Exploring gouache painting

I haven’t painted something in awhile and suddenly got the urge to recently. Maybe it’s stress, maybe I just wanna spend money on something. Anyways, I bought a new paper palette (that I actually didn’t need) and a watercolor paper. I never realized watercolor paper could be pretty pricey for the amount of pages we got. It was almost $10 or 15 pages. Ugh.

This time, instead of using the normal watercolor set I have, I tried out gouache. I actually purchased the set a couple of months back because I thought the container was cute and the paint itself reminded me of jelly. The experience of painting with one was actually pretty fun as it’s more like an opaque version of watercolor. It kind of reminded me of acrylic.

My first experiment was the beach. A favorite Youtuber paints similar scenes like this and I was inspired to make a similar attempt. I honestly feel that the colors are somewhat clashing with each other haha. Maybe I just have a horrible coloring sense.

I was gonna make my second experiment a repeat of the first one but decided to go with just the sky this time. I liked how calming the blue color is. I wasn’t gonna add the balloon but somehow it looks empty without anything so I added one anyways. I need to practice how to draw clouds. Sigh.

Next time maybe I’ll learn some more gouache painting techniques before I start another piece!

How do you gain motivation?

Maybe it’s because I’m a super pessimist, but I don’t understand how people can stand again after facing so many failures. They always say it’s only over when you give up. But when situations look so bleak and depressing, how do people stay positive and strong?

I’m currently having a hard time picking myself up after facing lots of rejections. Well, I don’t usually face one, but now that I experience it non stop, it’s kinda hard to not lose self-confidence. I hate how fragile I am.

People around me have been telling me to not think too much about my failure and keep moving forward. But I can’t find the strength to do that as of now. Everything I do seems pointless and all the efforts I made seems fruitless.

In the back of my head, I understand what I must be doing. I know what steps I must take to pick myself up. But my mindset of ‘doing this has no meaning’ lingers in my mind, making me unable to take any action.

Aah, I really envy positive people.

Random edit: Fruits Basket S2 Ep. 9 has got to be the most bittersweet episode I’ve ever seen. Poor Kyo. 😥

Experimenting with more art style

I tried doodling more stuff today since I finished one of my job applications. I only realized after all this time that I suck at making details haha. Since I don’t have proper foundation of drawing people and stuff, the more detailed I try to make something, the weirder it gets. So this time I tried to simplify everything and didn’t use any line arts.

This time, I used Japanese kanji to replace the face and ‘describe’ the contents of the bag. The character on the face is 鬱 (utsu) which means depression. The one on the bag is 悩 which symbolizes worries. I wanted the image to convey that each person is carrying their own problems and worries. As both depression and troubles can’t be materialized, I used the characters to express it.

The size of the ‘bag’ or ‘problems’ might seem small or light. But that’s something that other people perceive from the outside. The real weight of it is unknown to anyone else but the carrier.

Well, those stuff aside, I think it’s quite funny how I never intended for the art to end up like this. I guess your own drawings somehow reveals your inner state of mind.