Let Us Not Stay Quiet

Let Us Not Stay Quiet

By: Elissa Rosenthal

 

Let us not stay quiet,

and keep each other up.

Let us be passionate,

when our passion for others is gone.

Let us not stay quiet,

about our current love.

Let us chase away the naysayers,

with our hugs.

Let us kiss in public,

like other couples do.

Let us ignore the glances,

that burn into our souls. 

Peanut Head

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hello, Everyone! This week is the start of hopefully a bit of a busy future for me so, I did something a little simple for this week's post. I will still be doing projects that take longer to make, however, depending on how detailed they are, they may take a few weeks to complete and show you guys. So look forward to more detailed projects in the future, once in a while, and little characters and other creations in the meantime. 

I love you all and thank you for staying with my blog!

For this week, we have a character I will like to call Peanut Head. This character I did with a very quick exercise where you need to come up with a character sketch in thirty minutes or less. 

 I imagine he is a very enthusiastic character with confidence that everyone envies, even a little bit. Peanut Head puts on odd and brightly colored clothing, makes over dramatic expressions of affection, and wears huge sunglasses to stand out the way he wants to, to draw fellow beings away from his head. The reason he is so self-conscious has nothing to do with his lack of hair, but the shape of his head. When he was younger, it was the main subject for unoriginal bullies of his to tease him. This is why now, whenever his head shape is brought up, he makes it a joke for everyone so others cannot make a joke about it first.

Peanut Head

By Elissa Rosenthal 

My head you understand, so shapely mine,

Came into contact with a ball of twine.

Brown, scratchy, string wrapped around my large head,

The small prickly began to embed.

"Why? Please no!", I cried, "Why do you embed?"

"Because,...", said The Twine, "I want your large head.

I want it to be a peanut instead."

It hurt quite a bit, with a short, slight tug,

Now I look cuter than a little pug.

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Mire The Zucchini

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hello, Everyone! I hope you all are having a good day. For a little while now I have been thinking about doing characters with background stories, and possibly a few comics on here. Please let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts about this idea.

The reason for this idea is because I realized, when I was doing the post last week, I quite enjoyed writing about the character I created. I found it exciting and fun to show you guys, gals, and everything in-between, my voice for story telling. Most of what I have shown on here has been my informative writing, not so much story telling, so, I am thinking of diving a bit deeper into that way of writing.

Now, do not fret if you like the tips and tricks I give sometimes, those I am sure will still be there. Along with telling you short background stories of my characters, and who knows, if  I or others like them enough, I may make full stories or poems.

To start off, let me introduce you to this little guy, I found in my minds' eye while looking at some plants on my window sill. I decided to draw him in a style in-between modified contour and continuous contour after doing some sketching of him. The ground I decided to not do in full detail because I thought it would become a bit messy, particularly since I have not practiced contour drawing recently.

This little guys' name is Mire. His body is made from roots that spindle and curl around each other, and taper off at the ends. Upon his head is the same type of baby plant around him, since he originated from one of the seeds. He is a caregiver for these zucchini, making sure they look and feel dry when they need water, and helping to guide their leaves to the light source.

Mire will have a longer life than some of his relatives, for example those who take care of carrots, if the humans who feed off his plants take good care of them. For his kind only last until the last plant under their care is consumed or ripped up. But do not fret, more of his kind will come, as long as the cycle of life and death provides.

Nothing in this world is permanent, as his kind know. They live everyday understanding that their roots can be ripped up and their leaves shredded at any given time. They bathe in the sun, soaking up its energy and warmth, happy to be alive at all, sending out whispers to passersby containing wondrous words of wisdom about impermanence.


Poem of Mire
By Elissa Rosenthal

Take care of those you wish to keep and hold,
For the future can be not warm but cold.

Let your eyes gaze up towards the warm sun rays,
Maybe your eyes will burn while laughter plays.

Look back down upon my barren dry roots,
If you do water them there will be fruit.

Take care of those you wish to keep and hold,
For the future can be not warm but cold.

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Looking At Progress

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hello, Everyone! For this week in my artistic journey I decided to redo one of my old sketches, as well as brush up a bit on drawing hands.

