical goat horn that produces endless fruit, vegetables, and flowers.  I knew about the food (that's why the horn of plenty is associated with Thanksgiving, after all) but never realized flowers were also included.  When I learned this, I did further research to find produce and flowers that arrive in autumn (I didn't want to include anything that would be out-of-season since I wanted the illustration to be as autumny as possible!) and also to see what goat horns look like in real life so my depiction would be more authentic.

Using the grid was extremely helpful in maintaining the composition.

Once I was happy with the sketch, I started redrawing it full size.  This is where I started to lose steam and got very behind schedule.  There is so much detail in all the fruit and flowers; it was taxing not only physically (drawing tiny details takes a lot of muscular stamina, believe it or not!) but also mentally.  It felt really tedious to draw all those things again and larger!  The tedium was exacerbated later when I made myself redraw several details because they weren't looking recognizable (i.e. they were too generic).

I only included fruits and veggies that I think are yummy!

 
I did eventually complete the final pencil drawing after several weeks working on and off.  I thought it would be easier from this point on but I was disappointed to find inking just as difficult to stay motivated for.  I finished inking faster than penciling, but I think that was probably because Thanksgiving was fast approaching and I intended to get the illustration done in time to print and mail as greeting cards. 

The flowers I included were roses, dahlias, and salvias.

 
Unfortunately, the pressure of my self-set deadline wasn't enough for me to finish on time.  I kept pushing every day, but I was already so far behind that I not only missed getting cards made and mailed, I couldn't even finish by Thanksgiving itself.  At least I finished before November was over.  Better late than never!

The salvias really were the worst part to draw...

...but I persevered and completed them all!  Worth it, I think!

 
Finally I finished inking and was able to move onto coloring.  Again I thought, "It's all downhill from here," and again I was disappointed.  All those details just kept looming at me like an insurmountable wall.  It was during coloring that I decided to give up on deadlines and just work a decent amount every day until it was done (I lost a lot of sleep on the last day, but I managed to finish before my Thanksgiving vacation was over!).

This part was really fun!

 
The technique I used to start coloring is one I sometimes forget but which is really helpful when I remember.  With a light purple marker, I roughly added shadows to everything in the drawing.  Not only does this help me maintain my light source (which is easy to forget when working a larger and heavily detailed piece) the marker's color is great for adding coolness and unity to shaded areas. 
 

Here I stopped using references, drawing upon imagination and memory.

 
It took me longer than I expected--again because I just couldn't find my enthusiasm--but I did eventually get the flat colors laid down throughout the drawing.  I tried to choose muted, realistic tones since I was going for an autumny feel, but my love for vibrant color still came through pretty strong.  Not that I'm disappointed!  I'm pleased with every single color choice here~

I tried to give every color a different hue, especially oranges and greens.

 
Once the flat color was done, I finally, finally began to get that awesome feeling of excitement which I can only describe as akin to running down a hill after a long, arduous climb to the top.  THIS is the fun part of creating art!  The closer to the finishing touches, the more everything starts visually coming together, the happier I get.  It was still a time-consuming and intricate bit of work, but seeing the illustration nearing its final look gave me the patience and energy to push hard until the end.

I didn't plan on using my paint stick but I'm glad I gave it a shot!

 
For the sky, I had a stroke of brilliance, if I do say so myself.  A bundle of ArtSnacks was on my worktable and I thought to use the Krink paint stick (which you may remember from this earlier post) to add variety to the sky.  As I was applying the paint, I wondered what would happen if I tried to blend it using my colorless blending marker.  (I remembered that some people use this marker to blend colored pencil and I recently saw a similar colorless marker specifically marketed as a colored pencil blender.)  I had a good feeling about it so, even though experimenting on an almost-finished piece might prove disastrous both for the artwork and the blending tool, I gave it a shot.  I'm still not sure about the state of my blending marker but the way this experimental technique panned out for the illustration was perfect!  I might even use my paint stick in this way from now on, even if I have to buy a bunch of replacement nibs for my blender, ha ha ha.

Highlights are always the most fun part of creating anime-inspired art.

 
Although I was getting very tired by this point, I was still enthusiastic enough to finish everything up.  I added a lot of details in highlighting, shading, and general definition with colored pencil first.  Once I was satisfied there, I moved on to adding white highlights.  I ended up using three different opaque white tools: an artists pen, a paint marker, and a gel pen.  They were all useful and worked together well to create the final look on paper.

