NAIDOC WEEK

We are celebrating NAIDOC WEEK, a time to honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture! Let’s continue recognising, experiencing, valuing and learning from the undeniable contribution and vital presence of indigenous people all over the world! Here I’m sharing with you one of the animated illustrations created for the lovely ARTISTS OF AMPILATWATJA project. 😄 🌿

Drawing & interpreting people

More sketches. Sometimes I feel I can draw what I see, sometimes there’s an obstacle in the middle. Anxious and rewarding days… both are worth living 🌿
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Painting leaves

Inspired by Rosie’s painting. 😄 She first started with green lines. Then she painted smaller, uniform marks: blue, purple and yellow. And then she swapped her paintbrush for a thin stick and began adding bright dots to each plant, like morning dew, intensifying their uniqueness. I thought about her when I was drawing the stems and petals, it felt like meditating, like knitting… “one by one… all is fine… we are connected”. 🌿

Sketching expressions

Night sketches. I’m designing a few characters for @karukaru.studio, and drawing real people helps me to understand better how to make emotions visible. I’m feeling grateful because there’s always something to learn and re-learn, and so many lovely people out there to get inspired by! 😄🌿

Australian plants pattern

Another piece for the ARTISTS OF AMPILATWATJA project. I enjoyed designing the plants and thinking about the colours in relation to the work created by the aboriginal artists. I definitely love working with silhouettes and exploring shapes! 😄🌿

Sketching lovely animals :)

Aboriginal painting inspiration

I’d like to share with you the image inspired in Margaret’s painting. She talked about the Therrpeyt (bush medicine) and how you can boil it, drink it and it makes you better if you have a cold. What I love about the ARTISTS OF AMPILATWATJA project is that you are given the time to contemplate a painting being made and you feel connected to the artist and the person. When I saw her canvas I noticed a little stream, a vibrant blue line, a landmark in the middle of a pattern. I knew she had visited this place many times and although its shape was abstract and minimal in her painting, it felt real… her story is real… the wisdom behind her words are real. That was my inspiration. 🌿

Self portrait :)

Self portrait 😄
Gouaches, confronting and revealing gouaches, I missed you.

Medicinal bush plants painting

Another piece for the ARTISTS OF AMPILATWATJA project. Here is Lily boiling some medicinal plants in water. The colour palette was inspired by her own work and the shirt she was wearing when @laradamiani shot the documentary. @karukaru.studio animated the painting and hopefully  we’ll be sharing a few moving pieces with you soon! 😄🌿

KidLitVic 2017 :)

I had an amazing time at KidLitVic! Met lovely people and received fantastic advice and feedback regarding my work as a visual storyteller. I also learnt about the KidLit industry from inspiring hardworking passionate professionals! I am truly grateful for the experience, happy to continue learning from it, and wishing to keep on imagining and creating with my hands. Thank you cold, sunny and active Melbourne for kindly embracing me, my strength and my vulnerability during this adventure. ^_^

Australian Desert

“People used to hunt in the olden days and showed the young ones where to go to get food.” This is what Kathleen says while painting her beautiful desert. She’s a traveller like me, and her work and story inspired this image. 🌿

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Wavy plants for Ampilatwatja

This was one of my paintings interpreting Edie’s work :)
She talked about Ntang (edible seeds) that aboriginal children used to eat.
I loved how the leaves of each plant are wavy in her painting, giving a reddish underwater feeling.
The ARTISTS OF AMPILATWATJA short series is about to be completed! Can’t wait to see it @laradamiani & @karukaru.studio !
^_^🌿

Animated painting for Ampilatwatja

Illustration of Daisy, an aboriginal woman, whose fascinating painting process has been documented in ARTISTS OF AMPILATWATJA. She rhythmically added the coloured dots to the canvas. Her own painting is about the Kwenkart turkey bush, a medicinal plant used by her people for healing. This image was animated by @karukaru.studio as part of the lovely factual short series filmed by @laradamiani ^_^🌿

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Colour palettes for Ampilatwatja

Colour palettes & thumbs of paintings I did for @karukaru.studio & @laradamiani. ARTISTS OF AMPILATWATJA is a beautiful factual short series showing the painting process of aboriginal women in Australia, can’t wait to share more with you 😄🌿

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Monet: another study :)

Thoughts while painting this other piece by Claude Monet:

- I realised that I like intense saturated colours.

