In the City

I'm posting in a later hour today because I'd been preoccupied with work today, and only managed to sneak bits and pieces of drawing every once in a while. Despite that, I'm pretty proud of the output of today's drawing.

I grew up in a very rural place. Everywhere were trees, and even the cemented roads weren't covered in asphalt. The only noise you'd hear were the very many birds gracing the trees all around, the crows of roosters that every household seemingly had, and the dogs my parents and uncle decided to take in. The closest to urban I'd grown up with was where my school was situated, some 25 minutes away by car. And even then, the only difference was that there were more commercial buildings and cars passing by, but still with the signature trees and birds and overall pleasing environment.

At 16, I had to leave home to attend college some 75 km away. The university was literally situated at the bottom of a mountain, and some classes were even conducted on the mountain. Imagine my culture shock when I had to live in the big city as soon as I graduated, because all the good opportunities for my line of work were there.

Suddenly there were bad odors from numerous vehicles pumping out almost black exhaust, highways spanning 8 lanes, and people pushing and glaring and catcalling.

I wish I was as wonderfully awed as the girl in today's reference, appearing to look around everything with positive disposition. But I was internally cringing, dreading the public commute and the aggressive public. The silver lining was that I took residence inside a university (the main campus of the one I attended), and everything inside looked more humane than the stress-inducing perimeter outside.

Drawing In the City

I was excited to draw this, because I liked how bright it looked. I wanted to see how I would fare doing this. Although it took me a while to get my base rough sketch remotely acceptable for a cleaner line art, it was still a fun endeavor.

After putting in all the base colors -- that were so wonderfully pastel-y -- I focused on the face. It was lit up brightly with very little shadows, so it was quite challenging to get it to take form. I enjoyed painting the nose, though, and dreaded the teeth.

My favorites here were the hands and the cup of what looks to be boba milk tea. I was hell-bent on not adding those little details on the cup, but I couldn't resist! I'm happy it ended up resembling the reference's cup.

While they weren't as nice as how the hands in the drawings prior to this were drawn, I still liked the hands here. It had to do with those little details at the back of her palms, which I normally wouldn't dare to paint.

The bag wasn't really enjoyable to draw, mostly because it was black. It's always difficult for me to add details when something is already as dark, and the only thing that can help me make sense of it were the lighter shades.

I don't think I'd touched on the background yet, but as always, it was literally strokes that seemed to make sense, but were really just randomly put there. Gaussian blur saves the background again.

Details

Device: Samsung Galaxy Note 10+
Apps:
- MediBang Paint for Android
Brushes: watercolor (at varying opacity settings); pencil (100% opacity); pen (100% opacity); blur

Notes

I have been back to rural living for 6 months now in a work-from-home setting. The nearly three years I spent in the big city helped me overcome a lot of things that rural places wouldn't teach you. I've been to places I never thought I'd visit (because I hated socializing), but I'm glad to have found comfort in the thought that I have friends and family living there, too.

I never thought this post would end up in story-telling, but I find that I like doing that.

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