Wrong Item!

It’s Saturday night, and I’m sharing with you another rant sketch! Well it’s not the first time it happened and thankfully once in a blue moon. Yesterday, I received a package from abroad and whilst rubbing my hands together I was very excited to open the box of Hello Kitty trinkets, only to find out one of them was an incorrect item! I was looking forward to my Hello Kitty gold medallion but instead I get one of another character, Little Twin Stars. How annoying! As the medallions come in a set, I was hoping to complete it. Not the end of the world, of course, but you can imagine my disappointment. And this afternoon, a little rant in my art journal illustrating how upset I was and what I did about it…

Pencil Sketch

On a two-page spread of my Strathmore sketchbook, I set about with my pencil sketch illustrating four consecutive emotions. First shock, then blame, followed by calm then hoping. And then I jotted down what had happened to cause this. Following the negative thoughts, I took a deep breath and turned a bit more rational by doing something about the problem. As it is the weekend and the sales office is shut, I went ahead and ordered the correct item on-line rather than wait till Monday in case it would get sold out by then. An email was then sent to the seller politely explaining my disappointment, that I reordered the correct item rather than wait and if I can claim the postage costs back. Good thinking! And whilst I am still feeling anxious and hoping, I need to be patient and see what happens on Monday. As you can see, I’ve set aside all the negatives on the left-hand page and the positives on the right…

Let’s Start Coloring!

Time for some painting! For this, watercolor pens were chosen. It’s been some time since painting with Kuretake ZIG Clean Color brush pens which are like markers but watercolors rather than ink. Here, I firstly filled the edges of the area directly with the pen then spread the color out with a wet brush. Flesh color was used for the face, followed by a combi of dark brown and deep brown for the hair and then fluorescent pink for the outfit. Then I traced over the writing with Faber Castell’s Pitt Artists Pens in black and red. Those markers are quite handy as being India Ink based, they are permanent and fully waterproof, making it easier to glaze light blue and light green watercolor over the captions without smudging the handwriting.

Finishing Off

The facial features were then drawn in with colored pencils, Caran d’Ache’s Pablo. Markers would have made the lines too harsh. As a finishing touch, I thought a few Hello Kitty stickers around the drawing would add to the cuteness, especially as the theme is Hello Kitty related. And here we are now,,, a little rant sketch and now feeling better!

When in despair, it certainly helps to draw and paint about it. Rant sketches, as I call it, are very therapeutic as I can deal with issues and negative thoughts more easily. Whilst the drawing illustrates my train of thought, coloring further calms me down. It’s called coloring therapy for a reason! And now, I shall wait till Monday with a calmer mindset and see what happens. Fingers crossed that it will all work out and the correct item can be sent with costs recovered!