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LiHy

✝ Soli Deo Gloria
137 Watchers143 Deviations
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After thinking about it for weeks, months, years... I have FINALLY launched a YouTube channel for my art! Lord willing, I plan to show my art process as well as have some tutorials, and if you've seen much of my art, you know this will probably feature a variety of mediums, including digital and traditional, watercolour, sculpture, sketches, etc. So if you enjoy my art and want to watch more of it, please check out my premier video here:
 

And if you like what you see and want to see more, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCk5gc…
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I recently read someone state, "copying for practice [is] not a good learning habit by the way as it atrophies the eye." The author of that comment claimed to have over 37 years of experience "teaching at the college level." (Who knows what they're "teaching"... yikes.)

... If possible, my opinion of college teachers (in general, with few exceptions) has just dropped even lower than it already was. Oh dear.

That person is dead-wrong, and I'd love to know what that alleged teacher thinks actually IS a good technique to learn to draw well or to learn how to properly/correctly/accurately draw ANYTHING. Please, do tell! If copying anything ever is absolutely always forbidden, if you're only ever supposed to draw with your eyes closed and ONLY whatever pops into your dreamy, blurry head, then (a) you'll never learn what real things--people, plants, animals, buildings, etc--truly look like, nor how to convey them recognizably in your own future artistic work, and (b) you'll never improve because you're not challenging yourself or subjecting yourself to be taught by anything outside of your own self! If you think that "looking within" alone is sufficient to result in personal growth, I fear you are mistaken. We learn from "without"--from others (other things and people) than ourselves who know more and/or have more skill than we do. We learn by practicing drawing what we see--whether what we're looking at is a literal bowl of apples in front of us, a photograph of an apple-tree, or someone else's awesome painting of a shiny red apple. Drawing exclusively what you see in your mind's eye will only get your art and your skills so far.

Without any form of copying, how else, pray, tell, are you ever supposed to learn what anything actually looks like enough to draw (or paint, or sculpt, et al) it correctly and accurately yourself, except to copy something else? And I mean copy anything! How else would you know how to paint a tree or what a human figure looks like unless you LOOKED AT a tree or a human already in existence (or a photograph thereof, or a skillful painted rendition thereof) and practiced drawing it yourself? There are things you will become keenly aware of about a person's face if you're trying to draw their portrait that you never would have noticed had you not sat down and actually started attempting to sketch them. Copying other artists' styles can also actually educate and enlighten you to help you see how they effectively and attractively pulled off a certain 'look,' and can thus help you pull off your own look as you develop your own style. It's good practice, and I can conceive of no real or sane reason why getting in such practice would be bad. (... "it atrophies the eye[s]"? ... Are you kidding me? How does that swift glancing back and forth from the thing in the distance you're copying from to the page close to you that you're copying onto, perpetually switching your focus from near to far and back again, how on earth would that ever conceivably "atrophy" your eyes??? I imagine it would do quite the opposite.)

This may be a tough truth to be told, but know this: to a degree, there is no such thing as an original thought. Our ideas are probably not as unique and special as we'd like to think they are (which is why you can't legally copyright a mere idea, thank goodness!). To a degree, everything is derivative of something else, even if only distantly or vaguely. Do you seriously expect other artists--or yourself--to go through their entire life NEVER being inspired by any book they read or movie they saw or song they heard such that they avoided internalizing or being influenced by absolutely everything they ever encountered or experienced in life? Is that a reasonable expectation? If you enjoyed some other artist's work at any point in your past, if it resonated in your heart, then it will be almost impossible for some essence or hint of it to NOT come out in some small way in your own artistic expression.

I'm not saying copying is the ONLY art you should ever create, or the only way to practice--not at all. At some point, you should use all those skills and techniques you learned (from copying as well as from any other methods of practice) and apply them to your own "original" work. I'm just saying that copying is FANTASTIC practice to improve your artistic skill, no matter whether you're a beginner or a master at your craft.

