Journaling {Process Post}

Hello it's midway through January and time for my monthly writeup! Let's talk about Journaling today.

I initially drew my journaling character around 2020 when I did a watercolor notebook merch idea. The project was super successful and well received so I wanted to bring her back another way in the form of a Patreon monthly theme. 

When I first opened up her dusty file, I fantasized a wonderful image in my head of what I thought the drawing looked like. I remember doing a great job on it and was pretty proud of myself to the point that I will sometimes use my own drawing for reference (hahah...) So I opened it and went "oh noooo, its so terrible!"

There are a lot of mistakes with the pose and just overall artist skill level wasn't all there. It will be a good idea for the postcard to do a "redraw" of sorts to make it more like how I imagined her to look like. 

First I want to fix my outdated sense of what looks nice but still keep her general look and feel.  Some of the biggest changes involves her expression being more open and contemplative rather than confused, making her outfit drapes on her better and feels like its lying flat on her body and updating her feet. My knowledge of shading also improved and I got better at using references now. 

I completely changed the background because my personal aesthetic of journaling changed. I used to fill out each page with a large amount of information, just trying to maximized each corner of space with a lot of layering of stickers and tapes. Nowadays, I keep a rather clean and straightforward journal. I think that both ways are wonderful and there are no wrong ways to journal but I want this new version to reflect more of my personal taste. 

The hardest part of drawing this month's design was to NOT make it look like my Camera theme. In my head, they are two very different ideas and in sticker and postcard form, visually it looks completely different. The pin design however looks too similar >.< After racking my head, I placed a cat in there and I really enjoyed it more! It adds some color to monochrome pin and I couldn't think of a nicer way to journal with a pet by your side messing up all your stationary that you organized so dearly. 

Thank you so much for reading this writeup! I have been more quiet than usual lately and that's because, I'm working hard on drawing! I hope to communicate with more art in the future! *-* /// Have a wonderful day!