Hi, let me show you what I made today.
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Here we have the star of the show or stars, plural, I guess.
These wooden spiral notebooks.
They're small, petite even, they're wooden, they're spiraling
and they're gonna be our canvas.
How many different ways can I display these?
This one has a crack, not that anyone's judging.
Okay, I thought they'd be like really cute to display on a shelf
or something like as a set so my plan is to create some kind of series
of paintings on them that are cohesive and you know, go together.
For painting these, I've decided to use gouache
just because acrylic paint has been frustrating me a little lately,
it's just that sometimes glossy sometimes opaque attitude, you know,
I need a little break, so instead, I'm going to use gouache
because you know, it's consistent like all good relationships should be.
Obviously have some water, you know, to make everything more smudgy
and you know, also to clean your brush
if you're not really into like muddying all your colors or something, I'm gonna try.
I have a paper plate for my palette and a palette knife,
we'll see if I actually use that to mix my paint or not.
Honestly, it's really up in the air right now.
So these little wooden book things, they're wood, right?
And wood is sort of natural so I'm already thinking, you know,
natury naturalness, you know
but I don't like jumping into anything without at least a bare minimum plan.
That's where the sketchbook comes in.
I'm just going to sketch out some ideas and like really figure out what I want to do.
I created a 1x4 grid of these like wooden book shape rectangles.
Since I want them to be, you know, part of a set,
they kind of need to look good next to each other.
That was what I was thinking.
I figured since if I wanted to display them in a row,
I could maybe have a sort of rainbow going on
so I kind of just labeled each box with some colors that might work
and if I go with that, I also knew I wanted like people to be involved,
you know, specifically girls.
I just kind of feel sort of out of practice drawing people lately,
I don't really know what happened because it used to be all I ever drew
and now it feels like it's been a while,
I just wanted to get back into it in like a big way
so I've committed to including a character in each of my paintings today
so first, I sketched a little girl
and I thought maybe this one could fit under that blue purple box.
I imagine she's at camp, the sun just set.
I really like this sketch, it just kind of like feels so summer to me.
The next sketch was inspired by the pinks and oranges.
I wanted to continue the summer theme too
so I thought maybe flowers would capture the colors
and the theme at the same time thus the bouquet.
This one also felt more feminine so I just gave the girl a flowy dress.
Decisions don't have to have big reasons, you just gotta make them, you know.
So now, I've got two characters, they've got similarities
and also like some really big differences that kind of make it fun.
So they're kind of cohesive in that way
but then I decided to draw this girl that had clouds for hair
um and this idea just like struck me so hard, I just loved it
and I actually have created a character with clouds for hair before.
I don't know if you saw the drawing with every single blue art supply video
I made a few years back but I don't know, I just felt like I needed to revisit it
and like as soon as I sketched it out, I just knew I had to do something with this.
I wasn't sure how this was going to fit into the vibe with like the other two girls
so I did try a few other things.
I thought um if the blue painting maybe had clouds for hair,
what if the orange pink one had flowers for hair, huh?
So here's what that kind of was looking like in my head.
I mean I think it's really cute, I like it.
I did try another rendition as well just because
I didn't want to go with like my first one if maybe there was a better one out there.
I really like these but I just felt like I was gonna have to give up on my girl with the hat
you know and she was my first love, today, so I had to revisit her
but I don't know, I still just wasn't settled on that idea.
I did take a break, cleared my head and I decided
I couldn't not draw the girl with the cloud hair regardless of whatever else happened
or what the other paintings look like, I just,
I just had this desire to paint these clouds and this girl
so I just decided to just jump right into it.
I grabbed one of the wooden spiral notebooks
and I just started to sketch out that specific idea with a pink col-erase pencil,
making sure it was well laid out on the cover
and everything was where I wanted it to be.
I also specifically tried to maintain my favorite swooshes
and shapes of the first sketch, particularly where the hair was concerned.
