Derwent Watersoluble Sketching Pencils Quick Review

Twenty months has passed since I pursued my artistic sides. I've seen progress, but now, I'm stuck. I feel like I need to go back to the basic. Sketch. So I decided to buy this Derwent Watersoluble Sketching Pencils. It just last week. And I’ve been using it since.

I like it.

Why?

So, as I said before, I've seen improvement from the first time, but it stays that way for months. I can draw. But I struggle with coloring and shading. My drawings seems flat and I'm still lacking with control with the medium I'm using right now which is watercolor. I don't know what's wrong with it, is there some technic or tricks I need to do or is it because of the paper or the watercolor itself. I have no idea, I couldn't bring the unique of watercolor. And while I'm clueless in that area. I'm also kind of confused with the shading and the color theory and how to make my drawings more attractive and different. More of my own. Yeah, so I decided to go back again to the basic. Improved my drawings. Step by step. Start with one color first then add one more color each time and try to understand what each color represent.

Black, the basic, single color. So I tried this Derwent Watersoluble Sketching Pencils. It's a pencil, but when you apply water with brush, it dissolved like watercolor pencil. I believe this is what I need at the moment. I need something that need less control because I'm already familiar with the medium. And I can get softer result, a nice blend. Then I can build up again and mixed it with my other pencils. I like it.

I bought this for IDR 120.000 online. It comes with a case and a sharpener. There are six pencils in shades Light, Medium, and Dark. You get two pencils for each shades. And these are some pictures I made with the medium.

In here I use Derwent Watersoluble for coloring and shading. And finished it with mechanical pencil.

For hair I used Dark Shades and for shading I used Light Shades.

And this one I mixed it with Derwent watercolor pencil in Crimson Lake

Red Hair

So I hope you get something from this quick review. Don’t give up if you get stuck or frustrated with your art. Maybe you just need a two or three days off.

With Love

Indah LIstaria

She is Fake Louise or Ef El or call her Louise

So this is Louise.

Her full name is Fake Louise or in short F.L ( Ef.El ), she was born on the second day of January 2021 on a piece of paper. She has Green hair, wearing glasses, and skinny. Her favorite dress is anything that has red color on it. She loves Christmas so her appearance is also inspired by it.

She has a calm personality. She took Myers Briggs test and she’s an INTP. She loves adventure and traveling. She used to listen to Linkin Park and Taylor Swift. But now, she’s into One Republic and BTS. Her bias is JK.

She has Super Power. She can transform into a Chibi version or an adult version. She thinks she’s a detective. She watches Sherlock Holmes too much.

When she’s in Chibi form, she’s famous for Chibi Lou or C.L ( Si.El ). As Chibi Lou, she can get away with anything, because people think she’s cute.

Her adult version has a calm and gentle personality. Her favorite things to do are dressed up or cosplay. Sometimes she paints her hair blonde or red or purple. It depends on her mood that day. She loves wearing skirts or kimono. It’s pretty. She has lots of friends but most of them are not human. She has this peculiar taste of friendship. But it’s okay. No matter who you are or what you are. If you wanna be her friends, go ahead.

She has an Instagram account. Yes, she is. Follow her as @fakelouise so you can be friends with her.

Hi, I’m Louise, nice to meet you..

Hi, I’m C.L or Chibi Lou

You can call me Madam Lou

It took me a year of practice for her to get here out of my imagination. For my surprise I drew her in a few minutes. I guess my days of practice are really worth it. She was made from scratch on my sketch book, of course.

She is an image of myself at that time. Long hair and always in a bun, too lazy to manage my hair. Wearing glasses. But I’m not skinny like her. I adjust many things on her so even though she’s an image of me. She’s not me anymore at the end of the day. And the color. I didn’t paint her for days. So she was in black and white. I was searching for a suitable color for her. And since I love Christmas, Green and Red would be her main color. Green is the hair and red is the dress. Perfect.

I paint her with watercolor. The skin color was a trial. I was a novice back then in watercolor, still now. So I couldn’t get the same skin color for her anymore. But that’s okay right, even though she’s a fake image of me, she can still be whoever she wants to be. If you follow her on Instagram you’ll see, she’s into Fashion.

