Today's tutorial is all about winter illustration we'll draw penguins
snowflakes and more
Hi guys i'm Shayda and on this channel I teach art like
hand lettering illustration and watercolor so if you haven't already
please subscribe and today's video is kindly sponsored by story blocks they
are a stock image site with a huge amount of high quality photos vectors
icons and audio tracks so all of the images that you're gonna see used in
today's tutorial are from story blocks now they have over 400,000 images in
their member library and as a member you can download anything you like and right
now you guys can try this for free they're giving away seven days free
just click the link in the video description and grab a penguin and
illustrate along with me well grab a picture of a penguin so I'm downloading
this photo and that's what I use to draw this little image from now I haven't
mentioned that these winter illustrations are meant to also serve as
the final illustrations for our 2017 calendar so if you're giving the
calendar as a gift this Christmas I know we started late in March these winter
illustrations are sort of meant to give you some inspiration to finish off the
January and February pages if you want to okay so to start the snow globe I am
just I always start with a cross that just helps me it's like a grid it helps
me keep things balanced and looking equal on both sides so that I don't have
this wonky snow globe so I've got my cross and then I'm just drawing the
shape of the snow globe and you could do a little guy like this or you could do a
really round one and at the base I'll put a little title on there South Pole
vacation or something like that so the shape of the snowglobe comes together
pretty simply and you can have some fun with that
then to draw the penguin I always start with this sort of lumpy egg shape I used
that for a lot of birds and I put these two little arm like wings off to the
side he's got a beak just sort of in the middle of his head there and two little
eyes on the sides on each side of the beak and of course I'm finishing
with some earmuffs and some very nondescript flipper like feet now let me
go over him in pen so you can sort of see what's going on here but this is
very general I've sort of just given the basics of what a penguin might look like
and you could really play around with these basics and see what you like and
see what works for you in terms of the illustration now let's take a glance
back at the photo for a second because what I want to convey is that you can
use a photo however realistic to make an illustration however whimsical you just
want to capture some details like those chubby little wings or the tiny head and
that helps you to create your fun illustration in addition to illustrating
this penguin I've also used the stock image to create some fun graphics stock
images like these are invaluable if you run a small business like a podcast or
an Airbnb and you need media so if you would like to try Storyblocks just
click the link in the description below to get started with your 7-day free
trial that concludes our little penguin sketch he looks sexy he looks chubby and
let me show you another one that I drew he looks different and yet somehow the
same because I drew him I love seeing the way you guys change these
illustrations I love seeing your drawings on social
media so keep posting them I'm transferring this guy on to my sketch
pad here using graphite transfer paper and then of course I'm just going over
it with my pigma micron so with this illustration I've done things just a
little differently I've done that round snow globe and of course the penguin is
sitting down he's sort of chubby I guess the other ones chubby too but you can
see how a few small decisions leads to a very different illustration and next I'm
doing some winter trees for the trees I'm just doing some really basic tree
shapes I just wanted to propose another sort of winter wintery idea which would
be these trees so for this one I start with the sort of the trunk and the stem
and then you just make this sort of bubbly shape coming out to represent the
leaves and then I'll show you how I do the pine tree on the other side with my
pencil I draw a line straight down and then I just do these pairs of
triangles going out and they do not have to be equal or perfectly aligned you
want it to be sort of wonky and whimsical and then once I've done the
pencil sketch I just go over it in pen now the tree illustrations are fairly
simple you can finish them off with some little snowflakes or whatnot but what I
want to show here is that when we color in all three of these illustrations
we're going to work within a certain color palette and I think the color
palette is what leads to the success of this illustration so I've got some art
markers here and I'm gonna lay out my color palette before I even begin
coloring the illustration I'm using three different shades of blue sort of a
minty blue and then a light blue and a dark blue I've got two different colors
of grey dark gray light gray and I have a red for that really nice accent
colour and choosing a palette before you start it will really help you
will lead you to success with your illustrations I really believe that
whether you're working in gouache watercolor or marker or pencil crayon it
just allows you to think more like an illustrator and a designer and you'll
have this very cohesive look in the end you can see as I work these
illustrations and Colour them in that they're all gonna look like they belong
together like they're part of one whole and in that way I've sort of developed a
series of winter illustrations and that's because I've thought through my
color palette ahead of time if you were gonna do a book you could illustrate a
book in just these colors even though it's limited it leads you to this very
cohesive and thoughtful finished product for our earmuff penguin I will use that
accent color that bright red on just his earmuffs and I may not use it anywhere
else but it wouldn't be the same without that pop of red so think about when you
do think of your color palette using some color some bright color or
contrasting color to add that that little something extra and I'm just
going to use my chisel tip art marker here to give a little background for
those trees the chisel tip art my workers are great for laying down those
washes of color I'm gonna finish these illustrations by using a white gel pen
to put a little snow in my snow globes and on my snowflakes and here you're
gonna see me just draw I just wanted to sketch out a few little snowflakes I
thought that's another fun idea you could work it sort of like the trees
just illustrate a bunch of snowflakes and put a wash of color in the
background and you've got sort of this fun wintery illustration and I also used
the story blocks images to help me with my ideas for snowflake shapes okay and
the last thing we're gonna illustrate is that wintery cabin the snow-covered
cabin and you're gonna start by doing sort of a triangular prism sort of that
open tent shape and that will be the roof of the house that's probably the
most important part I'm gonna switch to pen here so you guys can see once you've
got that roof shape in place then you can come in with your pen and do these
you know icicles hanging off and make it almost this gooky looking surface
because of all the snow you could place a little chimney somewhere along the
roof there and with smoke coming out for this illustration all your lines are
very soft and bulbous because of the snow because of the smoke so it's a lot
of fun to draw and you can draw a line coming down from each corner of the roof
here to represent the sides of the house and then those lines are gonna be met by
again these big lumpy piles of snow and this illustration is all about the
negative space so those lines don't actually have to go anywhere because
snow is white and the page is white so we're working with negative space I'm
drawing a little door here on the front of the house and you can add any details
you like such as windows or maybe a wreath and then I'm also gonna
illustrate some little footprints in the snow here for this illustration I'm
going to use a different color palette and i'm gonna use my icy blue art marker
to add that a little bit of depth to the snow so just adding a little wash of
blue not going overboard with it same with the smoke just a little bit of grey
and that's what it looks like when it's all done I had a lot of fun with that
snowy cabin and remember guys you can try
story blocks for yourself just click the link in the description of this video
and try it for seven days for free it's a great resource to have if you need
images save for a YouTube video for making a thumbnail or whatever thank you
guys so much for watching today I hope you enjoyed the winter illustration and
I hope that you feel this has sort of summed up our 2017 calendars as I
did start late this should give you some fun illustrative ideas for those January
and February pages don't forget to subscribe please leave me a comment and
I will see you Friday with a new tutorial