I did try a couple different like layouts of her like body and her arms,
um, I finally settled on this one with her like subtly grabbing at one of the clouds.
I don't know, I thought the interaction would just like really help the illustration,
then I gave her a nice flowy dress
kind of like that second sketch character that I had done earlier.
I thought this might look good in white to like pop from the blue sky background
and then in the midst of the sketching, I had a thought,
what if I drew the girls, I mean, yeah, we know bear with me but,
I drew the girls all with cloud hair but against different cloud backdrops,
you know how like the sky changes colors
depending on the time of the day or the weather?
What if I created my rainbow gradient theme but with just different sky colors?
That way everyone can be cloud.
So basically, I started sketching girl number two with that in mind
and yes, the hat girl is back again but instead of braids,
she's got cloud piggy tails, in my mind they were kind of still braids but just cloudy
but I didn't know how to like braid clouds,
I figured this was kind of how that would look.
I did keep the camp outfit which I kind of regret now
but I'll talk more about that one later
but otherwise it was just about drawing in some background clouds
and just finish up the composition.
So now I've got two cloud girls, I've got an idea for at least one more.
This time the flower girl from the sketches.
I thought maybe she'd look good as a cloud girl
so I drew her on her own notebook with the flowy long cloud hair
and a flowy white dress to match
and on the third attempt, I have to say,
this might be my favorite sketch, not too shabby.
I ended up leaving the fourth wooden uh, book just blank in case I felt inspired later,
I didn't but for now let's jump into some paint!
Not literally of course, you know what I meant.
I started with the hat cloud camp counselor.
I mixed in some blue and some red gouache to create a purple.
It ended up being way darker and browner than I expected it to be
so I ended up adding a lot of white and pink to like pastel it up
and look at me, I'm using my palette knife, hooray.
The reason I mixed a purple is because
I figured that this would be my like sunset cloud girl
since she was originally inspired by
like the character surrounded by the fireflies if you remember
but at first, I decided I wanted like a wooden border around the painting
so I stuck some washi tape all around and yes,
I used the pretty tape because I have company, it's you, you're the company.
Then I finally started painting, starting with a darker purple at the top
and then fading down, gradienting into like a brighter pink,
leaving space for the white clouds and the character of course.
Then I went back up to the top of the painting with the bottom sky color
and I painted in some of the background clouds up there.
I lightened up the bottom half of the clouds to make them pop a little bit more.
Basically using an almost white color.
They're not supposed to be meteors causing carnage on the earth below, by the way.
That's in case it looked anything like that, they're way off the mark,
they're clouds, they're just clouds.
I used an even lighter color for the clouds that are more in the foreground
but still staying in the like purple pink family.
I used an even lighter one than that for the cloud hair to really make it pop
and then I used the leftover paint from the hair
to paint the bottom half of those clouds.
I created a skin tone by using a warm pink
and mixing it with some of the purple that I had left on my brush.
Just to kind of bring it into the color scheme.
That really didn't blow it out of the park for me
so I added a heaping ton of white and pink to that to liven it up
and make it look a little less dead
and look at me, back to mixing with my paint brushes,
well, it was nice while it lasted.
This color really suited the illustration better, I think,
it just feels more, I don't know, perky and alive.
Ended up lightening the hair and like the bottom clouds a bit more
just to make more contrast between them and like the background sky color.
I mixed up a new dark purple
and then I made sure I had a decent amount of water in that mixture.
That way I could paint on the eyelashes of the character,
it kind of just gives you like a smoother control
but it didn't really matter because I completely messed it up and I had to start it over
but it's still a good tip.
But, before I did that, I did end up adding a bit of shading and dimension to the skin.
I also found this gold metallic acrylic paint.
My original thought was to use it for fireflies since,
you know, the original sketch with the waterline, I haven't forgotten
but then I just saw how cute it looked as stars
and it worked really well with the other colors in the illustration
so it's still like an homage to the fireflies but also subtle and cute.
