All right so we are going to look at an artist named Robin Mead.
Not the same Robin Meade we see on the news, this is a different Robin Mead.
This is a selfie of her.
I really like checking out the map to find out where people are from and Robin happens
to be from Elberton, GA that is down south of us up here in Kirksville and it would probably
be a really good long car drive to be able to go and visit her.
She used to have a job where her job was to help people.
Finally she followed her dream and went to art school.
And now she is an artist who sells her art, but also she likes to teach others who want
to be artists or learn more art.
She loves the ocean and loves nature.
So if you look at her beautiful pictures that she does that is what you see.
You see pictures about the outdoors, sometimes it's a landscape or it is just a picture of
beautiful things like ocean, hills sometimes it's about it is about flowers you might find
outside in a garden.
Other times you see some birds or some critters in her pictures.
So they are always interesting to look at because of their fine little pen lines or
marker lines that she has used to add a little pattern and detail inside her beautiful, colorful
pictures.
So before we start our own artwork, like Robin Mead's, let's take a good look at hers.
What I see are bright bold colors, but I also see areas where those bold colors are next
to softer, lighter colors.
My guess is that in order to achieve this techniques Robin Mead has used some sort of
paint.
Most likely watercolors, because they are really easy to blend from bright and bold
to soft and airy.
I also see in her picture where she has nice crisp lines that maybe were added with marker.
After she has gone over all of her lines that outline her flowers and other details in her
picture she has used that same marker to add a few more lines to create patterns that help
create a sense of texture and interest in the picture.
So it takes that picture from a nice picture to something that is much more interesting
to look at.
All right, the first thing I've done is I've gotten out all my supplies.
You can see here I have my watercolors, brushes, water cup, and a few other new supplies I'm
going to show you.
The first thing I did was write my name on my paper before I started drawing.
Since Robin Mead is inspired by nature, that is what I want to be inspired by too.
In my yard, I Iove it when all my flowers are in bloom.
Their bright colors are so pretty, but also there are such beautiful details in the little
things, such as the lines in the leaves maybe even the dew sitting on a flower petal.
All right, as we are drawing our ideas we always keep in mind the idea of draw light
until you get it right.
Sometimes, I have the bad habit of pressing too hard and that makes it really difficult
to erase my lines when I want to change something.
Usually, I can hide those lines that didn't get erased good with bright bold colors.
It is much easier if I draw light and then my pencil lines erase and nobody knows about
my mistake.
So it is time for a little movie magic, I am going to be working on parts of this picture
for a long time, so rather than sit here the whole time and watch my movie I gonna put
it in fast forward.
So that way you can really see the whole thing come alive and not have to spend a whole lot
of time watching it.
If you are working along, just hit pause until you are ready for the next step and then that
way we will be ready for the next step together.
Alright, so I want to draw so that I fill up most of my space.
A few empty areas, where I don't have any details now might be filled in when I work
on the background.
I'm pretty happy with what I have here.
It's time to start color.
So I'm trying something new with this picture.
And they are watercolor pencils.
So before I start on my picture I want to practice with them a little bit.
The box said that I could use them in 3 different ways.
I could color on the paper and then use my water and brush to go over it.
And it blends it together so it actually looks like I used paint instead of colored pencils.
The 2nd way I can use them is to wet my paper with just plain water and brush first and
then use the watercolor pencils color on top.
The last way is actually dip the color of watercolor pencil into the water and that
makes it a little softer to work with.
As you work the colors blend together.
So those are your 3 ways that you can use to do your picture.
So I'm going to start off working a little bit on my background.
First I want to wet my paper.
This is called a wet-on-wet technique.
It helps get that blurry kind of background we saw in Robin Mead's artwork.
So I just take some water, doesn't matter if it is perfectly clean or a little dirty
and first wet the paper.
Then, I get a little bit of the colors that I'm trying to use on my brush and paint that
on top.
So the water on the paper mixes with the wet paint that you are putting on top and it blends
together to create this cloudy like background that is really beautiful.
When you see colors in nature a lot of times there are different kinds of green that are
all mixed together when the flowers are growing; green leaves might be different from the green
stems and so take this time while your colors are moving and flowing around to do a little
color mixing.
I'm adding a little yellow right now so I have some yellow green areas in my background
and then I'm going to add brown here in a minute so that way I have some darker green
areas to really help show there are different kinds of green in my garden.
So we may not be in the same places in our pictures.
Artists work at different paces because we are all different and we do things differently
so if you are ahead of me and you are already done with part of you background and you are
waiting to see what I do next; take a break, stretch out your legs, stretch out your arms
and just wait to catch up so that you know what the next step is before going on.
If you are a little behind just keep working as best you can and listen to what I'm saying
while you work so that way you know what the next step is when you're ready.
Alright, for this next step I'm going to use that first technique the box talked about;
drawing just with the watercolor pencil like I would a regular colored pencil.
I'm going to take so time here to kind of blend my colors together so it looks like
I go from this purplish color that I'm using now out to a pink color at the end.
So by taking the time to make petal a little fancier now it's going to look amazing when
it's done and the colors are really blended together.
All right so here you can see I used the wet-on-wet technique again for the background.
So it really had that feeling of clouds behind all of the flowers.
Now you really need to let your picture dry before you go on to the next step.
The next might even be the next day.
What you see here in front of me now is the dried pictures.
I let it dry for several hours before getting to back to work on it.
I've got a whole bunch of sharpie markers, but for this picture I'm going to do everything
in all black.
I'm just going to go around and outline my flowers and all the other images I've drawn
in my picture with a black marker.
So these are all the lines that I originally have drawn in my picture.
Some of my background part are not very interesting and so I'm going to add some details to those
areas and to some other areas of my flowers.
I'm just thinking...what kind of lines and patterns, and shapes can I make to make it
look a little more interesting.
So to bring details into areas that are kind of boring and plain; just to spice things
up and make it look a little more interesting.
I'm finishing up the final step and you can see I've added lots of pattern and detail
to my picture by using those black marker lines in the back.
And so this is my finished product.
Now I also worked on another picture around the same time, but with this picture I used
different color markers to go with the colors I used in the picture.
It has a little bit of a different look, maybe it's a little softer, and not quite so bold
as the other one.
Both ways are using Robin Mead as inspiration and neither one is wrong.
It is totally up to you in what you choose to do and how you are inspired by the artist
we have looked at today.
I hoped you've really enjoyed this project and I'll see you next time.