Let’s Celebrate! 100th ART HANG PARTY!
Plus a peek in my sketchbook & what I've been up to 👀
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26 @ 7:00PM ET on YouTube
Theme: 100th ART HANG PARTY!
This week we are celebrating our community - all of you who show up in more ways than just drawing together.
We will be drawing photos that represents YOU! It can be you as a kid, or a recent photo. It can be your favourite thing or collection of things as a mini still-life. It can your happy place. Your favourite tree. Your favourite meal. Your favourite piece of art. Anything goes as long as it means something to you!
Send me your photo via dm here, on IG, or hop into the AHP discord and write a little bit about how it represents you, and if you’re up for it, a little about your thoughts on AHP. I’d love to share your words on screen while we draw your photo (and do my best not to cry because you all say such nice things all the time)
I invite everyone to participate and we’ll draw for as long as we need to get everything in!
I love our little community so much - thank you all for being part of it! 🤗💖✨
✏️🤗💖✨
Next ART HANG PARTY! will be Thursday, January 2 2025(!) at 7pm et on YouTube
Theme: TBD!
Do you have an idea for a future ART HANG PARTY! theme?
Follow and DM your doodles to @arthangparty on Instagram to be shared on stream! Tag @arthangparty to be featured in our stories!
Join the ART HANG PARTY! discord! https://discord.gg/XztzrCkQT5 🤗💖✨ A place to share your AHP drawings, theme ideas, inspirations, artworks, and for us to get to know each other better! 🥰
🤗 Show support for ART HANG PARTY! here
📺 Watch ART HANG PARTY! replays here
BEFORE YOU GO ANY FURTHER - if you are a member of my family and don’t want any Christmas present spoilers please look away! LOL!
MONDAY DECEMBER 16
Once a month
holds a “sunset self portrait” session through her Patreon, where we all get together to work on a self portrait. It’s meant to be a bit more introspective and a time to look at yourself with kindness, instead of the harshness we tend to when viewing ourselves in the mirror or photos. The theory being that we are like the sunset, whose true beauty can never be captured in a photo.Anyway it’s lovely and you should check out Deb’s patreon. It’s not all weird stuff over there 😂
What’s nice for me about these sessions is it forces me to slow down on my daily self portrait and not just rush through it before getting to my art time (which is how I’ve been treating them lately).
I had such fun collaging birds on the weekend that I thought I would collage my face!
Today’s self portrait
TUESDAY DECEMBER 17
Today was all about playing with some new Mungyo Soft Pastels I gifted myself.
I’ve been feeling the pull towards them for a while now and finally decided it was time to see what I could do with them.
Started by swatching them out, first dry and then wet. I really like the texture and effect of the wet swatches. Then I did a side-by-side comparison of the pastels sticks vs my one and only pan pastel. They feel extremely similar but the sticks win for me because you can also use them as a drawing utensil.
Then I did a couple of drawing session replays to have a play with them in context, starting with
kitchen utensils session, followed by Ohn Mar Win’s winter landscape session.My initial opinion on soft pastels is I like them wet. I can’t really see myself using them dry. They are just too messy, even for me! They are watercolour-ish but softer, Inktense-ish but duller. And cheap enough - $20 for this 72 set - to just play with them in my sketchbooks without worrying I’m using up materials. Not that I really have that issue, but the extra freedom feels nice!
Today’s self portrait
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 18
I’m afraid we have been hit with a bit of the flu in our house, so it was a pretty low-energy day. I did work a little bit more on the commission piece (almost there!) but it was all I could do to do my self portrait.
Today’s self portrait
THURSDAY DECEMBER 19
Today was Landscape week at ART HANG PARTY!
Thankfully I felt a little better than I did yesterday. Less hot chills for sure and a little more energy despite not sleeping well because of uncomfortable back aches.
I knew I still wanted to go ahead with AHP today, but I also knew I needed to keep it short. I figured I had about one hour in me.
The original plan was to do OG AHP timing, starting fast and working slower and slower as we went, but with only an hour that wasn’t going to work so we decided to do 4 references at 2.5 minutes and the next 4 at 5 minutes. Still fast and slower but not exactly as planned. Even though I left out 4 references (we were going to do 12 all together) I feel like this was a pretty complete session.
I had the references staged in seasons, so we started with spring and worked through to winter. I used the soft pastels, wet like watercolour, with a little Inktense pencil for detail in spots.
The texture is so good! It’s also really interesting that when you lay colours next to or on top of each other they don’t actually bleed or mix like a watercolour does; they just kind of stay put or make room. It’s so interesting and fun to play with!
Today’s self portrait
FRIDAY DECEMBER 20
Pretty low energy day today.
I tried to work on small refinements of the commission piece but really couldn’t see what I was doing so I quickly stopped before I ruined it.
Today’s self portrait
SATURDAY DECEMBER 21
I was feeling much better today! Not fully better but much better than the last few days.
I had fun sewing some more little gifts.
And I also filmed a video!
I had a request in a comment on YouTube about explaining how I draw glasses on faces, so I thought that would be a good thing to do today.
Trouble is, I’m not sure I like how the video came out. Or maybe it needs more editing. I’ll have another look and if I get it to a good spot you’ll see it in the video section below).
Anyway, here are the faces I drew for it:
AND! The commission is done and off to it’s new home!
They stopped by to have a look at it in person and loved it! It feels so good to have completed it, and to know that I can pull off such a piece. I promise I will share it once I’m able. I think it’s the best work I’ve ever done. *humbly pats self on back*
Today’s self portrait
SUNDAY DECEMBER 22
One last gift done and now I’m all ready for Christmas!
There’s a good chance I’ll still draw something this evening after dinner, but if I do I’ll share that in next week’s post.
Today’s self portrait
Looks like I fixed the editing on my video!
🤗💖✨
Ok, that’s it for me!
Thank you so much for reading my little weekly newsletter 🥰
Wishing you all the best for the upcoming holidays and wonderful new year!
See you Thursday at ART HANG PARTY! (don’t forget to send me your photos so we can celebrate you!!)
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Your self portraits are always so good and they’re all so different! Your collage on is so cool and I really like the soft pastel one, too.Congrats on having 100 ART HANG PARTY livestreams! That is a huge accomplishment and you’ve built this wonderful community! That’s definitely worth celebrating!🙌 ❤️ And I hope you and Ray are feeling a lot better! Boo to the flu👎Merry Christmas!🎄
Happy you are feeling lil better Melissa 🙏🏻 I will be on AHP Thursday at least to say Hi and celebrate a bit with everyone ❤️🥳 so thankful for the community you creating, it’s really a safe and fun place to be! THANK YOU 😘 P.S. going to catch up the new video now 🤓