art

Six fan art header

Six Fanart Challenge

Creative Challenges, digital illustration, fan art, illustrations

I know I am a bit late to jump on this fan art train, but I thought I’d share anyways 😜

Typically this challenge calls for the artist to post the six fanart character challenge template (created by @mcapriglioneart) on social media, encourage their community to suggest six fan favourites, and recreate the characters in their style. I, however, was a bit selfish for my first time around and chose six of my favourites.

That said, since this was so much fun and a great way to learn how to use procreate, I plan doing on another round with other’s suggestions. If you have any fun fan art suggestions, please leave a comment on one of my instagram posts! ✏️ 🎨

This challenge was a lot of fun and suggest giving it a go if you haven’t had the opportunity to participate! This was a great exercise to get me drawing again, I cannot express how nice it has been to get back into it!✍️ 🖤

Fan art no. 1: Tiabeanie & Luci of Matt Groening’s Disenchantment

This is a super fun project to get you #drawing ✍️ especially when you need to get out of a rut, need some ideas or to even just practice!

Had a lot of fun with this and suggest giving it a go if you haven’t had the opportunity to play with this 🎨 ✏️

Fan art no. 2: Geralt of Rivia

I watched the Witcher on @netflixca and fell in love with the world that existed! A dark fantasy show that had introduced me to sooo much more with games and books!

It has been a hot minute since reading or even playing anything from the fantasy genre (besides Zelda on my DS and occasionally the switch…I need to make more r&r gaming time 🤪). I used to play a lot of WOW, guild wars, Oblivion, etc. on my gaming PC – which needs a major overhaul, but perhaps more on that later 😉 – and did not realize how much I missed it/the world of fantasy, and how inspiring it is until diving back in!

For the books, so far I have read ‘The Last Wish’ and am almost done ‘Sword of Destiny’ (both short story novels by Andrzej Sapkowski) and highly recommend them as they are amazing reads! Gaming wise, I started playing The Witcher 3 on the PS4, asides from having some coordination issues using the controller (why joy sticks be sooo hard for my brain!!…miss my keyboard!!) lol it is has been a lot of fun!

Fan art no. 3: Link from Legend of Zelda – Oracle of Seasons

Legend of Zelda is life lol a series of games I have played as a child, and continue to play as an adult who ain’t ashamed to admit it 😜 I used to play this on my gameboy Colour and all the game boy irritations up to the 3DS XL Zelda edition. Love it! It is sooo cool that they have continued Link’s adventure throughout the ages and technologies, I have dabbled a bit with Breath of the Wild, but have not had the opportunity to play the game in it’s entirety yet…soon my pet, soon 😈

Fan art no. 4: Louise Belcher & Kuchi Kopi of Bob’s Burgers

I joke she is my spirit animal lol her character is just too hilarious, the humour dry just how I like it 🤣 getting up to all the shenanigans, truly a pure opportunist with such zest for life!

Fan art no. 5: Sabrina Spellman from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on @netflixca

I was sooooo sad to hear that this show will not be going on for much longer, it is one of my favourites by far! So dark, interesting and, well, adventurous!

Haven’t found too many shows that push the level of darkness like this one (asides from black mirror and AHS) so if you know of any others like this, please share!

Fan art no. 6: Captain of starship USS Enterprise Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek Next Generation

I recently found out Star Trek Next Generation is on @netflixca and I am super stoked to watch it again 😆

This was a favourite of mine, would watch it with my dad growing up. When dad worked out of town and would call home, this was one of the shows we would chat about and I would keep him up-to-date (before the internet exploded with all the easy access to information that is) 😉

I heard there is a new show called Star Trek: Picard which Is super exciting and probably old news by now to peeps (I live under a rock, don’t judge my hermit lifestyle :P) buuut I will have to check out!

Completed six fanart template

Six fan art characters in template

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to leave a comment and let me know what you think!


Why I’m opting out of the 2019 YEG Artwalk

Blog Post, Events

This would have been my third consecutive year participating in the YEG Artwalk as an artist. It is a terrifying, interesting and rewarding experience to display your work to the world…in PEOPLE!

Like many anti-social/socially awkward creatives, myself included, events like this can be very daunting and difficult. You are literally putting your creative expression out there for people to see, judge, purchase, compliment or straight up trash talk – except this time it’s in person and not so easy to block trolls – but hey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…right? I see situations like this worth all the horrible anxiety ridden feelings it gives me, only because I know it’s all apart of my personal growth and learning experiences…at least thats what I keep telling myself in hopes those feelings will eventually disappear.

Now don’t get me wrong, these jittery feelings of anxiety and judgment are not the reason I have chosen to opt our of the 2019 YEG Artwalk.

A lot has happened over the last little while, if you follow my instagram you would have seen a glimpse of all the things; though lately, I’ve been a little MIA there as well – life’s been busy, but in a good way.

