Touching Grass
One January weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with a Los Angeles-based sketching group ‘SketchingwithLA’ whom had a special meetup in Parque Mexico in Mexico City. In it, Lisa from LA hoped to gather local folks to paint and hang out with. Around 20 strangers showed up for the event and, under a beautiful blue sky and a blistering sun, we made a circle to talk with and learn about each other: The drawing prompt Lisa gave us was to sketch our dreams.
Watercolor illustration drawn on Canson Paper and White Nights watercolors.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the awful state of social media has cornered me into jumping ship from all my online accounts and forced my hand into making an effort to connect offline rather than online, so the little gathering was the perfect weekend plan for me.
I have to be very thankful to Lisa and everyone who attended the meeting and was brave enough to share their dreams with a bunch of strangers. Ever since I attended the gathering, I’ve been more intentional about spending time outside doing Plein-Air sketching and Urban sketches with my portable set of watercolors.
Another weekend spent sketching at Parque Masayoshi Ōhira in Churubusco, CDMX. Event Organized by Taller Tlakuilo.
Now, on the art side, I’m deeply aware I’m a complete newbie with traditional media. Although I first started drawing with pen and paper at a relatively young age, what truly sparked my love for art was joining online communities and trying to figure out how to draw using MS Paint and a Mouse. Then the internet and deviantART came along and the rest is history– I’ve drawn with digital tablets and software pretty much all of my life.
Despite my extremely digital background, I have a very “que será será” approach to watercolor and gouache painting: With wet traditional media I’m always painting outside where I’m at the mercy of weather, of my surroundings, and dealing with rapid lighting shifting on my subjects. I still haven’t honed my setup to the point where it allows me to paint comfortably but that is okay. To me it’s never about the amateur images I churn out, it’s always more about the people I meet, the memories I make and all the new places I get to discover 💖
Though I do have to say, I have to give a special shoutout to Marcelino from Taller Tlakuilo. The cool thing about attending a workshop with a teacher on it is that I got really useful feedback from the instructor and I cannot wait to apply some of my newly gained knowledge in future outdoor paintings! :D
My Latest Creation
I’m under a barrage of NDAs and there are definitely a lot of things I am dying to share! Sadly, I can’t do so yet, (but will definitely upload to my main galleries when they get to see the public light) so, in the meantime, please have a peek at the sketchbook I take with me whenever I go to my Figure Drawing sessions:
Tools used: A Palomino Blacking Pencil, a Faber-Castell Kneadable Eraser and a Sakura Micron 08 stylus.
Current Inspiration
Although I am a Graphic Designer by trade, I always thought my Illustration side would forever remain a mere hobby and to be completely honest, not once did the idea of getting involved in Animation ever cross my mind. However, my participation in Transformín and upcoming NDA projects has made me appreciate animation as an art and story-telling medium on a whole new level. The current state of the animation industry worldwide is appalling and disheartening, so I want to do my thing to help promote projects I love. Although seemingly different, these two shorts completely blew me away in their both the simplicity of the plot and exquisite execution. Give them a watch if you can and also recommend me more artsy shorts, please :)
Soundtrack Recommendation
This album has been heavily featured in my to-go rotation for years. I don’t even remember exactly how it arrived into my life but I’m so glad it did. As someone who grew up with Square Enix games and pretty much all the major JRPGs the Playstation consoles had to offer, this album makes me feel like home. Definitely do check it out if you like JRPG OSTs a la Yasunori Mitsuda! Personally, I love to imagine what kind of sceneries, characters and plot-twists played through Chris Porter’s mind while writing these wonderful tracks.
Thank you for reading. With much love,
Isa.