I decided it wasn't enough though when I added in some more white stars
then I did something alone crazy and I mixed up a green color
and I painted in the shorts.
Then I made a brown and I colored in the hat but I like the brown better
so I painted over the green,
I mean this was supposed to be that like camp counselor vibe.
I don't think it's bad by any means
and iIdid a pretty good job making the colors
fit into the color scheme of the illustration so I feel good about that
but a little later when I paint the other ones,
I think I'll be able to explain more about this
so we'll just move along for a second
but now everything does have color on it
so I took this opportunity to remove the washi tape
and see what we were working with.
That's so satisfying.
The lines came out pretty crisp except um like horizontally
just because the wood grains were so deep in that direction
but otherwise, very crisp.
The last step to finish this painting was line art.
So I took some gouache and I mixed in a bit more water
kind of like I mentioned before for the eyelashes
just kind of like makes it smoother
and that's when I finally redrew the eyes
and I also added line art to the entire illustration except for the clouds.
I decided those looked better like fluffy.
I can't say this looks too much like my own art style,
something feels phineas and furby, you know?
I mean, it isn't bad, it just doesn't quite feel like mine.
I love the colors in this and I'm really happy with how it turned out regardless
but I don't know, something feels just a little bit off.
I did end up using an acrylic paint pen and outline the outside of square
just to kind of try and clean up those areas
where the paint did bleed through the wood grain
and voila, the finished painting.
That accent was pretty bad but this is the finished painting.
Shall we, I don't know, do another one?
Maybe add a little washi tape.
This time I'm going for like a bright midday blue
so I'm gonna mix some blue and white
and create like a similar gradient to the last one.
I love how extreme this gradient turned out.
I also did the same thing with the last one
and I took the lighter bottom sky color and then painted the top clouds with it
and then I ended up taking a brighter white and like a teeny tiniest amount of blue in it
and I painted the bottom clouds as well as the character's dress.
Of course, I can't leave out the swooshy cloud hair,
took some of the light blue to add texture to the hair
and just making it look a bit more cloud-like and fluffy.
I tried my best to blend that out while still letting it remain visible.
I mixed up a light pink color for blush and then I used that for shading the skin,
this way I could like add the shading while I could still see the sketch
if that makes any sense, then I ended up going over that entire thing basically
with a newly mixed skin tone, quickly losing the face in the process, so goodbye.
I added a bit of line art but this face just gave me so much grief
like it looked best the first time and then you know how you keep tweaking,
it just gets worse and worse and worse
and you're like why didn't I just leave it the first way?
That was this painting and if the last painting didn't really look like it was my style,
this certainly wasn't really any closer.
I definitely have trouble drawing profiles of people's faces
while still maintaining my style and this was no exception.
This specific painting was when I just realized how out of practice
I feel about with drawing human anatomy
that obviously includes the face.
Even the shoulders and the neckline just looks odd to me
and this pose like the side profile three-quarter body view
was one of my like go-to's for such a long time, specifically a few years ago.
It's just crazy how you can kind of lose something if you don't practice it.
I don't want to like put down my art because I can see the good in it
and I know how to like move forward from there
and I know the mindset you kind of need to be able to do that.
I think it just hurts the most is seeing things
that I know I've practiced and conquered at one point
and just feeling lost in those areas, it's a little bit discouraging
like I know I can figure it out again, I just gotta put in some more time.
Anyway, enough of the pity party, I did end up adding a few teeny tiny stars
and then another white border around the outside
and here is painting number two.
Seeing the two finished paintings together,
I think you maybe you can start to see where the brown outfit
kind of feels a little like a discrepancy,
just you wait, we've got another painting to do first.
Placing the washi tape again,
making sure to leave a little bit more space on the left side
by the spiral to make it look a little bit more even.
So for this sky, I figured let's do more of like a sunrise
but you might be able to guess, I didn't look at a reference of a sunrise
and I just kind of went with it because this is like blood red sky,
I mean, now that my brain is kind of like rebooted
and I'm looking at it again,
I don't think I've ever actually seen a sky this color specifically
but I don't know, it's still cool, I guess.
