Grace Ding

The artistic endeavors of Grace Ding, an architecture graduate who loves Jesus, comics, illustration, and you. Everything here is made by me unless otherwise noted. Enjoy your stay!

[anordinaryadventurer]

The Names of God

In my efforts to find a place as an artist at my church, I volunteered to make this illustration for my church’s current sermon series, the Names of God. I sometimes feel lost when I do illustrations because I’m less accustomed to them, but for me this was more like Design, so it felt more natural. Each name has a scene illustrating the Bible story from which it comes from. Some are pretty obvious and some are kinda hard to guess. How many stories do you guys recognize?

[anordinaryadventurer]

Me, Myself, and My Pencils | Inheritance Magazine

This is a very personal piece for me. 

Usually when I contribute to Inheritance, its providing the art for someone else’s story. This time, it was my story being told. (Which by the way is a very weird thing for me, because I don’t think that I’ve done anything particularly notable, like definitely not enough to merit an article.) I’ve had a very long and complicated relationship with art. Most of my life its been something that I do, but not something to pursue seriously. It’s been a struggle to overcome the underlying guilt about spending time drawing instead of doing more “meaningful” things. But in recent years, God has been showing me that Art too can be a calling. 

I wrote and drew this comic about some of my jumbled and confusing thoughts. The accompanying article is written by Adaobi. 

Read the whole thing here: http://inheritancemag.com/42-hands-on/me-myself-and-my-pencils

Thanks to EIC Daniel Chou, Artistic Director John Cheng, and Managing Editor Sarah Park for letting me share this personal story. And thanks also to all you guys reading this, for letting me share my story with you. :)

[anordinaryadventurer]

Dragonfruit

Bonus gif cause I was feeling silly: 

[anordinaryadventurer]

[anordinaryadventurer]

Have you ever drawn raven with her dad trigon?

SO I hadn’t and thought I should try to come up with something but it took way too long (so sorry btw). But the best I could come up with is like Raven’s all like “I don’t want to be evil so I’m going to stay here and pout” and Trigon’s all like, “Come on its like your destiny, you don’t have a choice, young woman” So yah, I dunno. I tried.  

[anordinaryadventurer]

This year’s Christmas Stamps. I took requests from my friends. 

And then I decided to make a number of breakfast food stamps, just cause. 

[anordinaryadventurer]

I drew a comic of the tree outside my church sanctuary that I love staring at and simultaneously thinking about life. Nature has so many shapes and curves that I just don’t expect. 

[anordinaryadventurer]

billbillbillbillbillbillbillbill

[anordinaryadventurer]

I re-read some HP. Have some HP doodles!

[anordinaryadventurer]

To all my followers: Thanks for sticking with me. I haven't felt up to posting in a long while. My relationship with Tumblr hasn't been completely healthy for a long time. Mostly for self-related reasons. Too much self-critique and comparisson to other artists. Too concerned with people's reaction to my work than doing what I wanted to do. Too concerned with stats. Too afraid of the toxic attitudes on Tumblr. I felt like people just wanted to consume my art. I didn't wanted to post or even log on. Tumblr had in some ways, ceased to be fun for me. And I think it was good to get away for a time. 

But, I don't think avoiding my problems will fix anything. Especially because the problem can only be fixed by me. I am going to start posting regularly again, but I wanted to let you guys know why I've been gone. Thanks for not leaving and sticking around.  I appreciate you all. 

[anordinaryadventurer]

cute things

[anordinaryadventurer]

I love all your pictures of Raven. Could you try drawing her in more action scenes like her using powers

[anordinaryadventurer]

There are so many cool washi tape ideas, so I thought I’d get in on the action and make a design of my own! I’m really looking forward to tweaking it for the holidays!

[anordinaryadventurer]

Hidden Spiritual Gifts, Inheritance Magazine #34 

I got to illustrate an article by my real-life friend Crystal! It talks about her experience of feeling like she had no spiritual gifts because she felt that encouragement, service, and teaching were all not for her. Later though, as she began to develop her cooking skill for different reasons, she found that cooking was a way she could serve God and bring people together.

I took this story and translated it into a circus setting because circuses performers are fun to draw! So here we have the story of a concession worker who at first is sad about not having stage talent but later learns that her food talents are appreciated by everyone. Read the whole article here!

Thanks EIC Daniel and AD John!

[anordinaryadventurer]

Succulent Alphabet

Debating about starting a shop. Would anyone be interested in buying a print of this alphabet?

[anordinaryadventurer]

Five Colors Five Titans

After drawing four skyward sword characters with five colors, I was wondering if I could do the same with another team. After the initial sketch, I realized the drawing could be tiled.

But this is only really useful if you wanted to make Teen Titans wrapping paper….

[anissapierce]

In Wht world is vic the same shade as star and rob? Bc tht world shitty as hell 0/10 I nvr want to see tht world again

[anordinaryadventurer]

I'm just going to put this here because at least one other person was confused by this already. 

I don’t think Cy should be white or be the same shade as Rob or Star. This was a color exercise to see if I could represent a team of varied people with a limited number of colors. Its a fun graphic challenge and usually leads to interesting color combinations. I originally had them as different skin tones but didn't want to add a darker tone for use in only one instance. Its not efficient color use for this exercise and “Five Titans Six Colors” doesn’t sound as good. So I tried to find the middle between Star, Robin, and Cy's skin tones. 

There are a lot of other middles too. Like BB's green skin and Cy's blue circuits. And Robin's red uniform, Raven's blue cloak, and Star's purple uniform. Its not supposed to be the real colors, just an approximation for graphic purposes. I can see how it might come across as whitewashing, but that was not the intent at all. Rest assured, I also never want to see a world where Star, Robin, and Cy have the same color skin. In fact, I think that none of the five should have the same skin tone.  

Diversity forever!

Edit: I’ve done a lot of research and thinking about race lately. And I don’t think I do a good job at apologizing with the above response. Although it was not my intent, do I want to apologize to anyone who took offense, any people who thought I was trying to make Cyborg white, and especially to any POCs who felt I was trying to erase their race. I made a mistake and I have since been corrected. As a POC myself, I care a lot about this issue and I won’t make the same mistake again. Thanks.

[anordinaryadventurer]

I don't know if you are still doing the color pallet thing but may you please draw Robin in 12 thanks

I’m not still doing the color palette meme, but I already drew Robin in 12 here! :)