Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
I've been sharing a lot of digital art recently so I thought I'd go back to find some paintings I've done. It's been a long while but this was a simple piece I did back in May 2021 when my father-in-law asked if I could do a drawing for him for the temple. He helps out at this Buddhist temple called BW Monastery and they were showcasing some art for Vesak Day back then and he wanted to contribute something. Since he knew that I do art he thought he'd ask me to draw a simple piece.
Source: reddit
Tbh I didn't even know what to draw and he didn't give me any specifics (like every other art client). I'm not a Buddhist and have only briefly visited a few temples. I didn't even know what Vesak Day was but apparently it commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Siddhartha Gautama, who is commonly known as Buddha. I had to be cautious since this was to pay tribute to that and I didn't want to be offensive. I thought the easiest was to just draw the temple itself since it actually does look nice.
Source: bwmonastery
I thought of just doing a simple minimalist black-and-white piece since I've never drawn buildings and am quite new to archiectural art. I think Sean told me that a common practice is to pour water on the Buddha statue so I wanted to incorporate that in as well, and have the temple in the background. So this was the sketch I came up with:
It seemed pretty good, so it was time to outline it! At that point it'd been a while since I've done physical art so it took a little while getting back to it.
I was going to leave it black and white but it looked a little plain so I decided to just paint it with water colours. I haven't painted in a long while too but I tried my best. After that I used some markers to add some details to the painting as well like some lines radiating from the Buddha statue to show enlightenment.
I think it looked pretty good in the end! I wasn't sure what else to add to this piece and while I didn't manage to include the whole temple like I initially wanted I thought it still looked alright. Sean's dad gave the OK so I guess it was good enough.
After we passed it to him it ended up being hung up along the entrance of the temple during the week leading up to Vesak Day! I'm not sure how many people actually noticed it and tbh I didn't even see it when we went past it on the way to get dinner until Sean pointed it out!
I'd never seen my art hung up in public before so it was quite a pleasant surprise! I probably should've signed it but I didn't feel comfortable putting my name on a religious painting so I didn't. I'm not sure what happened to that painting now I guess maybe the temple kept it but it's alright. I'm glad they thought it was good enough to be put up along the entrance!
It's been a long time but I do miss painting so I hope I can find the time to return to it some day.
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
