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Archive for April, 2018

While I mull over the final finish for my latest sculpture, Objectification (I), I thought I’d put together a video of the process, to give a little glimpse into the weeks of hard work that even a small sculpture can take.

From molding the clay on the armature, to covering it in several coats of plaster to make a cast, to letting that dry only to dig out the original clay, and fill it with more plaster, to finally chipping away at the mould to reveal the final sculpture underneath, it is quite a journey!

I hope you enjoy the video and the process, and I can’t wait to share the final reveal when her patina is done.

(Read more about the meaning of this sculpture, here»)

Love,

Adesina

Photo of Adesina with her sculpture

Adesina poses in the studio with her sculpture Objectification I

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Image of a portrait drawn with copic markers by Adesina

Above drawing: Cartoon Portrait of Star Ruiz by Adesina, 4.5″ x 6.5″. Copic Markers (all colored areas), Sharpie (large black areas), Sumiiro brush pen (black lines), white gel pen (white highlights), & watercolor (gray in eyes & teeth), on heavy weight drawing paper.

So I’ve been meaning to try out Copic Markers for the longest, and I bought a couple packs a few weeks ago, but I didn’t have a chance to open them up until now.

Photo of Copic Marker sets

Copic Sketch marker sets – aren’t they beautiful? 😀

Well was I in for a treat! These markers are so much fun to use; nothing like the regular markers we all played with as kids. First, they blend really well – if you color in an area all at once, you get almost no streaking, and if you layer a light color right next to a dark color that is still somewhat wet, you can blend the edges together to create an almost watercolor effect.

In fact, that’s what I would compare them the most to: watercolors. Like watercolor, they also bleed through regular paper. I used pretty heavy drawing paper for my drawing, but the next page in my sketchbook still had lots of bleed through on it, so next time I will put a piece of scrap paper in between. Also, I noticed that any area you color bleeds a bit into the adjacent areas, especially if you are heavy handed, so in future I will not color right to the edge of my lines, but instead I will stop maybe a millimeter away, and let the bleed carry the color to the edge.

Photo of Copic Sketch Marker Colorless BlenderAlso, I discovered a few things about the colorless blender. I thought it was something I could use similar to the way you use the colorless blender pencil with Prismacolors: layer two colors one on top of the other, or side by side, and then rub the blender on top to make them one solid hue, or to create a seamless transition. Nope. The markers themselves actually naturally blend on their own. Layer colors one on top of the other and they will create a new color (and not always the color you anticipate either, so test it on scrap first lol), and as I said before, if you use one color right next to another that is still wet, they will also bleed into each other naturally.

The colorless blender is actually more like an eraser of sorts. You can use it the same way you would use a clean brush dipped in water, with watercolor. It can lighten colors, and I was even able to use it in order to clean up some edges where the markers bled excessively. But if you are too heavy handed it can also cause the paper to warp, and colors to bleed even more, so be careful.

Timelapse of my drawing:

 

And, similar to acrylic paints, these markers dry lighter than they go on. Which made it a bit confusing when I was trying to touch up some of the shading on areas that were already dry — it was hard to tell if I was actually making the area darker, or if it just looked darker because it was wet compared to the dry areas. I think in future I will try to only work wet into wet when I am shading, or at the very least, make a mental note of what colors I used where, so that I can either match the color, or pick the right darker color to shade it with.

And finally, I definitely understand now why people buy so many different colors. Although they do blend, the colors they create are not always intuitive and some unexpected results can happen. If you really want a specific color, you need to buy it, because chances are, you won’t be able to mix it perfectly with just the primaries. So I think I’ll invest in a few shades of gray, as well as some secondary colors, next :).

If you want to try out these markers for yourself, here are the ones I bought, below (I think the skin tones are sold out until May, but the primaries are avail now):

Copic Sketch Markers – Perfect Primaries


Copic Sketch Markers – Skin Tones

I also bought the colorless blender (Number “0”) and a loose marker, RV25 “Dog Rose Flower” which is a hot pink.

xo,

Adesina

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Drawing of Naomi Wadler by Adesina

50 years ago yesterday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at 6:01pm on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. That day, we lost one of the greatest leaders in history.

And with all that has happened in the interim: from wars to peace protests, from globalization to technological advancements; Dr. King’s messages of equality and civil rights and non-violence remain relevant. Yet, no leader of the same caliber and reach has emerged in his absence. Where are today’s leaders, who can push society forward in greater increments, the way Dr. King did?

Two weeks ago, in Washington DC, a little girl from Alexandria stood in front of the nation at the March For Our Lives rally, and spoke her mind:

“I represent the African-American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential.”

Her name is Naomi Wadler, and she’s eleven years old. Please watch her speech below:

 

Regardless of where you stand on gun violence (and at the very least, I’d like to think we are all united in wanting to curtail needless deaths, even if the methodology is often a point of contention), it is undeniable that this young lady is incredibly well-spoken, and brave, for being so young and articulating her thoughts on a national stage, and for organizing a walkout at her elementary school.

And while I would never compare a child to any of our great leaders of the past, every leader was once a child too, and seeing our young people stand up for what they believe in this way, gives me great hope for the future, and for a better world. We need more children (and adults) like Naomi! I hope she continues to speak out and make a difference; she has tremendous potential.

I hope you like my drawing of this incredible little girl; please feel free to share it! At this time it is not for sale.

xoxo,

Adesina

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