I guess the short of it is *takes deep breath*:

  1. I started a new, full time job in communications (late January of 2018) that allowed me to submit for the IABC Capital Awards two years in a row – am now two for two on awards of excellence, which is something I never considered in my professional career, so its pree neat!
  2. With this new position is a new career path. I do get to design a fair amount still, so thats happy, there is/was lot of new things to learn. With that said, I am grateful this job gives me the opportunity to take courses for professional development. So far, I have completed a Communications 101 course and recently started a course on Interpersonal Communications.
  3. I rebranded my business, which required some updating on various online platforms, etc.
  4. Re-opened/trying to managing my Etsy and Redbubble shops.
  5. Still working freelance on the side, which fills up the time slots.
  6. Bought a house last summer and moved in early in the fall, and did minor “renos” (painting mostly), but are still not fully set up, and there is other work to be done. Not to mention, we still have boxes upon boxes to go through/organize in the garage, as well as in the basement 😛
  7. Can’t forget about all the other, personal things (growing families, weddings, friends visiting, etc.) happening, and all the crazy things life offers in general.
  8. I decided to not burn myself out this year – though it may not seem that way, but I am planning on taking 2 weeks off work in the summer, so theres that! *cough – i’m a workaholic – cough* – baby steps 🙂

With all this going on, it feels like there is not enough time to experiment with painting and other creative outlets. Not being able to create, let alone prepare for Artwalk, has left me a bit tired and unmotivated. Plus, it wouldn’t be fair to potential patrons (or myself) to try and slap a booth together – I aint about that half-assery!

For now I shall push on, re-evaluate how/if I will be able to continue to do all things and prioritize what is important to me and where to invest my time…once the summer is over…or once we have our house in order…whatever comes first, that’s when I’ll do the thing – I swear!

So there you have it, I am officially opting out of the yeg artwalk this year – life is just too busy at the moment. That said, ideas have been marinating in my brain meat for a while now, and I am excited to create a “plan of attack” for next year! *is determined*

Thanks for reading 🙂

Inktober 2018

Creative Challenges, illustrations

Update: Check out my 2015-2019 Inktober collection.

That’s right, Inktober is back baby! …okay we are at about the halfway point, but I am still excited about it!

4 years straight of participating and looking forward to it every minuite of it! Inktober is an amazing creative crunch time without the pressure of feeling like all your pieces have to be perfect – being a perfectionsit, leanring to embrace the “finished not perdfect” philosophy (also advised from Jake Parker, the creator of this amazing challange) – is very liberating, giving yourself the freedom to create without the stress and with no alternative motive in mind.

If you find yourself to be a perfectionsit, I strongly suggest challanging yourself in two ways:

1. create some amazing work for fun

2. welcome the freedom it has to offer, you will be happy you did!

Start letting go of perfection and gradually embrace the progression, not only of your mad inking skills, but of building healthier work habbits that allow you to put less pressure on your self – releasing the string of tension that perfection holds around your brain – all in just 31 days!

Follow me on instagram to stay up to date on my inktober progress: @noelle_fontaine

Here are the Inktober prompts for 2018:

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Visit inktober.com for more details about this great challenge.

It is never too late to start challenging yourself, jump in half way through, see if you can catch up and do your best to participate for the rest of the month!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Thank You Artwalk 2018

Events

Another @yegartwalk in the books, 2nd year in a row 😊 thank you to everyone that came out to support me and the other artists this year! #yegartwalk #yegartwalk2018 #artwalk #artist #supportlocal #thankyou #thanksforthesupport #thanksforcoming

Graduating To “Official” Watercolours

Blog Post, illustrations

Taking what watercolour pencils taught me (previous post) not only made me more comfortable but gave me the trial and error I needed without as much frustration to go back to using official watercolour paints.

The first time I used watercolour paints (excluding those sets you get when your a kid) was in university for an illustration course, where we were assigned 1 landscape watercolour project – it felt like the hardest project I have ever had to do – landscapes are a bit challenging on their own, but throwing watercolours into the mix made it exponentially more difficult. My professor was a bit surprised as I really enjoyed doing washes with ink, acrylic and gouache but found watercolours a completely different beast to tame! So after all the practice with the watercolour pencils I have decided to “graduate” myself to using “official” watercolour paints and the first piece done using the medium in almost 5 years!

The subject chosen for my first “official” watercolour illustration/painting was inspired by a blogger/photographer I follow on Instagram: @bumblebria (check her out!)

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The lighting, composition and colours of this lemon lavender loaf caught my eye, encouraging me to recreate a version in “official” watercolours. I took a screenshot for reference, and to note the photographer’s handle so I could tag them when posting my WIP (work in progress) and final outcome online.