I did the same thing with a gradient from top to bottom as the last two
but this time, I started with a bright pink at the bottom
and I moved up to a bright orange
and it's not quite as obvious as the last one
but you know it's there if you look for it
and since I didn't get too much lighter at the bottom
which should have been a hint to make an adjustment at that time but I didn't,
I didn't notice, um, I had to mix a new cloud color
to have any sort of contrast with the background so I did that
and I started with this like light-ish pink-ish orange basically white
and I colored in the hair as well as some of like the surrounding clouds
but I decided that that wasn't really yellow enough
and so only added in a little bit of yellow.
I created more depth into the hair specifically around the neck
by adding a little red to that cloud mixture
which really made the head pop out from the hair.
I love that as I placed the little stars in the background,
I kind of got this like vague hint
that the sky was like warning of a terrifying storm approaching
kind of telling the sailors beware.
I waited for everything to dry and then I tried a new technique this time
to see if I could translate my style a little better into the gouache.
What I ended up doing was I created a line art color.
I used this to trace my sketch
before I had added any sort of like skin tone or dress color
and this just gave me so much more control.
I could see my sketch and like make adjustments like I would with markers
which happens to be my go-to art supply
and so this kind of like brought those two things together in a small way
and I'm very happy with it because I ended up with this face that I loved
and I just felt like it actually looked like my style.
I don't know, that made me sound angry but I'm happy about it
but the only question was, would it still look like it was in my style
after adding in the rest of the paint?
I'll be honest, I was scared to find out so I started with the dress again
going over the white dress like the clouds
and this is when I think like the camp counselor doesn't really suit the vibe anymore
because now I have two paintings with white dresses on
and then there's her over there and she's just like hi, welcome to camp!
Oh well. [Pfft]
now that the dress was done, I moved on to blush
and then the skin tone from there being careful
not to cover up too much of the line art that I already had put down.
Except, you know, where I felt like it or where I accidentally did
but I tried really hard!
Then all I had to do was go over the line art again.
Essentially just kind of cleaning it up where it was looking a little sloppy
and I think that made a really big difference.
I also just made like a few little adjustments with the dress
specifically around the waistline since everything was so warm
and I still had that gold paint out,
I decided to add some more details to the dress with it
and it just made it look a little bit more regal and fun.
I really liked that little touch.
Then I just cleaned my brush and I was done.
Well of course I have to peel the washi tape.
That never gets old.
Once the washi tape was gone though, I just erased bits of sketch that were showing
and that's, there we go, here are all three painted cloud girl books.
Blue sky is on her third reconstructive surgery.
I am tempted to give her another one right now but I will try and refrain.
I'll be honest though, they do all look like they are in different styles.
The last one, I think, turning out the closest to my personal style.
So I'm really happy with like the progress I made
and like little small adjustments that I was able to make with this art supply
and just learn as I went and really experiment and find what worked better for me.
Gouache is just one of those art supplies that I always say I want to improve with
and it just finally feels like I'm kind of making a little progress
and so, yeah, I can definitely see some small victories today.
I also think I accomplished my goal of making them all look like a set
because they are all clouds so I did stay on theme.
Here's where we started in my sketchbook with some of those sketches.
I do really like these, I think these are quite nice.
I always like sketches, I just, I like the first stage of art.
I couldn't care less about finishing anything.
The only reason I finish anything is
because I feel like it's a better benchmark of where you're at as an artist
but I would be perfectly happy just sketching for the rest of my life.
Although no, I probably get bored at some point, I want to add color
but I'd be mostly happy but it's feeling a little blank
so I just took the leftover paint that was on my palette
and \hadn't dried yet and I just painted in some clouds
and I think that probably does it for today.
Thank you guys for watching,
I had a lot of fun continuing to experiment with gouache and learning a little bit.
I hope you all have a delicious evening full of waffles.
Bye!
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