Before she was pretty, she was edgy. I was in between. Do I need her to look pretty or cool or edgy, or what? Then I decide, she can be anything she wants. But for now, I’ll make her look like she was born out of Christmas tree.

Please give her a lot of love. As I as her mother loves her unconditionally.

With Love

Indah Listaria

Leaves

Doodling leaves.

Yes, that’s what I’m doing right. I’m taking a break for a day or two from drawing realistic figures. I drew this using my Uni Pin Brush Pen and Micron point 02.

I feel like I still need to practice a lot. As you can see, it’s still ard for me to get a clean edge.

With Love

Indah Listaria

Nail Polished Painting

Okay, you might find it weird. We have gouache, watercolor, or oil for painting. But why using Nail Polish? Simple. I don’t use it anymore. Rather than throw it away. Why not using it for painting? It gives different result.

Let me show you.

I used my purple and blue pen also and on top of the Nail Polish I put a hint of eye shadow make up for texture right before it dries.

This is another episode of Not throwing away your unused makeup. But this time, it’s nail polish. And of course, it’s not the only thing I used for the butterfly. That shiny little pearl is my NYX Glam Shadow in White. I would probably use that also for my galaxy watercolor.

Until then, keep your spirit up.

With Love

Indah Listaria

By Miniso

Using my expired makeup to draw

Hello,

It’s almost a year since I wear my make up. And this recent condition didn’t make me feel to wear any. So, on my weekend, I decided to clean up my makeup bag, throw away my expired makeup. But, I just feel bad doing it, because there is still a lot of it left on the palette. And things happened, I swatch my leftover make up on a paper. Rather than having a watercolor or colored pencil to paint skin color, why not using my expired makeup. It has a skin color. And the result is pretty amazing despite my incapability of painting.

I’m using my Body Shop bronzer as the skin color. I mix with pencil color a bit for the eyeball, my brush pen for the hair, and gold pen for the under eye makeup. But the rest are make up.

Okay, basically, make up is also a medium to paint, so I’m using my colorful eye shadow to paint other things like flower and cat. It was fun, it’s not a superior painting, but now even though I don’t use the make up anymore, I can still use it for other art project.

Keep getting creative.

With Love

Indah Listaria

100 Hands Challenge

Yes, I’m doing it for the whole month of October. In case you’re wondering, I’m using my left hand as The Model. I’m doing it every day. Okay, it’s a lie. But, I made it anyway. I was struggling at first because I sucked at it. I came up with the idea of watching Youtube. I was running out of the idea of what I should be practicing next. Clearly I still need to practice my drawing.

I was watching Minnie Small Channel on Youtube she had this

30 Ways To Fill a Sketchbook In A Week!

And I was inspired by that, you should check her channel. She’s cool! She’s doing it in a week and I’m doing it in a month and only for hands, a hundred hands. Yeah, baby steps.

I search for pictures of hands on the internet. It was hard the first time. Because I don’t have anyone to teach me how to start or tell me what did I do wrong. So with great effort, I sacrificed my left hand as The Model. And it turns out pretty well.

I won’t upload all 100 hands here, because it would be a waste of space, everyone knows what a hand looks like. But here some more.

The first week, it was all about drawing hands from real life, without props, and the second week, still, from real life, but this time with things the hands could carry. Either bracelet or anything. And I think I draw it faster than before. Then onto the third and fourth week, I tried to do it without looking at my hands.

I’ve got to be honest, I won’t do 100 challenge anymore. It’s boring. In my third week, I almost gave up. To repeat the same thing over and over again is really takes a lot of great will to do it. Especially for me. But, in order to get better, it’s a must right? So to give it more interest I draw Jungkook of BTS hands.

It took me a while to realize there’s something wrong with the hand. Yup, it has only nine fingers. But don’t worry on the final seven, I put the right numbers of fingers.

This is what getting stubborn brings. And I’m happy with the result.

Let’s move on.

With Love

Indah LIstaria

Running out of ideas to draw?

Running out of ideas to draw? Well, me too. Congratulation!

Don’t worry, just draw a mushroom. There’s no pressure and it never goes out of style.

With Love

Indah Listaria

This is not chicken

Hello everyone,

I’m telling you right now. This is not chicken. I love animal and I’m trying to draw them for practicing. Then I see this graceful animal from The Glorious Internet, a portrait of eagle. My mom said it looks like chicken. But as I told you, this not a chicken. What do you think?

