Mosslike | Gemma Hazen

Category: Arts

  • Oil pastel drawings of Mililani’s shady park trees

    Oil pastel drawings of Mililani’s shady park trees

    Pastel drawing of a white tree trunk
    Pastel drawing of a Monkeypod tree and it's shadow

    Some pastel trees for today!

    The first drawing is of a tree in Mililani Mauka Ravine Park. It has a white trunk with lichen.

    The second image is of a Monkeypod tree. We are surrounded by them here in Mililani. I love their shade! After my runs, I take time to lean on a tree and ground myself. Then, I pour out the last of my water near it’s base out of gratitude. Everything has been so crunchy dry after the summer passed.

    I hung out with some friends a couple weeks ago, and one of them said how Mililani is the prettiest town he’s ever seen. The trees, the parks, the clean roads. I get it. It was really nice to hear someone else appreciate it.

    In Ravine Park, they have fruit trees that are marked and also a section of native Hawaiian plants. It’s a really nice walk that I’ve enjoyed a bunch of times.

    Except this one time… it was night. My friend and I approached the park in our car, and all the nearby street lights shut off. The sprinklers turned on as a cold wind came down the road. There are a lot of large rocks in ravine park. I could have sworn something was between the rocks near the entrance. We got the creepiest feeling and got the hell out of there.

    And this other time that the whole park smelled like a litter box. We had to leave. Don’t get me wrong, I love cats ~ but it was out of hand. I’m sure even the cats were pissed.

    Anyways – these were my trees for today. Hope you liked them!

  • Tiny Bright Portraits in Oil Pastel

    Tiny Bright Portraits in Oil Pastel

    As promised, I worked on some new portraits. These are done in oil pastel and are on small craft paper, 4″ x 6″. Oh, and I also used a black grease pencil. They took about 10 minutes each. There were others that I made but these were the nicest of them.

    It’s fun to mess with these faces so quickly! Oil pastels are super fun on bright paper.

    I still need to work on getting the “likeness” of my portraits correct though. I like the limited palette of the green portrait, but my favorite so far is the red. Even though the right side of her face slid outwards. They look nothing like the reference photos, but I do really like the shading.

    Thanks for looking!

  • My Latest Goal: Do More Portrait Art (again)

    My Latest Goal: Do More Portrait Art (again)

    So I need to make more stuff. Lol. Story of my life. Coming out of yet another rut. Or I could characterize it as a trough before a great crest. Right, isn’t that more of a growth mindset? So, I’m here to say, I’ll be making more portraits.

    Here is the most recent example from my sketchbook. I posted the progress video on:

    Instagram

    TikTok

    @m0sslike

    #shelleyduvall #ink #portrait #inkdrawing #art

    ♬ Stuck In The Middle – Tai Verdes

    This rough portrait took me about 25 minutes. From pencil sketch all the way til I ruined it with extra ink. Luckily I took photos and ended the videos before that happened.

    Sometimes, I’ll be grabbing inspiration for future portraits from the Sktchy / Museum app as usual. In that app, a ton of people post their images. They hope someone will use that image for portrait practice! I love the images that are clear with high contrast!

    I think I’ll also be doing celebrity portraits. I hate doing this because I don’t have specific rights to the photos I use as reference. BUT, in the past, using a popular celebrity image drives up the likes & follows. Comment if you’d like to see any of your favorite celebrities painted! 🖤

    I enjoy making portraits. I always think, people, pets, & plants. So much character and observation.

    If you’ve made it this far in my post – I’m also still open to practice with your photos (pets are cool too)! Email me @ Gemma@mosslike.com 🖤 If I like the photo you send me, I’ll do a free practice portrait of it. Thanks for reading!