Tag: artsy

Is Copying Wrong???

I’ve dealt with this problem before – is copying someone else’s work wrong??? 

There are two answers to this . . . 

ANSWER 1: NO 

I use a lot of references when drawing, sometimes even copying a drawing line for line. This helps me get better at my own technique, and learn how other great artists do it! 

My mom sometimes says when I copy something my brother does (or the other way around, which isn’t as often) that copycatting is the best way to show admiration. If I think what my brother did is amazing or really well done, I want to try it myself. 

This used to make him really upset, like I was trying to do it better. But really, I was looking up to him and following his example! 

It can work the same way with copying drawings. You may really love how it looks and want to learn how to do it the same way. 

But . . . 

ANSWER 2: YES 

If you want to SELL a drawing, then by no means should it be an exact copy of someone else’s work. 

For example, I just finished my commission for illustrating a children’s book on Tuesday. I used a LOT of reference pictures for that project, since I usually draw in full cartoon or realistic, not a mix of both like she wanted for her book. 

So I would use both pictures of real people and cartoons to help me merge the two styles. Sometimes I would use the exact pose from my reference for a drawing, but NEVER would it look exactly the same. I would change the facial expression and the clothing. Sometimes I would flip a picture or change the angle. 

When I was using a real photo as my reference, my drawing would obviously not look the same as the photo, so I was pretty safe in that regard. 

But when (aside from that project) I draw cartoon/manga characters, sometimes I DO copy a drawing exactly. But I wouldn’t sell that picture. It’s just for me, to make me happy. 

I might show some friends, but I won’t try to market my copy as an original, because that’s pirating. It’s taking someone’s amazing drawing and trying to sell it as your own. 

CONCLUSION 

So if you want to copy someone’s drawing to learn their style, or just to have a copy of it . . . 

Don’t try to sell it or market it as your own. ALWAYS give credit to the original artist if you post it anywhere!!! But feel free to copy whatever pictures you like – it’ll help you get better at drawing!!! 

And who knows? You may be that amazing author that everyone wants to copy someday 😀 

God bless, 

Janet 🦋  

My Drawing Supplies

What better to have in an art section than a list of what you use for art?

Probably a lot of things, but since I can’t think of any right now, let’s stick with the supplies. ;D

First off—paper. There isn’t anything unusual about the paper I use—except that there’s so much of it . . .

When my birthday came around last year, I asked for a (singular) sketchbook.

Well, apparently my family doesn’t coordinate well, or it was just a practical joke . . . but every member of my family got me a sketchbook.

So now I have a lot of sketchbooks!

Which is great because I won’t have to get any more for a very long time . . .

Basically, I don’t really care what kind of paper I use to draw on—as long as it isn’t watercolor paper or cardstock (unless I’m sketching guidelines for a painting, but that’s a different story :D).

The paper in the sketchbook I use most often is the Ucreate brand, acid free, 75 sheets. Pretty nice paper unless you’re using pens—then it bleeds a little bit.

Although I’m pretty non-particular about my paper, I do care about the size of the paper. I just happened to get two small sketchpads along with the 12” x 9” ones, so I decided to make them special.

The first one I put in my bag so I’d have paper to draw on wherever I go.

The second one is a little more fun . . .

I dedicated that one to manga only.

You see, I draw a lot of different things—but that small sketchpad is for only manga. It’s kinda cool, actually. 😀

Okay, next!

The pencils I use for drawing are usually Ticonderoga (sharpens really well), Pro Art, or basically any other random pencil within reach ;D.

I also have some shading pencils that are really soft—STAEDTLER.

I almost always use the Pigma Micron brand for inking in my lines—they have different size tips ranging from .005mm to 1mm and are really nice for precision lines.

I also have a random Sharpie in the mix—but that bleeds through most paper, so I don’t use it much when drawing.

Then there’s a set of white, silver, and gold gel pens of the Boxun brand, which work well unless used on top of other marker.

For coloring, I have a lot of random colored pencils (survivors from a myriad of different sets) which include Sargent Art, Prismacolor, and Crayola.

All of them work really nicely, but the Prismacolor don’t sharpen quite as nicely as I’d like.

I also have an older set of STAEDTLER markers—the result of their age is that some of them are running out of ink. But I really like them for shading and for the handy fact that they have 2 tips (one large and one small).

Then I have the Arteza pens—which I LOVE so much (and they have a carry case, so I can have all 95 or so of them together), and they work really well. The only downside to the brush tips is that it is a little tedious to get into the smaller areas, but with patience, they’ll work.

One other thing that I love are my colored pens for writing—the Pen + Gear pens. I absolutely love these—the ink comes out well, they fit in my hand, and they look nice on my desk (irrelevant I know, but all the same . . .).

I just have the regular pink erasers, but I also have a couple of the cool erasers that fit on the end of your pencil—not sure what brand they are, but they’re quite handy!

I have one ruler to use for straight lines, a circle with the angles marked all around it (nice except that there wasn’t a hole in the middle when I got it, so marking the vertex of an angle was . . . tricky), and a plain old right angle—which is nicer to have than you might think!

I think that’s all the supplies I have! If I think of any other handy tools, I’ll make another post 😀

Thanks for reading, and God bless,

~Janet

PS: I’ll post what my painting supplies are in a little while if you want -please comment below! 😀

Graphic Design Word Art

Good day to y’all!

Today I want to share with you a graphic art design that I did in a program called Pixlr. It’s completely free, with no sign-up needed! As it’s a pretty simple program—and there are several how-to videos already out there—I don’t think I need to walk you through how to use it :D.