That wasn't the end of my work, though.  After finishing everything in traditional media, I digitized the image and set to fine tuning in Photoshop.  I fixed a few stray marks, added a couple overlays to unify the colors, and drew in Kiki's whiskers.  This is a true multimedia work!  You can click on the image at the top of this post to see a larger version of the completed piece on deviantART.  Please let me know what you think of my process, my struggles, and my final result~

New Art - Thankfulness

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  Here in the States, Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  For most people, including me, this is mainly a feasting holiday.  Recently, however, I've also focused on giving proper thanks for things I'm grateful for in the days leading up to the feast.  To that end, this year I started a Thankfulness drawing project for the month of November.  Every day this month, I have sketched something I'm grateful for.  Here are a few of my favorites.

My first entry featured our adorable American Shorthair.

The very first sketch I drew for this project featured our housecat, Kiki.  She follows me around quite a bit when I'm at home, so it was easy to make her my model.  She's my beau's first cat and she's silly, wily, and loving.  It was impossible not to draw her because I am very thankful indeed to have her in my life ❤

In drawing this, I decided on several rules for me to follow in future Thankfulness drawings.  For one, I decided to only sketch things that were right in front of me.  I would not use photographs or sketch anything abstract or made-up.  On top of that, I decided to use the same pen and paper for every sketch (the ZIG mangaka pen I received in my September ArtSnacks box and a coil-bound mixed media sketchbook from Strathmore).  This means that every drawing for this project was done directly in pen.  Not having a pencil sketch to work over made things easier to foul up, but it has also been really good practice for life sketching!

Kiba was sleeping in my computer chair as I sketched~

The next sketch I want to highlight also features one of our housecats!  This time it's Kiba, the black Manx we rescued a couple years ago.  He is a true rescue in that we noticed him living under our house and, over time, realized he was losing a lot of weight.  We knew he had belonged to some neighbors that moved away but they never came asking or looking for him.  Since it was obvious he had been abandoned, we brought him some food to build up his trust, coaxed him into a cat carrier, took him to the vet, and (after receiving a clean bill of health) brought him inside to become one of our housecats.  He's simply the most adorable little kitty (to be honest, I think that of every cat, but he really is unbearably cute!), a little wild and crazy, but cuddly and affectionate more often than not.  I'm very grateful to know this kitty!

I'm not just thankful for my pets!  Scarves~

Although most of my favorite sketches feature animals, I've actually drawn a wide variety of things for this Thanksgiving project.  One of them is this cozy scarf!  In life, it's bright pink with blue, dark pink, and white tartan stitches.  I'm thankful for all my scarves, but this was the one I was wearing that day and it inspired me to use it as my subject.  I'm particularly fond of this sketch because, although there was no way to translate the scarf's cheerful colors with the tools I restricted myself to, I think the essence of the subject still came through.  I'm thankful for everything that keeps me warm during these chilly, snowy months!

My Shibi-beebee was sleeping at my feet as I sketched~

Of all my Thankfulness sketches, I think the ones featuring my pets have come out the best.  I suppose it's easier because they're not as rigid a subject as, say, a 3DS or a space heater.  If I mess up sketching a pet, no one can really tell!

Anyway, this is a drawing of my Shiba Inu, Sun.  He's my youngest dog, though not my youngest pet.  You really can't tell what age he is, except that his muzzle is whiter than it used to be.  I became interested in Shiba Inu because they're a national treasure of Japan and, of course, because they're so terribly cute, but after bringing Sun into my life, I realized Shiba Inu are even better than that.  He's always ready to play or ready to cuddle, big and small enough to do both really well, he's fastidious and clean, and although he's quite mischievous, he generally listens once we say "no."  I'm super grateful for him!

This is my big boy, Kenshi!  He snored as I sketched, ha ha.

This may be my favorite pet sketch from this project.  It's my mixed-breed dog, Kenshi.  He was laying on the couch, deep asleep, as I sketched him.  He's a senior dog, and shows it in his white, floppy face.  It's times like these, when he's calm and relaxed (not being overprotective or otherwise naughty), that I feel most thankful to have my oldest, biggest buddy.  Over the years we've been together, he's really taught me a lot about being a good, responsible dog owner.

Another warm item!  I love being toasty warm and cozy.

The last sketch I'd like to focus on features my leather coat, draped over a chair at the cafe where my art group meets.  I'm thankful for outerwear in general, anything that keeps me warm and safe from harsh weather, but I'm particularly grateful for this coat.  It's one of those awesome thrift store finds, a perfectly serviceable, real leather coat, in a length and style I love, for a tiny fraction of what such a coat would cost brand new.  I love fashion--dressing stylishly gives me confidence and sets the tone for my whole day--but it's expensive, so coming across a find like this is special.  I'm thankful for the person who donated the item, thankful for the store that sold it at a generous price, thankful for the moment of exhilaration at finding it, and thankful for the coat itself, which keeps me feeling warm and looking good!

