Ayasophie

A lot has happened since I last uploaded an artwork.  I have been away for so long and I felt that I needed to update on what has been happening.

I and my family had an incident where a piece of land next door to ours was sold and a house was built with a gas water heater right in front of my studio.   Intense smell of shampoo started coming in very single day plus exhaust fumes which we didn't realize at the time was so toxic that we started having scary symptoms after about three months.  I was forced to evacuate out of my 1st floor residence, where I had my English classroom, studio/office and bedroom.  I realized later that this particular gas heater is very high in VOC.

The incident has not been completely resolved but I am actually thankful, as this has actually allowed me to narrow down my art style and simplify what I want to do with it.  I was actually introduced to an all natural stucco that absorbs and breaks up VOC and other organic matter in the air.  I started making art with it, and I realized that my symptoms were a lot better when I was working with it.  I made about 7.5 square meters of art for my 24 square meter area on the second floor and the VOC symptoms were gone.  Not only that, I started realizing that despite the really hot weather we experienced this year, the stucco had actually made the rooms cooler in the hot weather and warmer in the cold weather.  

So now, I am able to make art with a medium that can help others breathe better and conserve electricity in the future.  I am looking forward to uploading some art in the near future and introducing art that is not only beautiful to look at, but helps you to have a healthier environment and help the planet at the same time.

I'm just letting you know of shipping delays incurring because of the Covid19 around the world.  The post office is experiencing delays and some temporary suspension of deliveries in some countries.  Please be patient with this and expect some delays in your precious parcel.  I try to make sure that I use the Express Mail Service with additional insurance as much as I am able, so you will always have a tracking number on hand to figure out where you parcel is.  Thank you.  Aya Sophie

I've been pretty quiet for the past year, because I had been requested with a piece of commission work that took me a almost a whole year to finish.

I have finally sent it off to the people who have requested the artwork and I am very humbled and joyful to have sent it off to them to hang up on their wall.

"Restoration" 72 x 90 x 2.8 cm in ...on 3 wood panels together.

"Restoration"  with Resin Finish and all ready to ship

I have had a relationship with this couple for the last four years.  They were helping me to get out of my trauma of having gone through child abuse and rape.  I was not of much use to them at the time, but they kept praying for me and with Jesus love moving through their prayers, it set me free from a lot of the things that have bound me to fear and insecurity for a long time.

Before long, they noticed that whenever they prayed for me, I would be able to see things that others cannot see.  Things that were in line with what was going on in the couple's lives.  They were things that I couldn't have known on my own but only through what God was showing me.  The couple was realizing that I was a seer, someone called by God to see things in the spirit that would help others with their healing and freedom.

After about three years, I didn't need the help of these people as much as I used to, but kept in touch.  They were very interested in my paintings which I always had up on my easel behind me when we talked online.  The wife, Isabelle, would ask me, "so what does that painting mean?" and "what is that painting saying?" and was very curious.  She was very much enthused by the things I painted and would always find something in it that would help her.

One day, out of the blue, the couple e-mailed me and said that they wanted to hire me to do a painting.  They have decided to start up an organization that would help people out with their emotional wounds and restoration into who they were really born on this earth for.  They asked me to ask God for a picture to paint for them.  I told them what I saw.  I sent them sketches colored in watercolor.  They were bewildered by what I showed them, that it was exactly what they had wanted and that it was in line with where they were going with their ministry.

So that was a year ago.  With a lot of interactions and added suggestions along the way, "Restoration" was birthed into a painting.  I am very privileged and humbled to have been able to be a part of their start of their new ministry.  Because it is a gift that I have been given to do, it is the most ideal work I would have wanted to do, and it was my first commission work.

The couple's organization is called ACTS ministries, and their website is http://www.actsministriesonline.com
if you would like to have a look at what they do.  They are awesome and loving and would love to pray with you and get along side you.

Also if you would like to have something similar done for you as an artwork, a picture God has for you for your encouragement, healing and/or for your new endeavor you have, please send me a message and we can start a conversation.

Thank you for reading this, as always.

Love,

Ayasophie

I want to share with you what I thought about Prisma Color Pencils when I used them on "Tears Will Someday".

I wanted to do something with color pencils that was more like acrylic painting, something that was able to draw on darker color background.  Oil paintings usually use this technique by giving the canvas a mid-tone color in grey, raw umber and white, or yellow ochre to give it an underglow to the background of the painting that makes it look more professional.

I also wanted to use this on my color pencil drawing by using a mid-tone ash-grey colored paper.
I used Prisma Color Premiere, 150 colors.

I first drew out the draft sketch of the picture I wanted on the paper with pencil on tracing paper.

Then I taped the tracing paper onto the ash grey paper to trace the main outlines using carbon paper underneath it.

In the same way that I paint my acrylic paintings, I started the drawing by drawing in the dark shadows with burnt umber and the highlights with white first.
This gives the drawing the feel of where all the shapes go.
I did notice that the white pencil didn't show up as much as I wanted it to, so in the end I used a bit of pastel on the strongest highlight on the lights coming through.

Then I did the blue dress and a little bit of the hair next.  All you need for each object with color, are four colors, the main color, the highlight, the shadow and the color between the shadow and the main color.  I just matched the colors of the pencil with a reference photo and chose the colors to use.