The image on the left is one I did in 2016. I remember not being satisfied with the way it turned out, because I wanted it to be a bit more on the creepy side and not just weird. At the time I did not know much of anything about perspective, so there is not even a sense of trying to get the angle of the brickwork correct. Plus, to me the "ghost" on this one looks a little too friendly.

The image on the right is the redone version of the other image and I personally enjoy it a lot more. It has the creepiness I originally wanted in the previous sketch, and the brickwork looks a lot better.

Where I took inspiration for this idea was by looking on YouTube. I was seeing a lot of people redoing their old artwork and I thought it was a really good idea! When you are focused on how you are drawing now, it is sometimes really hard to see any improvement, but with this exercise your improvement is easier to see.

I as well worked a little on drawing hands. Hands, at least to me, are one of the hardest things to draw. Hands and feet. It must have to be because of all the little parts that are effected by the other little parts, and how they brush, push and pull against each other in so little amount of space. At least, this is my theory.

The way I draw hands has some set backs, as I have been seeing recently. I have a tendency of drawing hands by doing the finger I see the most of first and then the rest of the hand. I am starting to think, maybe I should try boxing the outer shape of the hand first, and then worry about the details. This would maybe fix the problem of sometimes the hand being bigger than I expected, like with the fist on the bottom left. With this hand I thought I would have room, and then I did not have enough room for the thumb.

I hope that you enjoy my art and these postings!

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First Oil Painting Using Walnut Oil

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my blog! If you are interested in this blog and other things I am up to, you can find the links to my social media below this post.

Well, in all honesty, this week has been a bit of a trial because of being sick. When I mean sick, I mean hardly-got-any-sleep-because-of-coughing-fits sick. Thank you though, to those who showed support. I am starting to feel a little bit better. *knocks on wood*

For this week I decided to try out my walnut oil that arrived in a new oil painting. I figured a good place to start would be to try doing a landscape painting. For this one I have been pulling from several references to create this scene.

I have not painted that much in comparison to other forms of media, so I think it is starting to turn out well for my skill level. This image you see above is my first layer of this painting. I decided to let it dry a little and come back to even out the skyline and add some more detailing to the water.

For the water I mixed some Rembrandt: Cobalt Blue Light and Rembrandt: Phthalo Green Yellow. Plus, I took some of my Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Color: Burnt Sienna and my Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Color: Titanium White to even out the rock formations in the distance.

For now, I am deciding to leave the painting as is until it dries. Then I can go over it with more paint. I want to play up the colors a bit more, particularly in the water and the closer rock formations. The walnut oil sees so far to be a very slow drying medium, so I will see how long it takes for the painting to dry at this stage in my climate. I live in Seattle, so that should give you some idea of what the temperature and humidity is like here.

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Drying Oil and Finishing Knitting

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my blog! If you're new and enjoy my content, feel free to follow me on my social media. Instructions and links for my social media are at the end of this post.

For this week I checked up on my oil painting, and it is still drying. The good news however, is the white paint is drying in patches so hopefully by next week it will be dry.

Along with checking up on my unfinished oil painting, I decided to finish my knitting I have been working on for a few months. It was originally going to be a winter holiday present for my grandmother, until I realized how long the whole process was going to take. Now, I will be giving it to her sometime this weekend.

This is the first shawl I have knitted. It is made with twenty-one squares arranged as a three by seven. Now, I am not the best at knitting but, if you want to see more of my knitting projects please comment below.

Thank you for reading my blog I really do appreciate it! Please look at my other articles on this blog, share this blog, and if you want to know more about what I am doing follow me on my social media.

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Working On Unfinished Projects

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a good day today!

For this week in my journey of getting back on the artistic horse, I decided to work on a project of mine that I had put to the side for quite a while. It is a depiction of the goddess Aphrodite in oil paint.

At first I wanted to exaggerate the proportions of the head and eyes, and ended up deciding against it as I did some practice sketches. To me it did not seem to align with the goddesses image, so I decided to go a little more on the traditional proportion route. Though I may do a little bit of exaggerating with some features later on.