With Love

Indah LIstaria

Lettering

There was a moment when words are more powerful than an action. A moment where it truly moves us to be a better person. Words that are beautiful and inspiring.

So these are some beautiful quotes I found on the internet. I found these words are comforting and help me to keep doing what I’m doing. This also a break from my drawing practice to try something new. I got bored. I did a little challenge for myself. It’s 100 hands in a month. It means three or four hands a day. I’ll share it later. So I took a break from that for a while. And this is what I did in between. I found some motivational quotes for myself and practice my lettering.

The true sign of Intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

Everuthing has it’s beauty, but not everyone sees it.

All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word. Freedom. Justice. Honor. Duty. Mercy. Hope.

Have no Fear of Perfection, You’ll never reach it.

Most of the important things in the world, have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

Poverty eats into the heart of live. It turns what’s precious into something meaningless. It makes you give up what shouldn’t be given up. It makes you doubt, fear and despair.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

With Love

Indah LIstaria

I hate cat

Okay, the title is a little bit exaggerated. I don’t hate cats. I don’t have pets lying around in my house. But I am more of a dog person than a cat person.

But, despite all that. I kept on drawing cats.

I’m not an expert, still a novice in training. This is also a part of my exercise. And it surprisingly fun. There’s a channel on Youtube called Kittisaurus. The owner seems like a cat lover. She has probably six or seven cats. And there’s one called Lulu. It’s so cute. Lulu makes me want to draw cats. So these drawings were inspired by Lulu.

Okay, this one is not Lulu, it’s a kitten

And also, there are small cats, big cats, domestic cats, wild cats. Do you know clouded leopard? It’s a very cute being. The cubs are cute even the grown up one. It’s not as big as the other leopard. And what makes it looks cuter is their paws. Big and chubby. Super cute. But don’t judge them from my drawings. As it hasn’t do them justice yet.

This is a baby leopard. I believe it’s two weeks old. The head should be bigger.

And that’s all for now. Conclusion : I don’t hate cats.

With Love and paws

Indah Listaria

Your Eyes can Tell

Your eyes are the window to your soul. Okay, whatever. This time I challenge myself to draw human. This has been the subject I tried to avoid before. As I don’t know how to draw people. First, I search something from Pinterest. There is this cute girl I would like to draw. It took a lot of effort to redraw the girl again and again. I mean, I can’t draw the same faces. So I give up for a while. Probably I should do something else first.

Doodling a human.

Then I came across this realistic eyes on Youtube. So I give it a try.

The First EYE

This one I drew in directly on the sketchbook while the previous two drawn on a smoother surface paper.

Looking up

I saw this girl on the internet, she called Liu Yi Fei. She played Mulan. I like her eyes, so tried to draw it. Maybe I should challenge myself to draw eyes from Public Figure next time. What do you think?

Then when I looked up for another picture to draw, I found Miss Katy Perry release her new album and her promotional picture looks so cute. Without any thoughts, I just drew it. And here it is. I was surprised myself because it turns out not bad at all.

See you next time.

With love

Indah

So I tried Pop Art

A page full of color. That’s what I had in mind when we talk about Pop Art.

I was bored a little bit with my routine, which is drawing. So, I switch directions a bit. And I have a lot of colored pens that need to be used.

I do this at night while talking with my papa. I don’t have any specific goals from this, I just need to use my pen before it dries. And here it is. A full page of sunshine and deeper sea.

Hope you like it.

With Love

Indah Listaria

Sketchbook Tour ?

So, my first sketchbook. Finally. It's not something extraordinary. But I'll get there one day. A book full of concrete art. I bought this book at Paperclip. What I like about the paper is it has texture. Not smooth like the one we use for writing a note. The paper is thick but somehow you can see whatever you draw on the next page.

But now, into the sketchbook.

Okay, it all started in August 2020. I forced myself to draw every day. And with great effort, I did it... Okay, I skip a day or two, but so far, I am proud of myself to draw at least half of the sketchbook in two weeks. It starts with a doddle.

So I bought this book called Craft a Doodle by Jenny Doh. It's a collection of 75 creative exercises from 18 artists.