Using the same technique of using the four color pencils, I did the red hair band and the shoes.
I also added a bit more color to the hair.  Same four color technique, but emphasizing the highlights and the darks a bit more.

Then I started on the greens.  With this one, I used 8 colors, four colors for the lighter greens, and four colors for the darker greens.
I used different shades of green depending on where I wanted the light to hit the leaves.
You can also see that the face and the arms and legs of the girl are more 3D because I also put the four-color technique on the skin tones as well.  Just as an example of what I've used on the skin here are the colors for the skin tones: Shadow-Dark Umber, Main color-Nectar, Highlight-Deco Peach and Transition color-Clay Rose.  All skin tones are different depending on the person and the environment, so it's good to get a reference photo of the skin color you want and try out different sets of four colors.

Lastly but not least, I used the four color technique on all the roses of pink, purple and orange on their shadows, highlights, main color and transition color.

I also did the flowing petals and tear drops.  Theses droplets are fun to do, as all you need to do is to draw a thin white circle and draw a miniature picture in each droplet of the background upside down!  The closer to you the droplets are, the bigger the background it contains, so your choice as to how much to put into each droplet.  Then you do a little highlight on the corner where the light is coming from.

I hope you enjoyed my little progressive report on the making of the "Tears Will Someday".

Overall, the Prisma Color pencils did great on the darker color paper.
It was a lot less messy than doing acrylic paintings and you can do it whenever you want to just by having the pencils and the paper on your desk, so there is a lot less preparation to do and can be done in your spare time just to relax and have fun.
You can get pieces done a lot faster too since you don't need to mix your colors but just choose the color pencil that matches the color the best. 
I guess the draw backs are that the lighter colors didn't turn out that intense as I thought they would be, so the colors actually don't have the punch that acrylic paints would have, that you do take more time to do bigger areas than paints and that the paper on which you draw won't last as long as canvases do.
It's a matter of what purpose you have for your artwork.  I would like my artwork to last for a very long time because I am thinking long-term, so I probably won't be using prisma color pencils for really big pieces that have long-lasting value.  But for pet portraits and portrait gifts for people, I think they would be very suitable.

Thank you for reading this and if you have any comments or questions, do leave them on the section below.
Ta!

AyaSophie

Last weekend I had a day out with a girl friend from Malaysia.  She and I went to one of our national museums to have a look at some Pieter Brugel's work, especially "The Tower of Babel."

Pieter was born in the 16th century and lived for 44 years, during an era when they were having more liberal interpretations of religious paintings and experimenting on perspectives (putting more distance into the background).  Brugel was better at painting scenes with real far-away looks.  He also succeeded in painting the tower of Babel like it was reaching the sky beyond the clouds, when a lot of artists at the time were not so successful.  Just 200 years before, they had paintings of the tower of Babel that was only 2 stories high!

Unfortunately, Japanese museums do not allow photographs taken inside the museum, so I took a replica of the Tower of Bable just outside the exit.  The Tower of Babel is approximately 500 metres in height according to the calculations made from the painting, which is just a little below our new Tokyo Sky Tower which is more than 600 metres.

After the museum, we went to a very picturesque hotel right next door and had our cool refreshments from the 34 degree heat.

Hello I hope you are well,

Just wanted to say, thank you so much for stopping by, liking my work, and following me.

I love capturing nature through landscape art and also doing some paintings from my imagination.

I feel that it's my vocation and how I had been wired to live.

It's great to be able to connect with other creative people on this site.

Hope to see you again,

Thank you!

AyaSophie

I recently visited New Zealand and was really inspired by the creativity I saw there, so would love to share that with you.

New Zealand itself is a very picturesque country with lots of beautiful scenery of native forests, beaches and farmland.

This is a scenery from the living room deck on my first day in a beautiful peninsula called Whangaparaoa, I just had to sit down and paint a rough one of it. 

These are some of the paintings on walls I saw in various houses where I was staying. 

I was struck by the way the paintings were hung.  Most of them didn't have frames, and if they did, they were plain.  There was no fanfare, no flare to the way they were put up, but they were beautiful nonetheless.  It was as if creativity was naturaly, part of their everyday lives, like furniture to the house.  They also had really artistic decors around the house that were very creative.

I also came across some very talented artists' work tucked away in people's homes, as if it's just part of their normal everyday lives.

These were done by artist Alan Sayer.  He is also a talented landscape designer.  I had the priviledge of visiting the home of this man and his lovely wife Lynn, also an artist.  I complimented on the native forest painting on the right hand side and Lynn said, "You can't have that one!!  It's mine!"  No wonder, I really like it too.  Hopefully I'll be able to paint one like that when I get to it.

These were done by a lady called Froyle.  She is a full-time artist in New Zealand and does these very fluid, energetic work.  I really loved the energy and calming atmosphere coming from her work.  My friends wanted to introduce me to her, but she had been away then, so didn't get to meet her, but sometime in future, I would love to be able to attend one of her workshops.

Two weeks was a bit short of a trip to see everything, but would love to go more often to do more sketch work over there as much as I can.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!!

AyaSophie