I’ve tried to write this newsletter a couple times, but honestly Sept/Oct were pretty quiet! I spent a lot of time writing and drawing for a Secret Project, I’m not sure how far I’ll end up going with it but I wanted to stay quiet just in case.
I’ve just posted a new illustration and while I was cleaning up the studio I realized I had a lot of stuff that helps show my process, and thought it would be fun to show some! Here’s the finished piece:
Inspiration
First we start with inspo! Like most creatives, I’m a big fan of Pinterest. I have a board for the Secret Project and noticed I was really drawn to late fall/desaturated/foggy images, probably because it’s November and I think it’s fun to draw things that match the season we’re in.
The Test Run
After doing the sketch, usually in procreate, I like to test various techniques for the different parts of the illustration. I work with mixed media so it’s important to test to see how things will react together. I’ll get a piece of cheaper watercolour paper and trace over a print out of the sketch. I usually try to do one pass that I know isn’t going to be the final to figure out what areas I need to test further later on, and I get a feel for the colours.
You can see in this one I focused mainly on the fields and stone fence. I could get a lot of nice texture, but the individual fields were too segmented and I wanted them to sort of blur together a bit.
Experiment
I grabbed a bigger piece of paper and worked on the sky, fields and fence. It’s important to take LOTS of notes, otherwise I will completely forget how I did something. I think that one sky texture is really interesting and would like to use it in the future.
A False Start
This one is on the Arches paper now, and while I really like the sky and fences/bushes, I still wasn’t happy with the fields. I thought I had done enough tests to move onto a final version, but I still hadn’t figured out those fields! Also the whole thing was too saturated for what I was going for. This happens pretty often, and it took me a while to not think of this step as a “waste of paper”. I used to get really frustrated but I’ve learned to be less precious about supplies.
I grabbed some scrap Arches and decided to try watercolour pencils. I was using only neocolour and oil pastel before, and I think my issue was that I have very limited greys in those sets. I have a lot more variety in watercolour pencil, and I could still get the texture I wanted.
I also figured out the tree. I was actually drawing the trees outside our living room window when the sun was rising, and luckily enough it worked for this illustration. I really like these little sketches, I want to do some winter scenes with this technique.
The Finish Line
I’m finally feeling confident, and I do the final painting using all the notes and sketches I’ve done. I think I managed to get it like, 85% how I wanted it but then I got to the point where I was afraid of ruining it, so I scanned it and popped it into procreate to finish up.
Here’s a wip and the finished painting before edits:
If you’ve gotten this far thank you so much for reading, and an extra special thank you to everyone who subscribed! I’ve been very much in a wintery mood, so if you could please comment your favourite christmas/winter movie down below. The more Hallmark-esque the better! Bonus points if it’s streaming somewhere.
Bye friends!
A Moment with You #2
Ran over here as quick as I could! Loved this peak into your process :)
Absolutely beautiful art !!
When I look at these stunning pictures, I feel comfortable, warm and happy ☺️
You’re seriously talented Lauren !!