I haven't gone through all of them. But I'm warming up my creativity and confidence from there. It went nice and smooth because there is less pressure from doodling. These are doodling practice I did and using the book as a reference.

by Carla Sonheim

by Flora Chang

See the cat on the next page? Yeah.. this is what I don’t like about the paper.

by Gemma Correll

by Cori Dantini

With a little confidence grew along the way, I search for something more challenging. Like a whale and a phoenix. The phoenix was more of a disappointment. It didn’t go the way I want it. But the whale was pretty and it looks like a whale right? My mom thought it was a frog. It was quite a shock. I mean, since when a frog has fin?

And from here, I get it. Keeps on practicing.

Like.

Everyday.

With Lots of love

Indah Listaria

Okay, let's keep going

Okay, This things might go well in the future, I see a tiny little sparks on my drawing. I know I made a full paragraph of my frustration before. But now, I know what it means when they say keep practice. It made sense now. After thousands of trials and error, and frustration and confusion of what I'm doing. I finally understand, why keep practice is the only thing I need to do in order to master my art.

But, how to practice?

If you know which direction you want to be, good for you. As for me, the only thing I know is I have a lot of source of inspiration from people who are professional and passionate about art. I admire them and I want to be like them. But, the problem is, there's an infinite gap between me and them. And art is very versatile, very various. There are a lot of style, a lot of purpose, technics, and ways to get there. Which direction I should go? If you know you like animation, then go that way, or digital art or even fashion. At least you know where to start. But since I know nothing about it. I need to try them all or at least try a few by keep practice. Draw what you like, even if you follow it step by step, It's okay. Find a picture you like, draw them. You don't need to start with something small first or easiest first. Because you know nothing about it. You don't know how good or bad you are, you don't know which level you're now. I mean, obviously I'm at the bottom of the food chain, but which bottom? There are a lot of stairs, which stairs you will set your path on? I have absolutely no idea. So this is the word "Keep Practice" plays a huge role. Try them all that you like. Try various medium. If by accident you pick something hard to begin with, finish it. Learn something from it. I believe your drawing will look like food scraps. At least mine was. But it's okay, learn why it doesn't look like a dragon of a mountain or even a human. Then find out how to be able to get there.

Then gradually, you'll find yourself frustrated because either you don't know what to do next, or why it's not getting better. If you do. Stop. for. awhile. I mean not a month, maybe few days. Get busy with something else. Then go back at it again. If, you're still like it, then keep practice.

And this what makes me keep going.

A dragon.

My love for this imaginary beast is unexplainable. I found thousands of beautiful pictures dragon on the internet. I pick the one that I thought I could draw. It took me two days. It was difficult to begin with, but as a few lines drawn, the rest was good.

And that's all I can say for now. As I am in that state right now. I'll give an update of what my stubbornness bring me.

With love and a lot less frustration

Indah Listaria

Level Minus

So I'm frustrated.

Very Much

Yes, this is my second blog about my A.R.T journey. And I thought I could present something presentable. But, can't deny. I am frustrated. A lot. It's been three months of practicing, and I think I'm going no where. On my previous blog I say something beautiful about walking this path. And I never knew being good at it is so frustrating.

I still don't understand how people could be so good at drawing. Like R.E.A.L good. Yet this is what I do so far. For three epic months..

I don't go to professionals, yes. More like self taught. But I'm stuck. I kinda don't know which one I should practice first, because it seems like I'm suck at everything. Art journal, that's my goal three months ago, And now I'm not sure. I can't make a single page.

So as you can see, I mean read. I am super frustrated. I watch youtube a lot, looking for references about what I should do to start, to improved. There are lots of it, of course. But that makes me confused even more. I think I should know first what kind of artist I want to be, right? Or not?

There are lots and lots of art out there, and I fancy them all. But there must be something I prefer more. Yeah, this question no one could answer until I find it myself. In the end. More practice is all I can do right. But a little help would be golden.

With Love and frustration.

Indah Listaria

New Sky

So, one day

I decided to give my life a rainbow, wake myself up under a bright blue sky and let myself have a time of my own.

I put my hands upon a paper and made a scratch out of a life called Cambodia.

This is the best decision I made so far as I had a chance to do the things I love.

From the first apple then comes my many failures.

Somehow, this made me feel alive.

Hail to the one invented art.

With Love

Indah Listaria