I started with a light pencil outline, using a mechanical pencil and Fabriano Studio Watercolour Paper.

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The sketch actually sat in my sketchbook for a little while, I decided to watch a couple watercolour tutorials online for different techniques and tricks before painting; really enjoying the image I did not want to mess this piece up, even though it is more for practice to grow my skillset; that said, I am a perfectionist and am trying to embrace the imperfections of art as it makes things more organic and interesting…not to mention a lot less stressful and more fun!

A couple of days before starting he painting process of this piece, my boyfriend actually bought me some new watercolours (not knowing I have a little stash as he has never seen me use “official” watercolours before lol) and some water-brushes for us to try out. I bought a water-brush a couples years back but was not a hundred percent sure how to use it and was afraid to wreck it; a silly thought as this is what they are made for, but again the perfectionist and fear of messing up took over so I never actually used it (more to come on this topic in a later post). These water brushes are a but of a game changer!

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I was excited to try “official” watercolours again already and the new brushes made me even more enthusiastic to “graduate” myself to the next level of watercolours lol

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The level of control with the water-brush made my experience more relaxing and fun – I was not worried about using too much water or accidentally dripping water or pigment somewhere else on the page when filling the brush with more paint. I would highly recommend getting one of these and trying them out, they are pretty inexpensive (depending on where you go).

I thought I was done the piece when I recorded this video removing the tape, but something just wasn’t right and I HATED the dark background – I wanted it to feel more like a marble finish but was not able to create the perfect cream colours, so I tried to use some blue tones – clearly I had a brain fart – there is already blue in the cloth that the background then blended them together; so in a dire attempt to fix the background, I attempted to make it look more like the cracked concrete in the original photo…I was not happy with this and even debated on making a new background and just cutting the old one out and pasting a new one in.

Looking at the piece a couple days later, it began to grow on me, but something still was missing. Taking a black studio gel pen, I outlined the edge of the cloth that meets the background – looked like I was onto something – then went over this with some black watercolour to make a shadow that created more contrast. Later, I used the same gel pen to add some subtle outlines to other areas to really pull it all together as a finished piece.

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Not going to lie, I am still not 100% happy with the final outcome but am glad it turned out much better than expected using “official” watercolours. I am trying to not be so hard on myself and embracing imperfections, especially on pieces like this where my intention is to better learn the medium and just have fun experimenting.

Please let me know what you think and about your watercolour experiences/preferences.

Don’t forget to follow my on Instagram and/or Twitter for live updates.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Buffalo Dreams

Creative Challenges, illustrations, Redbubble Shop, Skulls

I made an abstract post a while back called Playing with Pastels that had close ups of this piece as a work in progress…though the piece was finished quite a while ago I did not post the final outcome because I wanted to have it professionally framed – fun fact, this is the first piece I have ever gotten professionally framed!

This started off as a quick pencil sketch I did at the end of inktober 2015 (this was the first inktober that I participated in, more about that here).

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Inspired by a piece I did about 2 years ago, where I wanted to experiment with a couple of black canvases I picked up from Michael’s and my tinted charcoals (more about this piece here) where I took my #31 inktober 2015 piece as inspiration to build upon.

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Inktober 31

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Using my small sketch for reference, I penciled an outline on a black 18″x24″ canvas, then applied layers and layers of pastel, pencil crayons & charcoal; constantly switching between the three mediums until I was sure the piece was complete.

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Due to the dusty nature of chalk pastels, I started at the centre of the subject and worked my way out, saving the background for last; not wanting to risk smudging any loose pigment onto the black surface.

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This sat around in my studio for months, I was afraid to transport it anywhere!

Now I know what you are thinking “isn’t there a protective spray you can use to prevent smudging?” believe me, I tried it! The drawback of the protective spray was that it was not 100% protected – chalk pastels being more loose than graphite there is also risk of some loose pigment being scattered among the work – plus it dulled the colours, so I needed to go over the piece again with the pastels to revive this lost vibrance.

When it came time for framing I carefully wrapped the piece in brown packing paper. I am very proud of this piece and due to the risk of smudging I was pretty leery to leave it in the hands of strangers. Not sure if there were any good framers in the area, I decided to go to our local Michael’s, where they made a special note to be vary careful with the piece as it is prone to smudging; needless to say the staff there did a fantastic job and were very gentle with the piece 🙂

I couldn’t believe how many different combinations and choices there are for frames & matting; in fact, we probably spent about an hour looking at different matting choices!