This is one of my first sketches for the face I was planning on using for the depiction of Aphrodite. 

In my original planning stages for the piece I wanted to have the depiction of Aphrodite crossing her legs, however, due to my gained knowledge on goddess since then, I've decided to have her be a mermaid. Plus, with painting in layers I can always start over or go over particular parts that aren't  pleasing to the eye.

The photo above are sketches of mine to try to see how I want the mermaid to be posed. 

From my own experience with painting, the main thing is to make sure the canvas will not be showing through, so at this particular stage I'm not too concerned with how the background looks. It was set up for the previously decided pose for the goddess which is why it is a bit off on placement. I'm thinking of maybe doing some geometric patterns or sea life around the edges to help with the balance of the painting. This is so the tail doesn't lead your eyes off the canvas.

Here, I've started to sketch the figure on the painting itself with a charcoal pencil.

In case you wish to know, the medium I used for the paint was just simple sesame oil. The original reason why I set this painting aside was because I needed the oil to have plenty of time to dry. Then it ended up being where I knew I needed to study more to feel comfortable doing the painting at all. I hope that I can do well with this painting in the coming weeks. 

For next week I will be showing my continued progress with this painting. Hopefully it goes well! And if not, well, there is always another canvas needing paint. 

Thank you so much for reading my blog, I really do appreciate it!

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Shading and Gesture

By Elissa Rosenthal

For this week I've mostly focused on my gesture drawings since I know it is one of the most important fundamentals. Plus, they really help you re-learn the proportions of the human body. I put some notes down with my self criticism, because this is my artistic journey, I know I have a long way to go. Then, even when I get to that point, I know I'll want to get even better.

I started off by doing the basic line structure to figure out positions for the body.

Then I looked at some references from searching on Google full body dramatic poses and did some slightly more elaborated gestures based on those references.

Along with the gesture drawings, I practiced some more shading on a basic shape. In this example a tub of lip balm. I'm going to try doing this type of exercise next week with my better quality pencils. I was disappointed with the lack consistency my mechanical pencil led had. Near the end it started to be more consistent because of wearing down the led on one side, however,  it would still make random harder marks on the paper if the mechanical pencil wasn't held just right.

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Starting The Creative Process And Anxiety Relief

By Elissa Rosenthal

When I went back to drawing this week, with this being the first time in a long time, I found myself having a hard time trying to find my creativity and inspiration. So, I defaulted to trying out some shading exercises, particularly because I know I will need to practice shading again.

For this week I did it with a basic, number two led, mechanical pencil since I didn't want to break out my nicer pencils until I practice a bit more. The one with the balls on top of each other was obviously more difficult since I needed to remember to have the reflection coming off the bottom ball onto the bottom of the top one. Plus, this is type of practice is always good for practicing highlights and values. 

Now, since today with the inauguration and everything my anxiety started acting up a little so I decided to draw some rainbow mandalas. Drawing mandalas always helps my mind calm down and get more into the creative mind set. However, I kinda got a bit carried away and did quite a few of them. At the very least these can help with bringing back the muscle memory of straight lines and even curves. As you see these mandalas are far from perfect. Though that was not my intent with this particular exercise it does help me notice which types of lines I could need help with. 

If you get anxious like I do I highly recommend trying out drawing mandalas. They do not need to be a particular design and you can look them up online for design inspiration. 

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Thank you so much for taking time out of your day for looking at my blog and following me on my social media! Till need time my butterflies!

Going Artsy With This Blog- This Blog's Future

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hi everyone! I've been thinking for a while on how this blog doesn't have a narrow focus, and has been a melting pot of randomness. This has been the case because, to be honest, with this being my very first blog, I had no idea what I selectively wanted to write about. The major proponent of this decision has been that I've been writing on here on a weekly basis and I wanted to make sure I didn't feel drained by the topic of choice.

However, as I said, I've been thinking and I believe the best decision is for me to try my best sticking to two subjects. The subjects I'll be going for is art and celiac disease. The main topic of this blog will be my artistic journey, and if I do come across something new to share with the celiac community I will do that as well for that week.

