There are positive and beneficial sides to comparing our work to that of other artists, and there are also plenty of drawbacks. In today’s episode of Nela’s Art Chat I’m drawing a magical winter fairy colored pencil portrait while talking about how to productively compare your art with others’ so you can learn from it, and how to change your mindset so you don’t fall into the black hole of hating your own work because it’s not “good enough”. Read more...
Sometimes you put in a ton of effort into an artwork and in the end you realize that it just sucks. It doesn’t look anything like you’ve envisioned it, and you feel like you’ve just wasted a lot of time on something that wasn’t worth it. In today’s episode of Nela’s Art Chat you can watch me paint a mermaid that did not turn out the way I wanted, while I talk about 4 different ways you can deal with similar “art fails” of your own. Read more...
In today’s episode of Nela’s Art Chat, I’ll show you my process of drawing the sketch “Skin deep”, while talking about a subject I feel is quite important: what if you don’t want to be a professional artist? What if you want to remain an amateur forever, or at least at the moment? There’s a lot of pressure on creatives to earn money with their skills, and I can tell you from personal experience that sometimes it’s not a wise thing to do. I’m much happier keeping my drawing and painting practice personal, and I’ll tell you why I made this choice. Read more...
Inktober, Mermay, Drawing August, 100 days project, 36 days of type... there's no shortage of art challenges, and many of us are asking ourselves "Should I do one this year?" If you've never done an art challenge, in this episode of Nela's Art Chat I give you some of my tips on how to decide, and how to prepare if you do end up doing one. You'll also be able to watch a time lapse of my ink mermaid drawing from start to finish! Read more...
In my quest to improve my lettering skills, I do practice projects for fun. Some of these assignments are based on the book "The ABC of Custom Lettering" by Ivan Castro, which I thoroughly recommend. Check out my latest step by step lettering project: from calligraphy, to sketch, to vector and Photoshop artwork. Read more...
Writing about art for me is writing about my process—not only the physical process of painting or drawing, but the process that happens in my mind, because that’s where most of the struggle is. In that spirit, this article isn’t a how-to, and it isn’t focused on technique—I’m documenting my thoughts here like I would in a journal. Learn how I managed to get over my crippling self-doubt and started painting with joy again. Read more...
I loved digitally editing photographs since I was a teenager. It grew into elaborate collages that required a lot of painting to get everything look like a part of the same image. Today, I'll show you how my last piece “Santa Muerte” has evolved from the original photograph, to a final composition that included collage, painting as well as vector drawing. Read more...
I’ve been doing more and more hand-lettering in the past month, so I wanted to share one of my latest works with you from sketch to finish. Here’s what my lettering process looks like. Read more...
Occasionally I like to feature bits from my sketchbooks, and today I want to share another series of lettering pieces. It’s been awhile since my last lettering post, so here’s some new work I did in the meantime. Read more...
Today I’m sharing a video of my art creating process in my sketchbook using ink and watercolor, from sketch to finish. This drawing is one of the series of mermaid-themed sketches I did during the summer. Read more...