“Every artist was first an amateur”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm not a pro artist but starting my year by drawing will be my first step to bloom. No one is born good in drawing. Joining the steemit community is one of the best thing happened to me last year. I'm lucky to find a place like steemit where people are encourage to grow and develop.

Here is my first drawing for the year 2018 The Sweet and Selfless Strawberry!

This art is my entry for strawberry art contest conducted by my friend @jacinta.sevilla a very artistic and kind person. I'm happy that she always encourage me to grow and helped me to start from scratch. Thank you for giving me this opportunity and providing me some art materials.

I do love strawberries living in a tropical climate make it really rare to have fresh strawberries since they mostly grow in cool climate. I often have them as milkshakes and mostly on artificial flavors on desserts. Hmmm I'm really craving to have some.

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Story behind the art

If strawberries were alive I wonder if they like to be eaten selflessly. I'm sure some of the strawberries like in that picture will definitely run away for their lives. I know I am weird to think something like that and make it as my inspiration. While thinking what to draw and how to draw with limited materials and time. I thought about the people who helped me selflessly to the extent they look hilarious,stupid and gullible in the eyes of others. The selfless strawberry represents the people in our lives who offer themselves freely without thinking anything in return nor thinking about others will say. This people came to our lives to bring sweetness on our bitter days and probably rare to find like fresh strawberries on a country located in equator.

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Here are the materials that I used.

• Flat and pointed brush
• Water color
• Colored Pencils
• Colored Pens
• Drawing Book
• Correction Pen
• Crystal water base pen

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The art flow

❶ Make a Sketch

This is the first step and somehow for me it looks demotivating. Every first step might not be the greatest. I keep on erasing and redrawing until I achieved my desired sketch. I put all my high hopes while making it.

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❷ Draw the outline

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This one really needs a lot of concentration. I'm so tensed doing it but I feel so free at the same time as I hear the glides of the marker on the paper. It's also one of the most difficult part on making the piece cause I have a very thin marker since I'm still starting to build my art material set. I'm glad it came out nicely.

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❸ Coloring and Blending
I suck at coloring my art works I feel like I ruin them whenever I apply color to them just last year I tried coloring and blending. I always apply the lightest shade when ever I start to color my piece since they are easier to conceal if you mistakenly apply it. Most of the time it can be erased by a good rubber eraser. I also tried blending my colored pencils on a scratch paper to see which shades will go well together harmoniously.

June 2017 vs December 2017
I'm glad I can see my small improvement. To see how much I improved I draw the same anime character Hatsune Miku I just make some little changes.

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❹Putting the details
I used the same marker that I used in outlining my piece and a yellow colored pen to make the strawberry seeds. Here I place maker on top of the colored pencil. TIP you can use a paper or a wrapper on your art piece to avoid smudges that might ruin your piece.

I also use correction pen to make eyes livelier I also use it on my Miku's hair to make it look shinier. Tho I applied some of the details after the background cause it takes time for the correction pen to be totally dried out.

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❺ Background
It's the last part since I want to use water color for my background it is more pale and will definitely highlight my characters. Since my colored pencils are a little oily or should we say oiled based somehow it repeals the water color which is really a big thumbs up cause if I make some error on applying my background it won't affect my characters that much. I used a flat bush for the background and pointed brush for narrow areas. It's the most dificult part cause my paper is only good for sketching it made some paper clumps whenever i stroke my brush.
TIP
*Slightly dab your brush if you are dealing with a thin paper or let it dry in a few minutes before blending or reapplying color.
*You can put lesser water on your pallet to achieve a stronger color and a better contrast.
*If you want to blend your colors its best to start with lighter colors.

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Result

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I am really happy after looking at the result, I can't believe I made it myself. If you want to draw start it today. Don't you worry about your materials you will have better ones someday and everything can be a medium.

In the field of art, it does't matter when you start or how slow is your pacing as long a you keep on learning and practicing.

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Hope you enjoyed my work. Please feel free to comment down any suggestions and critic, so I can enhance my future work.

Thank you