It has been a while since I've practiced by art skills, and I do love creating. So, you all will be seeing me pretty much on the level I used to be a very long while back. This is because as with most skills, if you don't practice drawing your ability degrades over time. If I find any good technique's for practicing I will let you know in the article for that week, as well as my experiences with it and any new art medium I've tried.  

I hope to see all your views and comments in the future of this blog! May your day be merry and fulfilling! Till next time my butterflies!

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5 Tips For Beating Procrastination In The New Year

By Elissa Rosenthal

So your new years resolution is to beat your procrastination habit, well I have some tips for you from a proven procrastinator, me! Since my junior year in high school I have been working on my procrastination habits and there are five key factors which help me when I need to get stuff done.

#1 Put Away Distractions

Now you have probably heard this before over and over again, but it really does work. By having your phone off and away from your working area it really does help with productivity. It makes you less likely to go diving into your social media or other online entertainment. Though the thing with this, is it not only has to do with your electronic devices.

Put your hunger and/or thirst away before going into your work area. From my own experience, nothing is a better procrastination excuse than being hungry in the middle of a project or paper. "Oh, it will only be a snack.", I say in my head as my stomach rumbles, causing me to lose focus on what I was doing. Then it ends up being where I realize it's around dinner time, make myself a full meal and a few hours has passed by. The only slight exception to this is if you are going to be working for a long period of time on something and you know you will get hungry. Have a filling snack and a beverage close at hand within your work area, this way you don't get distracted from your project or paper by the demon I call The Stomach Monster. 

#2 Make Your Work Environment Work For You

Do you work better in complete silence, or if you have music playing? Do you work better sitting on the floor with your plans spread out before you or in a chair at a desk? Finding what works for you can help immensely! Personally, I used to love the quite and still do periodically, however, I've grown more accustomed to having some minor sounds in the background while I work so if a room is completely silent it bugs me to where I find it hard to get stuff done. So if no one is around when I'm working I'll turn some music on low in the background, nothing with lyrics though those have a tendency of getting my mind off track. 

Sometimes in order to get your ideal work area is next to impossible, particularly if you have other humans or animals to take care of, however, there are ways to get creative to get close to what you need. Do you like working in a quiet environment but you have kids? If they are young enough try to work while they are napping, or see if your partner or a friend can take care of them while you get some work done. However, if they are older children, but still need your vigilance to make sure they don't burn the house down see if you can get them to work on something while you do. 

Note: No I do not have children, however, these are tips I have picked up from people who I've known who have children or take care of them for a living. 

#3 Be Okay With Telling Others You're Busy

If you live with your parents you may know what I mean when I say they can be a big distraction to productivity. Though this tip does not only pertain to parents, in my own life they were the main inspiration for this tip. If you know anyone who will go over to you and start talking and talking while you're working, getting you off of task and pulling you away from what you're doing, be okay with telling them that you need to be working. Of course this is different if you are at your job and the boss it talking to you, but it still does apply if a co-worker starts talking to you while you're not on a break. 

You do not need to be rude while mentioning this, though be ready for some people to take it that way. Most people will understand that you're in the middle of something important to you and will stop talking to you for the time being. You can mention how you can start up the conversation later during your work break or when you're done with what you have to do for today. 

#4 If You Can, Do The Harder Parts First

If you have a massive research paper due for class, you need to do the research first, however, in other projects you may have a bit more flexibility on what you can do first. Figure out which parts of your project will take the most time and can happen first, and do them first. By having the harder parts out of the way the rest of the work will seem easy in comparison. Plus, from my own procrastination experience, if I did the easy work first instead I would take around twice as long on those tasks than they needed because I didn't want to do the hard stuff afterward. By doing the hard parts first everything is given its proper amount of time and effort. 

#5 Try To Make Your Work Interesting

There is nothing worse than doing something for a long time that you hate. If you have any flexibility in what you do, some way to make it a bit more fun, try it. If you are doing a research paper, do a creative twist on it which may make it more fun for you to write about. For example, if you are doing something for school, ask how flexible the subject matter can be for your project or paper.

If these tips have helped let me know in the comments! Let's have a conversation!

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