Although these six sketches are all I've included in this New Art post, there are plenty more--including my other household pets!--available for you to browse in this photo album.  Please check it out and let me know what you think.  Until then, have a safe, comfortable, delicious, and happy Thanksgiving!

Support Your Local Food Bank (November 2014)

In my country, the United States, November is the month of Thanksgiving, a holiday most often celebrated as a time to feast heartily with loved ones.  It's definitely a food holiday for me, anyway.  This led me to choose food banks as my advocacy topic for November.  Let's help everyone have a delicious, fulfilling Thanksgiving this year!

Fresh-baked, buttered rolls from a Thanksgiving Past!

To give an idea of why this cause is worth supporting, I would like to share a few statistics from the USDA.  In the United States in 2013:

• More than one in ten households (14.3%) experienced some form of food insecurity.
• About one in twenty households (5.6%) experienced very low food security, which means "normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food."
• In about one in ten households with children (9.9%), both the adults and the kids suffered from some form of food insecurity.
• In 360,000 households with children, the kids themselves suffered from very low food security at times.

To put these ideas into extremely simplified terms, it means that, statistically, there's a good chance that, in the US, someone you know, a friend, or family member, or someone in your neighborhood, school, or workplace, has suffered from food insecurity in the past year.  That sucks!

I'm not much of a numbers person myself, but I am a food person--I love cooking, baking, and, of course, eating--so the idea of that many people not being able to enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner (or any dinner) is pretty awful.  There are lots of ways to help people in your community this holiday season, including households with, let's not forget, pets!

Your Local Food Bank

I want to focus first on supporting your local community.  I personally feel more connected to a cause when I know my support is going to those who live near me.  I may not ever meet them, but the feel-goods are still more tangible simply thinking of how close they might be.  To find a local food bank, you can use this handy tool from Feeding America to search by zip code or, internationally, use this page from The Global FoodBanking Network.

Once you've found your food bank, there are many ways to lend support.  The most obvious way, if travel to a drop-off location is feasible for you, is to donate physical foodstuffs.  If you can, call ahead and ask what type of items your food bank is in need of most.  Especially around major holidays, there might be special demand for certain items.  The organization might also have a list of items that aren't as needed at the moment, so knowing to avoid those could also help your donation be as useful as possible.

The next way you can help is to donate money.  Most food banks have simple, secure one-time donation pages on their websites, so you can give support virtually any time, any place.  You may also be able to sign up as a monthly supporter (i.e. automatic donations via your debit or credit card in the amount you designate).  Money donations can be even more useful than food donations since the funds can be used to buy very specific items or even pay for things such as gasoline to fuel food delivery trucks or advertising for a holiday food drive.

Finally, you can support your local food bank by volunteering your time.  There a lot of things that food banks do which require man-power:  sorting and tracking food, keeping in touch with people in need, making deliveries, running food drives, etc.  Some food banks may even allow you to volunteer with a group of friends or family, making the time even more fun and rewarding for everyone involved.

Broader Support

If you don't have a food bank near you or if you would rather support a larger organization, check out these national food bank organizations for your country:

• United States: Feeding America
• Canada: Food Banks Canada
• United Kingdom: Fare Share
• Australia: Foodbank
• Almost 30 other countries listed at The Global FoodBanking Network

Each food bank website will list plenty of information relevant to your country and lots of ways you can share your support, including things as simple as spreading the word to tasks as ambitious as hosting your own food drive.  Check them out!

Don't Forget the Pets!

When it comes to food security in households with pets, there are no government-tracked statistics.  And, of course, such statistics wouldn't even touch on all the pets in shelters or elsewhere who may suffer from food insecurity or plain ol' hunger.

Sun, my Shiba, loves getting special treats for Thanksgiving!

Pets may not understand or celebrate their humans' holidays, but they still understand what it means to be truly hungry and they still suffer the stress brought on by not knowing when or where they'll get their next meal.  Pet food banks are less common and less easy to find, but they do exist.  I recommend starting the search with your local animal shelter.  Check their website or give them a call and ask if they or another organization they're aware of has a pet food bank.  You can also contact local veterinarians--especially if you're interested in supporting a specific type of pet (cats, dogs, horses, etc.)--who may have contacts for smaller, extremely localized pet food banks or organizations that include food banking among their animal support efforts.  Once you get in contact with your pet food bank, whether online, over the phone, or in person, they'll be able to tell you exactly how you can help.

Whether you're supporting locally or internationally, human or animal, whether you'll celebrate Thanksgiving this November or not, it's as easy as you wish to help ensure everyone can spend this holiday season with a full, happy belly.  Let's make it happen!