I've been doing daily art for six years now. It's been interesting to look back and see my long, slow evolution of style, tools, and approach to color, lines, and much more. I'm still not where I can pull an image out of my head and render it perfectly on the page, and likely I never will be. Perfection is elusive, first of all. Secondly, I'm finding that my style just doesn't lend itself to that. Not that I can't do realism. I can. I earned a certificate in Natural History Illustration to show that!
It's more that I'm not a painter. Most of the images I get in my head would have to be rendered in many many layers of oils and that's not a medium I ever plan to even dabble in. On the other hand? I have a piece in mind I really want to excute as a gift for a friend, and it will be done in acrylics in a semi-abstract style and I have confidence in myself that I will be able to create that one once I have the space to work on it. Likely this fall.
I'm doing a thematic month in April - don't get me wrong, here, the line-art for AstroLizards will proceed, I plan to have that book ready for release at the end of April - because it's art that is less hands-on than some of my other stuff. I'm talking space art. Rendering starfields and nebulas is a matter of a few moments to tweak (especially as I have years of source files built up on the various drives) before I let them render to usable in a few hours. I can do that while I'm doing other things. I've done a tutorial over at the Mad Genius Club if you want to give it a try!
April 1: Starflow
April 2: Fire and Ice
The fun thing about space scenes is that you have so many options. From wildly implausible, to almost realistic, to fantastic. I plan to explore many universes this month, while I am working hard at other things. Serendipity may guide me more than anything else, but then again, that's been the story of my art journey.
If you'd like to follow along, I post daily to the art groups. Cedarlili Art is both on facebook and MeWe if you would like to join. I probably won't put the whole month's worth of art on the blog, that seems like a lot.
The more I practice at my art, the more I enjoy it. I hope you to, too.