And honestly, copy anything you want, with only 2 rules: DON'T claim it's your own original piece when it's not (i.e., DO credit the original subject/photographer/artist/whatever who you're copying from), and DON'T sell it for profit ('cause at that point you may someday find yourself at the unpleasant receiving end of a copyright infringement lawsuit--i.e., DO avoid intellectual property rights violations by not profiting monetarily from your copy of somebody else's work, even if that person's work is "only" a photo and you found it on google--"Google image search" does not equal "public domain"!!!).

(I would differ from the article linked below on this singular point: even a "great" artist can, and maybe should still occasionally, copy a greater artist--because there's ALWAYS someone better than you out there--or copy from what he/she sees in nature because even the best artist can benefit from the practice of copying and ultimately improve.)

Please read this article and be encouraged: Nothing Wrong and a Lot Right about Copying

God bless you, and Soli Deo Gloria!!!
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I have 10 (that's right, TEN!!!) sculptures on display at the ASiF gallery in Grass Valley, California, including 3 sculptures I've shown online before (FOR SALE ~ Autumn Phoenix SculptureFOR SALE ~ Horned Teal Dragon Hatchling Sculpture, & FOR SALE ~ Sand-Macaw Gryphon Sculpture) AND 7 BRAND NEW sculptures that have NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE--never online and never in person. So if you want to be the first to see the debut of these 7 new sculptures of mine (and see the other 3 in person), please come to the studio before the end of the year. These 10 sculptures are for sale at the gallery as well, so come and check them out soon. The opening reception for the "SmallWorks" show is tonight from 5-8pm, so drop by for some free food and fun. ~ Soli Deo Gloria! 


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I want to say the biggest thank you to all my awesome watchers!!!

Recently, the number of my watchers exceeded 120, and since I've always liked that number, I want to celebrate that milestone. Thank you guys! I really appreciate your support and encouragement--I'm so honoured and humbled that you've chosen to watch me now even though I know I yet have SO MUCH room for improvement.

1st, if you started watching me before I published this journal, and if I have not yet given you a llama badge, just kindly let me know, and I'll be happy to give you a llama badge post haste! (I've tried to give a llama to most of my watchers, so if I've missed anyone, please know that such an oversight was NOT intentional--if you're missing a llama from me, just ask me to give you yours.)

2nd, if you started watching me before I published this journal, then I want to offer you a llama line-art I created for you to color for fun FOR FREE! (For anyone else who wants to use the line-art, it will cost you 200 points/$2.) It's just a small token of my appreciation for the support you've given me over the years. If you want the line-art, all you have to do is ask! (I'm not going to send unsolicited spam of the file to all my watchers, 'cause I expect that would be annoying, and the last thing I want to do is annoy my kind, loyal, encouraging, inspiring watchers! So if you're already my watcher, and if you want the FREE LLAMA LINE-ART, please don't pay the 200 points--just comment here or note me asking for it, and I'll send it to you post haste!) If you want to know what the line-art will look like, just check out my celebratory llama deviation (linked below). The line-art is the same piece but without the color, the shading, the highlights, etc. It's just the clean, basic black lines in a PNG transparent image, which I hope will be in the easiest format for you to color in your chosen medium; digital or traditional:
First 120 Watchers Thank-You Llama!!! by LiHy
I do have a few rules regarding use of the line-art, and all these rules do apply regardless of whether or not you are my watcher, both to those who request the line-art for free and to those who purchase the line-art:
1. You may not remove or cover up or in any way attempt to conceal the text, "Line-art by LiHy" or my "LiHy" signature.
2. You must credit me (link to my account) within the description of your piece. I want to see your beautiful coloring job!!!
3. You may not use this for any purpose outside of DeviantArt. I do not approve of this art being re-uploaded on any other website or displayed in any "brick-and-mortar" IRL location. You may link to your colored piece on other sites, using the provided DeviantArt link/sharing buttons.
4. You may not use this line-art for any commercial or promotional purposes.
5. You may not use this line-art for anything that is NSFW, R-rated, obscene, violent, sexual, blasphemous, etc. Please keep your art "kid-friendly," G-rated, and non-controversial. Please also respect all the standard DeviantArt rules.
6. You may not use this line-art to create "adoptables" or anything related to adoptables.

