Hi!
So.
As you may have noticed, I disappeared after my last post on June 9th.
My ability to create was, for a few months during the summer, shaky-at-best. I don’t need to detail the pandemic or quarantine or make vague allusions by calling the past few months these troubling times. We know. We all get it. It’s a rough time for all of us, and some more than others.
Let’s catch up, shall we?
Since my last Art Update, back in May 2020, I have been both procrastinating, dealing with burn-out, and discovering new ways to paint digitally. I’ve spent the last few months working on pet portraits, commissions, and other related work.
Early June 2020
In late May, Prysma (also known as fallnskye on Instagram and Twitter) announced she was running a Draw This In Your Style (DTIYS) challenge. This was to celebrate reaching 1k followers on Twitter.
Check out the embed below for the original post. (And go follow her if you like her work. Prysma’s fantastic and needs more eyes on her art!)
I absolutely fell in love with this design and knew I had to participate in the challenge and create my own version. It didn’t take me long to complete mine, and I used this challenge to also teach myself how to use Clip Studio Paint. Here is my attempt—swipe/click for the full version.
Father’s Day
I live in California, far off my parents living in the Greater Toronto Area. This year, for obvious reasons, I needed to do something different for Father’s day. I couldn’t just send a gift card for Dad’s favourite restaurant or movie theatre, after all. Instead, I went for something new.
Using Clip Studio paint and using a photo reference that I took of our dog, I painted a portrait of Boots.
This was my first time painting this way, and I think it turned out pretty well. I didn’t realize it was going to be the start of a series of pet portraits.
July 2020
Back in May, I ran a raffle on Twitter for reaching 100(!) followers. Lucinella_GW2 from Twitter was the winner and requested their character from Guild Wars 2 as their prize. I learned a lot during this one and gained a new appreciation for illustrating armour.
Later, Clip Studio Paint’s developer, CELSYS, held their 24th International Illustration Contest this summer with the theme “Skies, Space and Stars”.
I didn’t win, but it was fun to give it a shot and try something experimental and, to be honest, kind of scary. I have some ideas for other paintings to try and need to find the time to turn those into something real.
August 2020
The next project was a digital painting of my parents’ Havanese, Toby. The second pet portrait, a gift for my parents, was created in Clip Studio Paint with text and colour adjustments added in Adobe Photoshop. Could do more on this (I always can!), but I was happy with it, and it does look like Toby!
Check out September to December 2020’s projects in Part 2 of my Art Update.
Talizmyn's Trinkets 
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