Hi there! Hope you’re staying safe. If you’re fasting, I hope you’ve had a blessed Ramadhan so far. We have about a week to go, and I suppose some of you have started making MCO Raya preparations. All the best!
I wanted to make this month’s wallpaper Raya-appropriate, without resorting to the typical images of ketupat, pelita, or moonlit skies. Don’t get me wrong - I have absolutely nothing against a bunch of ketupat hanging in the upper corner of a poster, or glowing oil lamps set against a dark, moonlit sky; I just didn’t feel like creating a pattern using those motifs.
And yes, I go through moods. Sometimes I feel like playing with watercolours. I love going through my paints and picking them out, experimenting with different brushes, and just watching the colours mix together on paper. I appreciate giving up control over the way the paints move, and letting them do their own thing. In some cases, I add details and highlights in India ink, or white acrylic ink, and when I’m feeling blingy, I add metallic gold ink details.
I even enjoy the steps after I’m done painting, ie scanning, cleaning up, and editing the artwork in Photoshop. There is a part of me that finds certain repetitive and/or operational tasks almost therapeutic. If I had to choose a household chore to do, it would be ironing. I could zone out while listening to a podcast or an audiobook. Similarly with editing digital scans of my artwork, I would zone out while zooming right into all the details, isolating the paper background, and tweaking the contrast and saturation to just the right level, with something playing in the background. And maybe a sweet smelling candle burning.
Sometimes I still feel like creating pattern motifs on paper, but I want to use Illustrator instead of Photoshop in the editing and pattern making steps. So then I wouldn’t paint, but I’d sketch (to the best of my ability) or doodle in ink. I’d choose colour palettes from images I see in magazines or things around me, import them into Illustrator, and click click Pen Tool Blob Brush Space Bar Command, I’m in the zone.
And then there are times when I just want to do it all digitally. No paint, no paper, no brush pen pencil nothing. Just my Procreate and me, doodling away with a tap tap erase and pinch pinch zoom.
By the way, I have a four-and-a-half-year old toddler who spends every waking hour talk talk talking, plus our neighbours are undertaking a massive renovation on their home, and it’s been seven months (so far) of wrecking knocking piling hammering drilling…. so if you notice a certain pattern in my writing, I hope you’ll understand why.
So anyways, back to Procreate and digital art - this month’s pattern is precisely that; one which I created and edited on my iPad, using watercolour “brushes” which mimic the real thing. I was inspired by the dokoh - the traditional accessory worn with the kebaya or baju kurung. They’re usually worn in sets of twos or threes, and can usually be worn either as brooches or a necklace. It is equally as stunning when worn alone, as some do.
