Drawing | Crayons Life

Seven months after my post about “Training My Little Hands to Learn To Draw Again”, I’m finally confident enough to show the result of this painstaking and slow process.

Sometimes, it would take some little “accidents” to happen to our lives to propel us into action.

Me and my husband have been training for our major climb to Mt. Kinabalu, Southeast Asia’s highest peak located in Malaysia when I experienced a little but life-altering accident. During one of our uphill walk on a nature trail here in Singapore, I slipped and fell on my right foot. This miscalculated step resulted to a badly-sprained ankle that still hurts until today.

This situation left me with practically nothing to do with my time. Walking long distances is very tedious and there was a time when I needed to use a walking stick. My active lifestyle had been turned upside-down, resulting to a sedentary life.

On a positive note, this incident forced me to slow down and think about things that I don’t usually think about amidst the mad rush of my everyday existence. I have immersed myself in the famous blog site, zenhabits.net and tried to emulate some of the practical things that the author, Leo “preaches”. Meditation and mindfulness helped to ease my disappointment and gain focus. And thus, I started to draw again.

The first illustration was created “before” the accident. I used this as my entry to Smashing Magazine’s monthly wallpaper design. I wanted to create a “winter” theme for Crayosa, my muse for Crayonslife.
For those of you who are not familiar with my website, Crayosa is the girl you’ll find sailing in my homepage, aboard the stacks of floating crayons. http://www.crayonslife.com/

I’m happy and thankful to be featured in their Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: December 2011

Smashing Magazine’s Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: December 2011

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/30/desktop-wallpaper-calendar-december-2011-christmas/

The Girl With The Balloon Skirt

For this illustration, I have started the initial sketches sometime last December 2011. I’m looking through my rough sketches from previous years and I saw my old sketch of this girl, so I decided to create a full-coloured version of her. The cat was inspired from a wooden Balinese cat that I bought from Bintan, Indonesia.

Since my husband and I started our serious training for our Mt. Kinabalu ascent last January, all my personal art projects took a back seat. It was only after my so-called accident that I was able finish this artwork.

Immersed in Water

I captured a photo of this bougainvillea flower in our neighborhood using instagram. I got inspired and started to illustrate those 3 flowers. During the creation process, I decided to introduce the girl wearing a long skirt. Later on, I replaced her long gown with the flowing water that seamlessly blend with her dress.

There, these 3 girls have kept me occupied these past months.

My creative process is a long and tedious journey. Creating something out of nothing is always a struggle. I’m thankful to that stubborn voice inside my head that keeps on telling me to take that small step, even when my “lizard brain” tells me that to even try is futile. And for that, cheers to my little hands!

Sometimes, I have this paranoid thought that my hands would one day forget how to draw. I know it’s a crazy thought. Humans have always had this innate desire within us to try to make sense of our existence and of the world around us through drawing. Our earliest ancestors, the cave people have already learned this craft thousands of years ago.

My drawing and doodling habits have stopped since January this year. Ten months of hiatus is such a long time and I’m thankful that finally, I managed to command my hands to hold that pencil to draw again.

My husband, Aaron have bought me a new leather-bound sketch pad. I have been doing some mindless drawing for the past few days. I’m kinda’ training my little hands to draw again. I had fun playing and experimenting with washes, I really don’t want to forget how to draw. :)

In this drawing, my hands still felt a bit stiff, but they’re starting to loosen up again.