Hi everyone, Mari here. Happy 5th of July. Yesterday in America, Independence Day was upon us.

Again, let me begin by saying that I apologize for my lack of posts. I am still without a scanner and a desktop computer, but eventually, the money will be there for both. I’ve also been bogged down with articles for Demand Studios, but I’m starting to get faster with those. Once I get $70 together, I’ll be back and posting regularly. I promise. Click to read more …

Tags: All My Children, Cruelty, People, Personal, SoapNet Forum

Hello everyone! Marisol reporting in.

I haven’t been posting how to draw tutorials lately, and I apologize. As many readers must know, once warmer weather approaches, as does yard work. I’ve been busy planting flowers, weeding, and cutting grass, so time to myself is very rare. Besides yard work, I’ve been working really hard writing articles for other websites, and I’ve been busy with research for the Milton course Alex and I are taking this summer for graduate school.

Speaking of school, the head of the English department contacted me this morning and informed me that I should be considering the beginning aspects of my thesis if I plan on graduating very soon. Nyah? Already?! I have to choose an overseer this week, and that professor and I need to sit down and create an outline for my thesis. Frankly, I’m not ready yet. Simply put, I don’t have a concrete topic yet. Furthermore, I’m terrified! I’ve been having a panic attack today and trying to contact Alex to talk me down, but he’s difficult to get a hold of because his phone is always OFF! I always hope I never need him to save my life, because if I did, I’d be dead before he’d even know I called him. Seriously, trying to contact him is that bad.

During my hiatus, I’ve developed several projects and how to draw tutorials that I am going to post on Sketching House, however, I seem to have several problems. Click to read more …

Tags: Acer Monitors, Brusheezy, Digital Art How-To, Digital Art Tutorial, Digital Coloring, Digital Inking, John Milton, traditional Art, Traditional Art How-To, Traditional Art Tutorials

Good afternoon everyone! How are you today? I’m a little chilly. The other day, it was 75 degrees and wonderful outside, so I spent much of my time out on my deck. Today, it’s sunny and 39 degrees and very cold! Normally, 39 degrees isn’t bad, but since it was 75 the other day, it feels much colder than need be. I hate it! Where’s the warm? Of course, the temperatures are suppose to be in the 60s and 70s next week when I go back to class. My campus annoys the heck out of me simply because we ALWAYS have spring break in winter. Why? To torment us poor souls who can’t fly to warmer locations due to lacking money. Nyah! I want to go to Disney World!

So, for the past few months (since December), I’ve had a picture working on my featuring Kitana and Ikura and their love, yet, I can’t seem to figure out how to draw it. The picture is to be based on Yuki Kajiura’s song “Vanity,” a song I’m totally in love with!

My idea for this image was to place Kit and Ikura in water, floating next to each a la Yuna and Tidus from Final Fantasy X. However, I can’t seem to execute this idea as well as I like and my drawing looks like boogers on stick–ew! Click to read more …

Tags: "You'll be there by my side/ you may never know my devotion", Art Tutorial, artist help line, Artist's Block, Disney World, drawing tutorial, Final Fantasy X, Kalafina, weddings, Yuki Kajiura

Every now and again, I like to take some time away from tutorial posting and talk about life. Today is one of those days. For those of you who have been following Sketching House since its birth in October 2008, you know that I like to do this. Now I know that there are screams and moans going on amongst the ranks saying “NOOO! Mari, why!? We want to learn about art!” but sometimes, there are things that need to be said and things that need to be done in order to preserve my sanity. However, I do love you, oh mysterious viewers. Besides, Alex posted two tutorials today. =^_^=

