ARTCHIVE II : WHAT ART MEANS TO ME? 🎨👩‍🎨

Hello there, Hive friends! Have you ever sat down and wondered how love grows in the most unexpected way and time?

I ain't gonna talk about someone but rather it's about something. And that something is my love for art. My connection to art blossomed out from my interest in watching animated films. As a kiddo growing up, I spent my time watching my favorite shows. And witnessing how different worlds and characters creatively came into life, inspired me a lot. I started doing fan arts of my favorite anime character. It started out simply as a hobby to occupy myself when I'm caught in the middle of boredom and never expected it to discover myself totally engulfed in it, that it has become a part of who I am.

My love for art grew way deeper and stronger during the pandemic. Given the long amount of time I get to spend with myself, I went through a cycle of exploration, discovery, and realization.

During that time, I found a chance to explore more with art and broaden the horizon I am walking on. I tried and learned how to do landscapes by watching Bob Ross's painting tutorials on YouTube. Exploring and observing varieties of references, recreating my favorite works and photos.

Using the money I earned from making portrait commissions, I bought a big canvas and painted my first ever big painting. I randomly saw this wonderful photo a this scenery and just wanted to recreate it.

For this painting, I started by blocking out the solid color for the sky and left some white spaces of the canvas for the clouds.

But as you see, just as in life, when painting, sometimes things just won't go the way you planned it to be and would end up requiring you to take a different direction.

Things that worked out with others may not work for you and you just gotta accept that and try to find what could work for you instead.

With that being said, I covered the entire space of the canvas with the solid colors I am using for the different elements in my painting. A light blue for the sky, black for the rocks, dark blue and some strokes of green creating a gradient effect for the waters, and an earthy yellow for the sand.

I vividly remember the exact moment painting this piece in the middle of the pandemic. I set up everything on the rooftop, sat on a yoga mat , and played some ghibli and disney songs in the background as I painted. It felt so therapeutic and there I realized, "Ahh, painting is saving me out of misery." It's dragging me out of the black hole I am falling into.

My favorite part in working on this painting is making the clouds. And I am proud how I was able to make it look real and fluffy. A little secret how I did it, I used a make up brush to paint it. Yeah, I am that person who buys make up brushes to use it for my paintings.

The second fun part in the process is the placing of the shadows, because it helps give a more realistic effect to your piece making it look more alive.

Next was the highlights and I would say, I did not enjoy it the way I enjoyed the previous process since adding highlights to your painting is a crucial part that would either make it or ruin your piece for you hahaha.

And to be honest, it kinda did ruin some part of my painting since I overdid it. But as for my first ever big painting, it's perfect. Yeah I would give my younger self a slack for that hahaha.

Here's a little close up of my favorite frame of the painting. I just really liked how that little rock turned out and also the clouds ☁️ I wouldn't forget that one.

I discovered how I want myself to be and that discovery is one of the most important thing that happened to my life. It is something that I am very grateful for during the pandemic despite all the negative things happening to the world, I was able to discover something beautiful for myself.

And right there I realized that I can no longer turn back. I can never ever turn my back on art. I am gonna live with it forever. It is something that I would never give up on and something I would fight for. And I think that is how I would describe my love for it.