Updates + Long Beach Plein Air

Hello everyone!I know, it's been. Too long. What happened??Life happened. Life happened, a LOT.But finally, life is starting to slow down! And the past couple of weeks I've been easing back into the crazy art schedule I made for myself wayy back in January.Sheesh. Can't believe that's already 3 months ago. cue existential crisisAnyways, some snappy life updates:I started a new position at work!I broke up with my boyfriend!I moved!I got my own apartment!I turned 25!I bought a guitar!I shaved all my hair off!I started dating my ex again! Yes, the one I just broke up with!I went to Wonder Con!I adopted a hamster!I hope you can see now that my life has been a whirlwind, rollercoaster, trainwreck of a ride. But, you know, it's cool. I only live once.So enough of all that lame reality. Let's see some art!Today I decided to venture out into downtown Long Beach, near the Aquarium.There's a hill with a lighthouse, and on the other side was this great view:So naturally, I did what any artist would do and pulled out my sketchbook and travel paints.This time around I did a light pencil sketch, rather than going straight in. I decided to focus on the green restaurant on the pier, and since I was a bit pressed for time, I drew a light, hasty little doodle so I could get the idea of it. My plan regardless with this trip was to just do some sketching, and maybe do a better painting at home with nicer brushes and more time. I have a bad habit of not documenting my process, so you can see I had already started painting a little when I finally remembered to snap a photo lol.Generally when I sketch, I'm just looking for basic shapes, and the general idea. You can see comparing this and the photo that it's not at all a perfect rendition, but as I mentioned, I wasn't looking for perfect. Just a quick doodle. After all, art isn't just about recreating what already exists to a T! You need to put your own spin and style on it :DAfter the pencil sketch, I went in and painted. I probably should have taken more pics, but the general process is going light to dark. I'm no pro at watercolors, and still have a lot to learn, but i basically blocked in the most dominant colors, and then fudged the rest haha. You can see more focus on the green, red/browns, and blacks, as I thought they represented the most important parts of the building. I then added some light indications of shadows, though I suppose the angle I was painting wasn't the greatest, so there's only a touch of hard shadow, even though most of the building was in shade. This photo depicts the finished paint, so you can see it's starting to come along! The lifeguard station above was from a previous trip to Santa Monica (unfortunately no process photos for that one :/)Now I know some people enjoy leaving the watercolors un-inked, and maybe I could have done that for this too, but I feel like my paintings anyways come together after I draw in lines on top. So below, we have the finished sketch! To be honest, it's a little messier than I would have liked. The pier railings and such I just scribbled in without really paying too much attention to them, but again, the point was to just get the idea across. You can see I didn't try too hard to get everything perfectly angled. To me, clean, confident lines was more important, even if they are wonky haha. I inked this in with a Faber Castell in Small.And there we have it! I hope you enjoyed this plein air process, and hopefully there will be more like this to come! Thanks for reading (and for staying patient during my MIA period).If you have any questions, feel free to drop a comment below!