I will start off by saying that this wasn't originally created for Project Media. Actually, it's the cover of the sketchbook I made for Fibers class in my senior year of high school! I think it fits pretty well into this month's starry category, and I'm also very proud of it so I decided to include it haha.
The concept behind this piece was pretty simple: I was obsessed with jars at the time (I still am), and I loved the idea of little worlds in a bottle, so to speak. So I started with a jar, then tried to think of things I like. Since I love reading and shelves are easy to draw and personalize, I figured it would be cool to make a tiny library! One of the original concepts that I gave up on was drawing another jar on the back cover of the sketchbook, which would've been the other side of the same jar. I would still love to do that eventually, though.
Please note that there's multiple steps that I don't have pictures for, partially because a decent amount was done during class, where I wasn't allowed to pull out my phone.
I started out with a very basic sketch of the jar, two shelves, some small decor like plants and books, and some stars hanging from the top because I have an obsession with those too! I also drew myself because....well, why not lol. I don't have pictures of the original sketch, unfortunately.
After I got the most important parts sketched (the jar, the bookshelf, and myself), I started inking everything in. I began with the jar, mostly because it had straight lines I could use a ruler for. I also did the ribbon at that time, probably because I just felt like it (it's been about a year since I did this project, so I don't fully remember every detail of the process). I also drew some of the strings for the stars, also likely because they were straight lines. In the picture below, you might be able to see the faint outlines behind the bookshelf from when I drafted the piece.
After I finished the outline of the jars, I outlined the sketch of me next. This is because she's in the foreground and a major focus of this piece, so it was important to make sure her outline was clean and correct. It's easier for me to change the bookshelf behind her if I needed to, but if I started with the bookshelf and had to redraw her, I would've struggled more because of anatomy and whatnot.
After I safely outlined the drawing of myself, I filled in her hair because well...I have black hair. I then proceeded to outline the bookshelves and fill in some of the details, such as the stars hanging from the top and the books on the floor. There's also a cat, which is just Mewo from the indie RPG game called OMORI (it's my favorite game, I definitely recommend it if you love unique stories!). In the bottom left corner, I also drew an aloe plant, because "Aloe" is a nickname I've donned as my online persona for almost five years now. Also, aloe plants just have simple and cute aesthetic, in my personal opinion. I did some light erasing during this step for a cleaner look.
I added more books to the bookshelves, along with some jars and plants for variety. All of the plants are flowers that represent the OMORI main cast: a sunflower for Basil, a lily of the valley for Mari, a rose for Hero, a cactus for Kel, a gladiolus for Aubrey, and a tulip for Omori. While it was part of my OMORI obsession, I also just happen to like those flowers. I also added a globe because I feel like those are interesting decorations for bookshelves. I also did a little more erasing to clean up during this step.
It was time to start coloring this in. I chose watercolor, even though I'm horrible at watercolor. I think watercolor is very pretty and I thought it would give the perfect vibe to this piece if done correctly, so I went for it. Anyways, it was a good opportunity to learn how to do watercolor, since I can't get better at it without trying haha.
I chose a palette of mostly cool colors - blues, purples, and soft pinks. This is partially because I have a preference for cool colors (although I think some warm brown colors would've been nice as well). I also chose blue for the background because it a) fits the idea of a starry night sky, and b) blue is my favorite color!
I think my biggest mistake here was that I didn't realize there's a difference between waterproof and non-waterproof pens. The details were quite fine on some of the flowers, but the water caused the pen ink to bleed, making the colors dull and the details almost irrelevant. Fortunately, it didn't do much damage to most of the flowers, but the sunflower and the gladiolus were essentially ruined for me. They still look decent, but I definitely learned from that mistake and want to avoid it in the future.
I don't have any more progress pictures between this and the final piece, so I'll try to be descriptive as possible.
I continued coloring in the bookshelf, since I thought it was the next logical step. After all, I just finished the items on the bookshelf. Unfortunately, this contributed more to the pen ink bleeding around the sunflower and gladiolus, no matter how careful I was. I've always wanted to make a new sunflower and gladiolus to glue over the old ones, but I never made the time for it.
I tried to fill in the blue background more evenly by adding more watercolor to the right side. It was around that time when I decided to make lighter rings around the stars to represent light emanating off of them.
I started coloring in the rest of my character. I colored in the skin, the book, and the shorts. I like the shading on the shorts, even though each leg was shaded with a different method and I couldn't figure out how to make them look more alike. I like the shading on the skin too, but it's kind of too light to notice the contrast, so that's something I could've improved on. I remember asking my friend Cindy if I should color in the eyes (Cindy is a spectacular artist and I look up to her so much, her art is really pretty and she's so cool). We decided to use the pen to fill in the eyes, rather than watercolor. I think that was a good decision, since the watercolor would've probably made the outline bleed. My eyes in real life are basically black anyways.
For the jar, I just used a simple light gray color. I really like what I did with the ridges; I think it looks like there's light reflecting off of them because they bend outwards a bit. The pen ink bled a bit here too, but it was closer to the bottom of the coloring, making it look a bit more like intentional shading.
The ribbon was originally colored in with a light orange color, but the pen ink bled and made it look more like the pale tan color you see now. This worked out for the better, however, because it matches the cool color aesthetic of the overall piece.
The tag on the jar was filled in with the pen. I remember that the caption was determined by asking people on my Instagram story. I don't remember if I made this one up or if I actually got it from a response on Instagram, but I decided to go with a simple caption that said: "made with magic." It feels kind of magical to have a tiny library inside a jar! I bought white gel pens so I could write on the black tag.
Since I had white gel pens, I also used them to add some highlights and touch-ups. I think these added a lot of character and cuteness to the piece. I especially like the outlines around the cat and my persona, along with the highlights on my persona's hair. This was also the start of my obsession with drawing white stars on so many projects, as you might have noticed from previous posts.
And that's it! This is one of my favorite art pieces that I've ever made. I think it just has a lot of things I like: flowers, books, jars, and stars! It looks like one of the pieces I'd obsess over on Instagram, except I made it myself! It was also a major step out of my comfort zone, so I was very surprised with how well it turned out, even with the mess-ups. Overall, I'm very proud of my work on this piece, and I hope to continue improving my watercolor skills!
Thank you for reading to the end of this post! It means a lot to me <3 I will probably be posting less frequently going forward to balance quality posts with my school/personal life, but I hope you keep checking in! The mood board for October was actually an ink illustration (kind of gives me Inktober vibes, now that I think about it), and I haven't posted my poem or crochet pattern yet but I hope to make a collection of short star poems I've written and a simple pattern for a crochet star.
That's all for now! I'll see you next week!
- Jonalie <3
Oh wow nice!
You're cool