- White is never just white. In this painting I tried to be conscious about the colours behind the colour, and I was so aware that they became protagonists. I would love to be as subtle and efective as Monet! So much to learn ;)

- The forest is much more abstract and dynamic in my painting, maybe because I wanted to work fast so I wouldn’t over-work some areas more than others, maybe because I was excited :)

- The lady in Monet’s painting is more grounded, still, and made of “the same substance” as the world she inhabits. The lady of my painting seems to be adjusting, less rigid but also less secure. They seem to have different personalities. This is SO interesting!

- Working on someone else’s painting makes me feel connected to the artist, I definitely want to read more about Monet’s life! ^_^

Painting a Claude Monet's piece

Thoughts:
- because I'm in love with the brushstrokes I lost sight of the main purpose: study colour relationships.
- the "white" of the canvas is warmer.
- next time with impressionism: paint at 100% opacity to avoid blending.
- maybe muddiness can be avoided by applying pure colours.
- an initial tonal value study is useful.
- to concentrate in colour relationships, work with stains or bigger brushes.
- try to simplify the image into zones.
- identify the colours that are dominant, subdominant, subordinates and accents.
- Monet was one of the greatest!

Painting a frame of Sleeping beauty

What I noticed:
- more details and textures in the foreground.
- less volumes in the backgrounds.
- colours change when placed next to each other.
- do a sketch first! remember relationships to the picture-plane.
- found the horse's tongue to be too bright, it's the first thing I see.
- characters tend to be simpler, easier to read, cleaner.
- a branch has many colours and saturations, the sun touches parts of it.
- work with intention: if I'm analysing colours, then shapes or textures are secondary.
- Eyvind Earle's work is AMAZING!

Painting Drama 1: Sirens 01

A few weeks ago I was part of an amazing group of students eager to learn about composition for visual storytelling. I enrolled in Painting Drama 1 at the Oatley Academy, and had the best time working on the assignments and getting to know wonderful people.
I will be posting the images that accompanied this fantastic adventure once in a while!

:)

Here are a few from the beginning. Our first assignment was to create an image based on the story of the Sirens. But first things first. We needed to come out with many, many, many different ideas, all of them described in black and white, in tiny little thumbnails! The possibilities were infinite! We took photos, we looked for images that helped us understand the forms, we drew and drew, and doubted ourselves, and drew some more.

Then we moved to work in a few comps, postcard size. We explored them in binaries using charcoal so we could avoid drawing details for ever.

Can you see how I started producing images that did not show the story completely? There was a storm, there was tension, there was a boat... but how is the sailor reacting towards this?
From Chris' critique I learned that I was also seeing things in a theatrical way. He pointed out the lack of dimensionality, which is what invites the viewer to be involved, feel like being there, responding.

And making people feel something... that's my ultimate goal with my work! So there I was, eager to learn, wanting to understand, excited and nervous at the same time... as it's the case when one tries to connect with someone, not knowing the language.

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More on PD1 soon :)

Comic: Esperando / Waiting

I wait and wait for the rain to cease

And the buses roar

... I'm not the only one

 
Abrazo,
Ana
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anamaria-art.com

From KaruKaru Studio: My Little Sumo: Concept art 1

Here's a concept art I did for KaruKaru Studio.
Enjoyed the process very much and gave me a few ideas on the colour palette I was going to use, and the relationship these two characters had.
A little bit about it on KaruKaru's blog :)