- [Mira] Hey, we have a giant box of mail.
What could be inside?
Are you ready to go on an
art adventure of sorts?
I got some mail yesterday and I've been waiting on this box
for over a month, I think.
I think I ordered this in December.
So we're just going to get something out of it, and
see what this is all about.
So you may have heard of
The World's Blackest Paint,
or The World's Mirroriest Paint,
The World's Goldest Paint.
There's all of these really amazing paints
that are designed by Stuart Semple.
And basically I decided I wanted to see
what the hype was about.
So, I went up on CultureHustle and looked
through all the supplies and I came across
Unicorn Milk.
Now I have no idea what to expect from this.
I don't really know what it is, but it says
that "no unicorns were harmed in the making of this paint."
What a relief.
I was wondering about all those unicorns out there.
(upbeat music)
- So here's the cute little like milk pint thing.
And I think the packaging is so adorable.
Oh my goodness.
Let's open it.
So, this here is the unicorn milk.
When I turn the bottle, it looks very shimmery.
Look at how beautiful the packaging is though.
Like seriously.
Anyway, I think we need to try this
because I have a feeling this
is going to be up my alley, you know?
I really liked my gold leaf marker here.
I like all those little like shimmery accents in my artwork.
So we'll see.
We'll see what's up.
So, since this is really shimmery looking,
I think it would be so fun to test this
on this black Legion, Aqua Coldpress paper.
This stuff is so amazing.
I love it.
I hope it looks sweet on this paper.
Oh yeah, totally just noticed it says
"Stir Me to Wake Me."
Aw, how cute is this?
This cute little like star stick.
I like it!
Stir me to wake me.
By the way, I'm going to have you guys read this
because I just think it's awesome
that they put this on their packaging.
I conveniently just got new brushes.
So, I think we'll use one of these to swatch.
Oh my goodness.
This is going to be sweet.
Look at the inside of that.
Whoa!
And that's probably really hard to see
but this is so shimmery-looking.
Time for a little swatchy swatchy!
Alright, I've got a little bit on my brush here.
Wow!
Okay.
This has like really fine glitter in it.
It's like an elegant iridescence.
Next, we're going to see how this behaves on white paper,
and then I think we should do like a big painting,
and incorporate this unicorn milk into the painting.
Here's our fine Mixed Media paper.
It might be kind of hard to see it on this one,
but we'll figure it out.
Definitely much harder to see this one,
but it is still very, very shimmery.
So, we need to put this to the actual test
with an actual painting.
So, now that we have all our art supplies,
we're going to dive into the actual painting.
Now, I don't want to do some little painting to
just test this stuff.
I want to add on to my Creatures of Peace series
that I've been working on for years and test this paint
in a big painting that takes me
a really long time to do.
I really want to put this stuff to the test,
so, let's grab some other stuff,
and really jump into this.
I'm taking this jar here and filling it with blue paint
to mix it because this project is going to require
a lot of blue paint.
And I just want to save it in a jar,
in case I need to do touch ups later,
because it is a pain,
when you run out of the color, you really need.
Now here, I'm cutting up this little sponge
because we're going to implement a sponge technique
with this painting.
Now, usually when I do Creatures of Peace paintings,
I typically sponge paint the background.
So this is how I get it ready.
You sort of just dab the paint on
and smooth it out, simultaneously,
and it gets this really smooth, yet grainy effect.
So, before we continue into the next part of the painting,
I kind of want to do a little bit
of an icebreaker with you guys
and give you an update on what's going on with me.
So it's February, this is my least favorite month
of the year, to be honest, because every February
it's like clockwork, I just struggle to be motivated.
My productivity just kind of dips a little bit.
I feel less inspired and yeah, I'm feeling that right now.
So, one of the things I'm actually doing right now
to combat my stagnance in productivity is taking a class
on Skillshare and it's called "Productivity for Creatives:
Build a System That Brings Out Your Best" by Thomas Frank.
I'm really excited for this because
watching other creatives talk about how
they manage their productivity really helps me.
And speaking of that class, I just want to thank Skillshare
for sponsoring today's video.
I've been using Skillshare for years
and I love it because it's an online learning community
with thousands of different classes to inspire you,
and they range from so many different areas,
and I think that's what I like about it the most
because I'm such a fazey person.
You know one week I'm like really into illustration,
and then, you know, the next week I want to go back
to oil painting and I can do that on Skillshare
because there's classes for so many different topics.
Now, if you're somebody who doesn't
like your flow to be interrupted while you're learning,
then Skillshare is great for you
because there's actually no ads to interrupt things.
They're also always adding new premium classes
and it's super affordable.
An annual subscription is less than $10 a month
and you can get so much for that
with all the classes that are available.
Anyway, if you want to know how you can benefit
from this right now, the first 1000 subscribers
of mine to click the link in the video description
will get a free trial of Skillshare premium.
And the question of the day, if you could learn any new sort
of skill right now, what would it be?
All right, let's get back to this painting.
So now that we've sort of set up our painting,
I want to talk about this unicorn milk in a couple minutes
but first we need to build this up.
Now, in the meantime, I just touched on a little bit
about what I'm going through behind the scenes.
So let's touch on that a little bit more.
So I am feeling
like I'm lacking motivation right now and you know
like I'm not being as productive as I could be as an artist.
And I think a lot of that is honestly just burnout
and I think it's okay to admit that.
