artwork – isabel notes

A Documentation of My Coffee Shop Obsession

I noticed that when one scrolls down an Instagram feed, there are certain themes. Things that recur and develop a narrative if you stitch up all the matching posts. The development of a relationship, a talent, or an obsession can sometimes be traced in Instagram history.

I decided to document my obsession with coffee and coffee shops by taking screenshots of my personal Instagram account (@isagram.98, wink wink…), and embellishing it with some artwork I’ve posted in my art Instagram account (@artsyrosebud, nudge nudge…) and further decorating it with some random doodles and notes. I made it in a very long format so that one could do the ever-familiar, Insta-esque, scrolling motion.

the code of friendship

Coding- it’s super daunting. A whole different language that lives right in your computer.

Don’t get me wrong, I still know nothing about coding. Like, absolutely nothing.

But I got introduced to something that looks a lot like coding. Does it count? Maybe not. Either way, it made me feel cool.

Look at that beauty. I have no idea what any of it means. But my art Professor had us open up a .jpeg image in TextEdit, and that’s what came up. All the little bits of information that the computer uses to make up the picture. Here is the original photo:

These are 5 of my best friends. We like to think we’re like the TV show “Friends.” (I’m Pheobe, of course.) But that’s all probably for a different blog post.

I took this picture of them a couple weeks back and processed it through VSCO. Then I opened it up in TextEdit to see this random array of letters, numbers and symbols.

This is where the glitch comes in.

My professor taught us how to make glitch art. To mess up images to make cool irregularities.

I started deleting large sections of the code and replacing many parts with the names of my friends typed over and over. For example, here’s Tyler’s section:

After a while of totally destroying sections of the code, the results were pretty cool.

Iron Man | Speed Drawing

Here’s the process of how I did my Iron Man digital painting via Photoshop. I included all the Photoshop tools and menus in the video so you can see the technical side, or you could just sit back and watch Tony Stark take shape!

Let me know if you have any requests for more characters or people you would like to see my draw!

I started with a pencil sketch of Tony, then I went over it with a pen, and scanned it onto my computer. What you see in the video is the coloring process!

Feel free to check out the rest of my channel, there’s more speed paintings (that are kinda old but oh well) and travel diaries from my Europe trip!

Enjoy!

How my Artwork Came to Hang at my Congressman’s Office

Hey everyone! Wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I don’t think I really posted anything in maybe a year… Whoops! I’ve been mainly focusing on my instagram account, @artsyrosebud, which now has over 1400 awesome followers (link in the menu bar!). I decided to see how my wordpress blog was doing since I haven’t gone on it in a while, and was surprised to discover people have been looking at it. So I figured, why not start posting again? Anyway, back to business. If you can call it that.

This happened a few months ago, but I figured I’d tell ya’ll about it anyway. I entered my drawing- the one with the girl in a sunflower field- in Congressman Sam Johnson’s Congressional Art Competition. The pieces entered were displayed in the McKinney, Texas city hall art gallery. There were 84 pieces in the show by students from all over Collin County.

I didn’t win. I got second place. The first place winner got tickets to Washington, D.C., and her work is being displayed at the US Capitol for a year. I’m trying again next year, but for now second place is great. I got a fancy certificate, a fancy US flag that had been flown over the US Capitol in my honor, and like I said, my work will be hanging at the Congressman’s fancy office for a year. One of my friends joked that I got second because the Congressman liked my work the best and wanted to keep it to himself.

See? Fancy.

I read up on Congressman Sam Johnson, and found out he is one of the few members of Congress who fought in combat. During his 29 years in the US Air Force, he survived 7 years as a Prisoner of War, and 42 months in solitary confinement. He is 84 years old.

All in all, it was pretty successful I’d say. It was a fun night, some of my best friends and my family came to support me. They’re pretty awesome.

Instagram

Hey everyone! My art Instagram is growing, it’s almost got 300 followers in just a few weeks! Please check it out, it’s @artsyrosebud 🙂

Drawing a See-You-Later present

So, my friend Brittany just graduated from college and is moving to China for a year as a missionary. I’m going to miss her so much, but I decided to do this quick drawing as a see-you-later present.

First off, I chose a picture I wanted to draw and did a really faint, rough outline. It all just starts with circles and oblongs, and I usually just go over it with more and more detail until it’s an outline I’m happy with.

Next, I went in with a thicker black outline. This is where it’s really important to get the facial features right. I also added the creases in her clothes and the flowers in her hair.

The next step is my favorite part- adding the color! This is the part where you have to really look closely at your reference picture for all the variations in hues-where the darks and lights are- etc. Since I had already put in the black outline, it’s kinda like working on a coloring book- but shading at the same time.

Just keep adding color… I think in this stage I sort of removed the black outline to see what it would look like if I just outlined each section with a darker color. For example, her shirt is white, so I outlined it with grey. Her skin was tan, so I outlined that with a dark brown. I think this is what I went with in the end.

The hair is the trickiest part of coloring. My tip is to just make sure your brush/pencil is set really small. Treat each stroke like a strand of hair, and just keep layering. It takes practice.

Here’s the finished product! Comment what you think, and please follow me!