The above offers are ONLY available to my first (approximately) 120 watchers. If you started watching me after I published this journal, then, unfortunately, these offers are not available to you. Why? Because this is the least I can do to thank and reward the people who started watching me without expecting any freebies, and I don't want any of my watchers from this moment forward to only choose to "watch" me in the hopes of getting some future reward. I do not want anyone to add me to their watchlist in the hopes of getting some DevArt advantage for themselves. I sincerely hope that all my watchers have chosen to add me to your watchlists simply because you just like my work, you want to see more of my work, or you're curious to see how I grow as an artist.

God bless you all! Soli Deo Gloria!
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I will not attempt the impossible task of painting an exhaustive picture of what's been going on in my whole life lately, but rather I will explain it only insofar as it relates to my artistic life: For anyone who has been paying close attention, you may have noticed that I haven't uploaded any art in well over a year. This is because I was not emotionally able to approach my art for over a year, ever since my brother-in-law died near the end of 2016. Though he had nothing to do with my art, I was morbidly connecting my art with his death, simply because the timing of an art show I was in coincided with the shocking event of his death. Thus, every time I thought of my art, I didn't so much think of him as I thought of the tragedy of my family losing him. To further sabotage my creativity, I started heaping pressure on myself, telling myself that the first piece of art I created after he died needed to be something significant, a tribute to him, and a masterpiece. And of course, the longer I go without drawing, the lower the quality will be of the first "warm-up" piece I draw, so the more time went on, the more afraid I was to make the first piece since Ben's death, for fear of making it less than perfectly stellar. That pressure mounted and paralyzed me--it became too daunting to return to my art with all those expectations weighing on me. And I had no one to blame but myself. Fortunately, a fellow artist friend talked me through the issues and gave me much-needed encouragement and accountability (including a deadline to get back to drawing). So I cleared an afternoon on my calendar, put on my worship music on Spotify (because I realized part of the problem that was preventing me from nurturing my art was that I was focusing morbidly on my deceased brother-in-law instead of on the living God, Who gave me any artistic talent I have in the first place), and found a lovely photograph online to use as a reference, telling myself that this art didn't need to be about my brother-in-law or anyone else. It just needed to be something to help me focus on the One I should be focused on always.

 EvintageVeils - reference photo by LiHy EvintageVeils - reference only photo by LiHy EtsyVeilIllustration2 by LiHy
The first image (on the left) is a screencap of the site that has the photograph I referenced. I wanted to draw a demure young lady wearing a veil for chapel, and I knew--having purchased 2 of her gorgeous veils so far--that this Etsy seller (EvintageVeils) had a ton of high-quality photographs that would provide the perfect inspiration. (Here is the direct link to purchase the very veil in this photograph, if it hasn't already sold out yet.) The second image (in the middle) is, obviously, just the photo itself that I chose to reference, expanded so it's easier to see. And the third image (on the right) is my freehand illustration of the photograph to compare to the photo. I'll upload my work as a separate "deviation" as well, but I wanted to be able to show it next to the reference photo. I also wanted to give a little explanation, hence this journal. I realize it's far from a perfect rendering of the photo. But it was a decent bit of practice, and for not having picked up a pencil in over 14 months, it turned out better than I thought any piece would.

For the record, I am making no monetary profit off of my illustration, nor do I ever intend to with this piece. No copyright infringement is intended. If anything, I want to draw more attention to the seller and maker of these beautiful veils and point my viewers directly to her site where you may purchase any number of hundreds of beautiful pieces.

Thank you for reading. God bless you. Soli Deo Gloria.
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Featured

Official YouTube Art Channel Launch by LiHy, journal

Tell Me Why Copying is Bad by LiHy, journal

SmallWorks Show (2018) at the ASiF Gallery by LiHy, journal

Watcher Thank-You! Llama Celebration! by LiHy, journal

Back to Art after a Mournful Hiatus by LiHy, journal