Creative people, we go through these phases,
where sometimes we're like so inspired,
but we don't have the energy which is kind of where I am at.
And then sometimes we have like so much energy.
We don't know what do with it
because we don't have ideas.
You know, there's like all these weird sides of this,
like, I don't want to call it a coin.
I would, I'd maybe call it like a dice.
Yeah, yeah.
Something like that because there's just,
there's so many dynamics.
And that goes for people who write,
for people who create music,
artists who paint, graphic designers, whatever.
And yeah, that's where I'm kind of at right now.
So I've decided that this week
I'm going to take a week off from YouTube.
Kind of step back, relax, reevaluate things.
And I am really excited for that because I did not take time
off around the holidays because we couldn't go anywhere.
So, this is going to be my little time to
unplug a little bit, think about stuff if I want to
or just play video games and read books,
which is probably what I'm going to do.
So yeah, I'm excited for that.
And I wanted to share that, kind of,
as a "good news" sort of thing, because I feel
like when artists and stuff share this kind of news,
sometimes it's painted in a bad light, but it's,
it's healthy to take a step back, take a break and stuff.
And I totally encourage you to do it,
if you ever feel like you're in a rut.
And I think it's also good to get a conversation going.
So if you want to talk about your experiences down below
maybe you're in a rut right now,
and you just want to talk about it to somebody.
We are listening in the comments.
And maybe if you have methods that you have used
in the past to overcome it, to get out of your rut,
feel free to share them because it could totally
help other people who are scrolling
through those comments and reading them.
I read your comments and you guys helped me a lot, too.
So yeah, that's cool.
Anyway, I'll probably see you guys
in about a week and a half to two weeks.
It's going to be a good week ahead.
I can already feel it, you know?
After I export this video,
my little vacation has started.
I'll probably reply to comments
for like the first hour this video goes up, but yeah.
I also, I did one more cool thing
for myself and this might seem like I'm adding work
but really it's more like an outlet.
I created a side channel called Freely Mira,
where I'm literally just free to upload whatever I want.
There's no schedule, there's no theme really.
I guess if there is any sort of theme
it would be studio vlogs,
but sometimes it won't be studio vlogs.
I don't know.
We'll just kind of feel it out.
But as I said, this is like a no-pressure
sort of thing and I'm so excited for it.
And I probably won't upload over there every week,
because that's too much, but just whenever I feel like it.
So I just wanted to share that
in case you want to go over and subscribe.
Now let's talk about this painting again.
So this is my Creatures of Peace series
and I kind of wanted to take a little spin
on one of my last paintings, actually.
I did the sunset and
the creature that I'm currently painting on the cloud
with like the curly feet is the same creature
that was in that sunset.
He was sort of reclining
in the little Crescent moon with his little star friend.
So now I'm kind of having him in this scene here,
just kind of chilling out on these like see-through clouds.
They're like really, I don't know
For some reason I was feeling like making
these weird see-throughish look in clouds.
It just felt more magical,
especially when I'm going to incorporate this unicorn milk.
But anyway, he's reclining up here
with his little friend and then the sun is like
- [Sun] "Ayy! It's been a while! Let's all hang out!
- [Mira] So, there's a lot of just calm, relaxing,
happy energy up here and, I don't know, it,
it like warms my heart.
So that's kind of what I'm feeling with this painting.
And honestly thinking back on what I just told you,
and then thinking about this painting,
I kind of think like those things are tied together.
Like what I'm feeling right now,
what I'm craving just kind of came out
in this painting; relaxation.
Alright, I'm adding some final
little details to these creatures,
like their little cheeks, and their bows, and their fur.
But now we're going to start moving closer
to this unicorn milk.
The exciting stuff we've all been waiting for.
This is our magical bottle.
Let's just dump this out on this paint tray.
This stuff is so shimmery.
The camera does not do it justice.
So I'm adding it to the clouds
in sort of a highlight fashion.
I think in this case less is more.
And once you kind of see me move it in the light,
you'll see, there's actually a lot of shimmer into it.
So, yeah.
Look at that.
Ah! Oh my goodness.
I love it.
I love metallic accents like this and the fact
that this is like kind of transparent is so cool.
Well, we finished the painting.
It was really fun to go back
to my Creatures of Peace series.
I've been working on this for
five or six years and every year I usually add
like a piece or two to the series.
So, one of my older paintings was actually
like Creature of the Sky, but like a sunset version.
And I wanted to do like a cutesy cuddly version,
with like these soft, almost
translucent-looking clouds, where these
like dark creatures were floating on them.
So, this was fun.
Now, if you look closely,
you can see that unicorn milk shining on the clouds.
And I think that's such a fun touch.
It's like subtle enough
that it's not overwhelming, but it's elegant,
and it pops just enough that it kind of gave
the look that I was hoping for.
Like, as I said, I wanted the clouds
in the sky to seem somewhat see-through almost
because I wanted the sun to like really,
really boldly pop out.
And I didn't want the creatures to blend in with the clouds.
So they're both like really, really bold,
and so is the sun.
Look at this thing shine!
That is beautiful.
Now, as I said earlier in the video,
I will be taking next week off of YouTube.
So that means, that next Friday, there will be no new video.
I will miss you guys,
but I'm also excited to rest for a little bit.
So, that'll be cool.
Alright, thank you so much for watching!
Have a good day.
Bye!