First order of business, please give a warm welcome to SushiGal, our newest member to the Sketching House family. She comes to us from a far off mysterious land, so please be nice. I know what it’s like to have people be mean to you unnecessarily, so please don’t do so.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Alex and I ditched Chaucer to go have some fun. For one, I had a splitting headache, but from what I gathered, we missed a good class in the beginning, but then it fizzled in the end. Anywho, so Alex asked if I wanted to go to dinner with him and I said sure. We went to a place called Anthony’s Creative Cuisine, which is right next door to our favorite restaurant, Niko’s. This was our first time trying this restaurant, so we thought it would be fun. First, we couldn’t figure out where to go in at because there was three doors; we found the right door on our first try. When we walked in, a cheerful, but fancily dressed hostess greeted us and took us to our table. First, Anthony’s is deceptively large and we ended up sitting in the terrace room. For one, it shoulda tipped me and Alex off that this was not our type of place by the décor. Everything was purple and white with grapes and grape leaves hanging all over the place. Secondly, there was a terrace room. Non-fancy restaurants do not have terrace rooms! Third, the menu was small, snooty, purple, and padded. In all my English classes, we learned that purple was the color of royalty, so uh-oh. Furthermore, the fact that this place proudly announced that they accept credit cards shoulda been another sign. Oh noes! Click to read more …

Tags: All My Children, Anthony's Creative Cuisine, Art Tutorial, Embalmer, Embalming, Expensive, Life, Money, Niko's, Purdue University, school, SoapNet

I think about weird things when I’m stressed and/or angry. It’s been one of those weeks again, but I will spare you all and not go into detail. All I know is that things aren’t getting any better for me.

While I was brushing my teeth this morning, a thought crossed my mind (and I assure you, I didn’t hurt myself thinking). When I was in fifth grade many moons ago, a friend of mine (whom is now in the Air Force) and I took an art class at one of the local community centers. The art program at our elementary school honored us with free art classes because we were considered “gifted artists” (I wonder what happened to me ). Every Wednesday, she and I would make the pilgrimage over to the Center of Visual and Performing Arts for our two hour art classes. I remember that this was when Beanie Babies were big, so most people brought Beanie Babies to draw (not really; Nikki and I were the only one’s under 50). Our art instructor didn’t find this amusing at all; she wanted us to learn how to draw serious art. Click to read more …

Tags: Art, Art Class, Art Teacher, drawing, How to Draw, How to Draw Sunflowers, Shadinh, Sunflowers, traditional Art

Life is mysterious and cruel sometimes, don’t you agree? Sometimes, everything is great, then things fall apart like bricks from a building freshly struck by a wrecking ball. For me, this is how the past few days has been like: a rollercoaster on a rusted track. There has been many emotions, many tears. I have been angry, sad, and downright defeated. I have had my share of happiness, also, but that emotion did not come often. It was a week of mourning and displeasure. Click to read more …

Tags: Animal Charities, bitter cold, Chicago, Despair, Dream Analysis, Dreams, Judge Judy, links, mental illness, no art, non-art tutorial, Pet Loss, psychology, psychology of dreams, Purdue University, Relationships, Sadness, Scattergories

Thanks Sami from Flickr!

Snow is falling, acting as prelude to the bitter cold that is arriving in a few days. I’m tired of cold weather, and sometimes, I’m tired of the snow even though it’s so pretty. I’m not a fan of winter; it’s depressing and drags on too long. All the bleakness makes it hard for me to feel fervent, which, if you think about it, fervent sounds the opposite of what it truly means. Anymore, I just feel so down and hopeless and it’s hard to find that silver lining or little glimmer of joy. Click to read more …

Tags: anger, Birds, Boyfriend, clothes, clothing, Depression, Disney, do, Dreams, Dying, expression, expressions, Family, Flickr, Food, Freem, game, Graduate School, guy, hope, Issues, Japan, Kyoto, lines, Love, Lyrics, Married, Night, personality, reading, real, relationship, Relationships, Santa, school, side, sky, Snow, song, Star, Tala, teaching, Travel, University, view, Weather, wing, winged, wings, Work, write, Writing

Tala here, after working on my tutorial, I’ve been dealing with my own relationship issues. Ever since I was little, I was always the girl who didn’t have any ‘real’ friends, just other friends who wanted to use her for some reasons. I used to have crushes on these guys, but of course, they didn’t like me (one did, but due to a friend issue, it didn’t last more than a week). Anyhow, I’ve always been a hopeless romantic, I’ve always wanted a dream guy to find me and take me away from all the hurt. I always draw what I feel when it comes to that as well, drawing my ideal guy, but not so much with looks, but the emotion, the action being shown. My ex was a very romantic guy, someone who was openly emotional, and yeah, that was wonderful for me. He came to see me, I had someone who told me everything I wanted to hear, but… sometime after my 20th birthday, we started to drift, and he ended up moving on to another girl.