Instead, I’ll just show you one of my projects and give you some tips on word art! I’m not talking about the WordArt in MS Word. I’m talking about drawing words.

There isn’t a right or wrong way to do this—it just depends on how easy it is to read once you’re finished.

Usually I like to do word art in lines—like a book. Then I take the words and bend them and change the color or font. This makes it easier to read but can seem boring sometimes.

To make it a little more interesting, you can move them around and make some words bigger than others—usually the more important words get a larger size.

There is also the option of background—you can choose a plain beige or white if you want, but in some (like this one) I like to do a more colorful background. Using Pixlr makes this very easy, as they have a very large selection of pictures.

For this one—the Bible verse of John 3:16—I chose a background theme of gold, which is the color of the page in the Wordless Book that this verse is used in. (To find out more, check out my post The Salvation Story Part 1.)

To find pictures for your background, you can go to the top left of the screen in the Pixlr editor and click the Home button. There are several options that pop up in the Home screen—one of which is Images. When you click that, you can search any keyword for what kind of picture you want. I typed in “gold,” and there you go—a beautiful sunset picture.

I also used a photo of a bunch of people on a beach because this verse is talking about the world—all the people!

After that I just added text and messed around with the settings until I came up with something I liked, then hit save!

So, here’s the finished product 😀

Thanks for reading, and God bless,

~Janet

My Writing History

Ok, so here I am with a blog, and I have no idea what to write! Common problem, right? . . . Or is it just me . . . ? LOL.

Since this is supposed to be a post about writing, I think I’ll start off with a little history of my writing experience.

I’ve been writing since I was about five, when I was in the habit of doing everything my older brother did. When he started writing, so did I!

But I didn’t have much success – for a long time.

I would start a story, then run out of ideas (or interest in the tale) and give up. I have a lot of my old stories still because I find them quite funny in parts. Maybe someday I’ll finish and publish them!

I think it was 2019 when my brother stumbled across this online site called Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) and decided to try it out.

And guess what???

So did I . . .

During Nano, the goal is to write a novel (50,000 words) in the month of November (normally pretty hard to do, but it’s a great inspirational site with progress tracking, buddies, and other cool things to help you stay motivated).

So I started! My brother helped me brainstorm ideas for a book that I’d been thinking about for a while (but had been too scared to start for fear of failing), and on November 1st I started my brand-new (hopefully) novel. It was about a girl finding her parents (cliché, right? LOL).

I didn’t get to 50,000 words.

Sad, I know. Such high hopes.

But . . .

I DID finish the story! My first ever full book was done at around 25,000 words. A novella.

Voila!

I was pumped. I decided to do Camp Nano in April (where you set your own word goal). I finished another book, this one giving the backstory of a character I’d acted in a play. I think that one is around 30,000 words.

After that, I started a few small things: short stories and such. I started one novel idea called Don’t Blame the Invaders but decided to set it aside for a while until I could come up with a good plot and time to write it properly.

During Camp Nano in June, I started a book called Things Change (which I’ve renamed since then because of the boring original title XD) with a goal of around 20,000 words. I didn’t finish it – I didn’t even get close.

But I didn’t give up.

In November, I set my project as Things Change once again, this time with the goal of making it a novel.

It was exhausting. My brother was also doing Nano, and he won it on November 28. He decided to make a graphic design for a shirt with the words NaNoWriMo Winner on it for himself.

I wanted one of those shirts sooooo bad!

But . . . I was only at 41,000 words or so.

I asked him if he could give me one just for fun.

No, he said: I actually had to win it.

So, I went and turned on my computer. And typed.

And typed.

I typed until I thought my fingers were going to fall off.

And the next day I did it again. 8,000 words to go!

Last day – November 30. I wrote my story late into the night. I didn’t take any breaks – I needed to finish that story!

I didn’t finish it. Sad, right?

But, in the world of strange and backward things that we live in, I actually did. In a way.

You see, I got to 50,000 words and won Nano (I got the shirt ;P)

But I didn’t actually finish the story. I was really close – at the climax.

And then I ran out of inspiration.

So yes – sad. I really loved that book, but I didn’t finish it. I set it aside, again.

Pretty soon after that, my brother got together a bunch of writing friends and started Writing Club. We read our material, give tips, brainstorm, and (most important) we have fun!

And so, with the encouragement of my friends, I started another book. This one is called Greywater.

I haven’t finished it yet – I’m not even close! But I’m gonna stick with it.

One day, I was going through my old documents, and I came across an old story that I loved . . .

Yep, Things Change.

And I started reading through my forgotten story. It was great; I remembered the inspiration behind it and why I had loved it so much in the first place. I started editing, and before I knew it, I was at the end.

For Pete’s sake, I hadn’t even finished the last sentence! Wow, me.

But, on the bright side, I found a note to myself about halfway through the document that was literally the plot for the end of the book.

It was right there – and I’d forgotten about it completely. I’d gone off in a totally different direction in those last three days of frantic writing and had lost inspiration – because I didn’t have a good plot.

So, guess what I did?

I went back to where I’d gotten off track and started typing again.

I’m really close to finishing Things Change now. I am at the end of the climax and only need to finish that and write an epilogue and I’m done!

It is exhilarating to be that close! And at 53,326 words, I’ve got a novel :D.

I owe a HUGE thank you to my chums at Writing Club, other people I’ve met who give me inspiration to keep going, and to all of you who read this post and enjoy it.

This blog is another of my crazy ideas, but hopefully it will help to keep me motivated and inspire you as well!!!

Thank you for reading, and see you in the next post!

God bless,

~Janet

BTW, you can check out my brother’s amazing website here: http://reflectionsofrenaissance.com