For me the frame was simple, I wanted something a bit more modern and black – fortunately they had a 40% deal when I went in (framing this 18″x24″ beast was just under $500 CND and would of been over $700 CND without the deal…highway robbery if you ask me lol but they need to run their business too lol). The matting on the other hand is what took the most time, is was very interesting to see how different combinations looked with the piece and how it could go from a strong masculine piece to a dainty feminine piece in a flash! Personally, I prefer a more masculine, modern look (makes sense with what I have learned about my work during my first Artwalk haha). So I chose a black frame with charcoal grey, pomegranate red wine and black matting – I really wanted to have the red wine accent colours pop – some of the other matting was either just not the right colour combinations or were too much like the dominant colours that the piece felt pale and blended with the matting.

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I also asked if I could write the name of the piece & sign the matting – since this was my first original being framed I thought it would be a nice touch – and the staff were more than happy to oblige. When the matting arrived, they called me and I went in (bought a couple of jelly roll white pens) and decided upon the name “Buffalo Dreams” and signed the matting.

Buffalo Dreams seemed like a perfect fit for the piece, making it whimsical and spiritual. Growing up my mother had a huge dreamcatcher – made of red wood with purple crystals, black leather ties and feathers – when we had nightmares my mom would either put the dreamcatcher in our rooms for the night or longer if need be (probably to keep us in our own beds to get some proper rest, smart lady!). That was until she got us our own small dreamcatchers. She would tell us that they are made special to protect us in our sleep; if you have a nightmare it cannot hurt you as the dream catcher acts like a spider web, catching all the negative dreams, spirits and thoughts to purify or trap them in the crystals so you can sleep safe and sound.

If you have a piece that is special to you or are very proud of go ahead and spoil yourself a bit and get it framed! I find frames (even cheaper ones from department stores) really make a piece look polished and complete.

Prints and other swag available in my Redbubble shop of this piece (more about my shop can be found in an earlier post here Redbubble shop). If you are interested in purchasing the original please contact me and I can let you know the price and we can work out shipping/pick up arrangements.

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Remember to follow me on Instagram & Twitter @noelle_fontainec to see what kind of creative mischief I have gotten myself into.

Thank you for reading 🙂

Pink Whale

Pink Whale Watercolour

Blog Post, illustrations, shop

Completed this whale illustration I started during #artwalk & it is also available in my Redbubble store

For this piece I used Royal & Langnickel watercolours, watercolour paper & watercolour pencils (see my watercolor post for details on the pencils & paper used here), Liquitex muted inks & Fabre-Castel artist pens.

Please let me know what you think of this piece & don’t forget to follow me on Instagram or Twitter for the most up to date info on new creations & promotions!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Bear Watercolour Illustration

Blog Post, illustrations, Redbubble Shop

This illustration came about while on a family camping trip, near crows nest pass. I was sitting at our picnic table with my watercolour pencils & paper (more on materials here), when I noticed one of my watercolour illustrations was tucked between some of the blank pages; my geometric buffalo illustration.

The combination of finding this lost illustration with being surrounded by beautiful trees & mountains inspired me to create a similar piece with a woodland creature – bears in particular – these beautiful, gentle, yet fierce animals who rule the mountain side.

Wanting to make the new illustration more powerful in colour & shapes, I planned the geometric designs/patterns out in pencil before outlining in ink (instead of inking on the fly like the buffalo), which made the inking process quicker & colour choices a bit easier; allowing me to play with different shades of colour opposed to the inking to give the piece more dimension.

Overall, this illustration is much more solid & put together compared to the buffalo. I am very pleased with the final outcome & have received a lot of positive feedback at artwalk & online.

This illustration is also available in my Redbubble shop as prints, appareal, gifts & more! Check it out here: Noelle Fontaine’s Redbubble Shop

Please let me know what you think of this piece & which you prefer – the Bear or the Buffalo.

And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram or Twitter for the most up to date info on new creations & promotions!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Jolly Rancher Skull Studio Pouch

My Redbubble Shop

Blog Post, illustrations, Redbubble Shop

It has been a while since I made my account on redbubble.com, just never really could make the time to create or post illustrations; However, I find myself with some more time on my hands, which allows me to create and post to my shop!

I will have many of my illustrations up on the site as t-shirts, tank tops, laptop cases & skins, phone cases, bags & so much more!

You can check it out here: Noelle Fontaine’s Redbubble Shop

Take a sneak peak at my wares:

Here is some information: About Redbubble

Also, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram or Twitter for the most up to date info on new creations & promotions!

Thanks for reading 🙂

PLASTER SKULLS

Skulls

Hand molded & painted plaster skulls, open to commissions.

These make a great gift!
Want to paint your own design? Blank primed skulls also available!

Details:

• 3.5lbs solid plaster

• 6.5″ wide x 5.5″ high

• Sealed with a clear gloss finish (excluding primed white, please request sealed)

• All skulls engraved with signature mark

• All skulls numbered (1-12, 2016 series)

*Please note colours may vary from photographs

Click Here for Prices

 


  
  
  
  
  

Please contact me if you are interested in taking one of these custom skulls home.