Well, that indeed was a bit of a blow, but, let’s back up a little bit. Around the time we were drifting, I had met a friend. This friend of mine was a cool person to hang out, and his name was Kyojen, but I call him Kyo, or, more affecionately Kyo kyo. He and I hung out while I was being ignored by my current ex (who at the time wasn’t) and all the loneliness I felt, decimated. He was able to make all the pain and sadness go away just by being around me, and what I thought was cute from the very start, was that, he’d get a little jealous when other guys would show interest. From that point on, I don’t know what it was, but, I felt safe with him. We grew into greater friends, inseperable, we were a dynamic duo that everyone knew, they’d see us together and knew it just felt right. Click to read more …

Tags: destiny, Dreams, fear, heart, heartbroken, hope, Love, Rant, relationship, romance, sad, tears, tips, trouble

Oh my God, do I have a lot to say! Bear with me, folks, I’ll try to make this as brief as possible with a bonus tutorial! Yay!

First news on the docket: I am currently applying for a job in Japan. Yes, Japan! I’m currently applying for a job as an English language teacher, which goes along with what I plan on doing with my life. I want to teach ESL students, so teaching in Japan is MORE TRAINING than what I can get at my university. WOW! I am so thrilled about that! I would have a lot of perks, I would get to mingle with the people I LOVE SO MUCH, and leave the country for a year! Yes! Pray that I get this opportunity of a lifetime!

Second, Tala is officially a student at my university! YES! I’m so happy for her! Now if we can just raise money for her tuition…

Thirdly… I forgot what my third thing was.

And what is with men? Last night, I hinted to my boyfriend that he could come over to visit me today. I HINTED not so subtly! Apparently, not so subtle was way too subtle because I am currently boyfriendless and lonely. *Sigh.* Class starts in a few days and that means I will see him, but less so because of work and stress. Hopefully, our semester together doesn’t suck as much as last semester did. I’m tired of fights, coldness, and bitterness. *Sigh.* Hope for the best, I suppose.

See, I told you that was brief.

For today’s tutorial, I’m feeling a little lazy (I was sick–girl issues), so I’m going to use a tutorial I did for E-How over the summer. Today, I’m going to show you how to shade by stippling. Stippling is done by using a series of tiny dots to create the shading effect.Stippling may be time consuming, but it is fun and creates awesome effects. Lighter and largely spaced dots are for light shades; slightly darker and medium spaced dots are mid-tones; tightly packed and dark dots are for dark tones. So, do you have an image handy? Alright! Let’s go!
Click to read more …

Tags: Art Tutorial, Bottles, Complaints About Men, drawing tutorial, ESL Teaching, Japan, Kyoto, Men, Period, PMS, Purdue University, shading, Shading Effects, Stippling, teaching, Tones, University

Once upon a time when I was in high school, things in my life weren’t going very well, in fact, things were downright disastrous, but I hid my problems well. Friends did not know that my life was really crumbling around me, nor did they know that I was unhappy in my relationship that was in for four years. No one truly knew what went on when no one was looking, nor did they believe me after everything was said and done. Mr. Man–who I finally left after becoming strong enough to realize I needed some self-respect–was more believable and charming because of his “I-can-do-no-wrong” looks and seemingly innocent personality; everyone believed his story over mine even after he stalked me for two years AFTER the relationship! Now he’s dating an ex-friend of mine which says a lot about her, picking up other people’s trash, but that’s a story for another time. I just hope she doesn’t realize too late what an emotional and sometimes physically abusive b*st*rd he is. Kids, don’t date the sullen depressed type, it’s not good for you or anyone else.

Anywho…

During high school, life literally sucked for me and it wasn’t because Ashley was dating Ricky, or Rachel kept getting pregnant, nor was it because a friend and I decorated my ex’s locker pink and  rigged it to play “Barbie Girl” every time he opened it (and oddly enough, this is the same friend who is now dating my ex), but because of everything my ex did to me. But then a group of friends and a little story came into my life, which helped me hang on to the few strands of sanity I had left. Click to read more …

Tags: Aqua, Barbie Girl, Fridge, Friendship, Kit, Kitana, Life Story, Love, Refridgerator, Soulmates, Ten'on, Tsuyoi, Writing