What Did I Learn: An art process post

[flamebyrd]

Mostly for my own reference, in the hopes that I can still remember these things the next time I try to do art.

For context, I've been teaching myself watercolour off and on for the past year or so, mostly by watching YouTube videos of techniques and never practicing them. I've painted mostly landscapes and wildflowers, presented on greeting cards for family. A lot of my process has been trying to uncover a style I like.

For now, I've landed on the style Hayao Miyazaki describes in his watercolour tips, as presented by James Gurney* (which are distributed with a Holbein watercolour set which I would love to own, but you can only buy at the Studio Ghibli museum in Japan). This is basically bold pencil lines with light, loose transparent watercolour on top. I've seen it a lot in Studio Ghibli art books and the messiness is appealing to me.

And now, the process of making art.

I wanted to do some art for Wandersong's first year anniversary, only I've always struggled to draw people. But I decided to just let go of my fears and try it, so I grabbed the A5 booklet of cartridge paper I use for sketching, a few screenshots from the game, and set to work with the circles and stick figures and so on. (Only I forgot to actually look up proportions and so on so I was really just winging it anyway.) Whenever I look at the way I draw faces I realise it's not surprising I found manga/anime so visually appealing when I discovered it in my late teens.

I quickly learned I was only comfortable drawing people in small scale (who cares about fingers, anyway). I eventually came up with a composition I was happy with, only I didn't like the bard's pose. So I sketched the bard again in the corner of the sheet and came up with something I liked more.

I then grabbed my iPad to use as a light table (what?) and traced the parts of the sketch I wanted to keep onto some Art Spectrum Draw & Wash paper (210gsm, rag, smooth) because I wasn't planning to do heavy watercolour washes so I figured I wouldn't need 300gsm 100% cotton paper (hah!).

Then I scanned my lineart. (Do I get an award for this?)



I loaded the image onto my iPad, recharged my Apple Pencil (oops), opened my drawing app, put one splash of green on the grass and decided I didn't have the patience for this. I always feel so disconnected with digital art, and I wish I knew why so I could fix it, because being able to undo changes would be amazing.

So, back to "traditional" media.

I took a deep breath and decided I didn't feel like using my actual watercolour palette and grabbed my water brush and Viviva Coloursheets**. These are extremely transparent, dye-based paints, and it wasn't actually a bad plan to use them, except the very first thing I did was put a huge, wet splash of bright yellow, which instantly soaked through the paper and was unremoveable (because dye). After some panic and dabbing off excess colour, and trying to pull it across the rest of the painting with water, I added some green splotches on top of the yellow. It was very bright and unnatural.

I gave up on the Viviva** and opened up my watercolour palette. This is a collection of Derivan, Art Spectrum and a few Daniel Smith tube paints that I've built up gradually over the past year. I've prioritised transparent (or semi-transparent) paints with high lightfastness and I now have 17 different colours (plus a white gouache). The main thing I don't like about it is that I need to do a lot of mixing, but I'm coming to realise this will just be inevitable.

I refilled my waterbrush and started testing on a piece of scrap paper before I set brush to the final piece.

From here it mostly proceeded well, aside from the granulating colours (purple and ultramarine blue) which always look messy to me***.



Not shown: every time I scanned, arguing loudly with the Canon drivers about how the scanner did exist and was actually connected and didn't it remember successfully scanning two minutes ago?

I thought this looked nice, basically what I wanted aside from the grass and flowers, which had been ruined by the yellow at the very beginning, however I sensed needed a way to make the characters stand out more. So I posted it in the Wandersong Discord and asked for advice. And I got it! They suggested making the outlines around the characters darker.

I grabbed my 2B pencil again and quickly discovered I didn't like the sheen the graphite left, when the rest of the pencilwork had been muted by the watercolour. OK, I thought, my brother's partner gave me her old Derwent artists' coloured pencils at Christmas, maybe I'll try those. I thought it would be nice to use dark blue for Miriam, and dark green for the bard. Two problems: 1) even when I did manage to sharpen the pencils to a point, they crumbled as soon as I set them to paper, 2) the lead would go blunt again after maybe a 1cm line. Fortunately they erased pretty well, but unfortunately I forgot I own an eraser shield so I had to redraw both characters' faces several times.

But eventually, the final product:



I like the way it turned out. It's pale and messy and sketchy but since that's what I was aiming for, that's okay. I think Miriam's little disgruntled face in particular is super cute. I learned things, I practiced my drawing, and I produced fanart for a thing that I love!

One thing I wish I'd added: a coloured song wheel, or something to hint at its existence, because the bard is clearly singing! Also, there are no shadows here. I will learn how to do lighting at a later date.

The final step of this process was to stare it for a while, take another deep breath, tell myself it doesn't matter if people don't think I'm good at art, and post to Twitter. (I then made several replies talking about The Process before I decided to write this post instead.)

I then spent an hour researching what kind of coloured pencils make nice, fine lines. I think I'll get some Prismacolor Verithins. Or should I be looking at felt tip fineliners instead for touching up linework? 🤔”


*of Dinotopia fame
** With apologies to Viviva, which is a set I really do enjoy using when I want bright colours.
*** Yes, I expect this just means I need to learn how to use them.


Main takeaways for me, in summary:
- Don't be afraid to sketch lots of things, you don't need to put all of them in the final composition (is this 'kill your darlings?').
- Scan your lineart so you're less scared to make permanent changes.
- Either use the 300gsm 100% cotton paper you paid good money for, or be very careful with your paintbrush.
- Use the actual watercolours you paid good money for, and take the time to mix and test colours on scrap paper before painting with them.
- The waterbrush is fine for this style, actually.
- Stippling with white showing through looks prettier than flat smooth washes. Don't be afraid to layer, and mix different shades of colour!
- Soft coloured pencils are inappropriate for outlining.
- Use an eraser shield!

Comments

[runpunkrun]

Now that I know eraser shields are a thing, I might have to find one and give it a try!

[flamebyrd]

They seem extremely useful, which is presumably why I bought one! Now I just need to remember it exists.

[alias_sqbr]

I like this a lot, and it was really interesting seeing your process.

[flamebyrd]

Thank you! Ultimately I suppose most of my problems come from lack of planning and also apathy, but it's all a learning experience.

[eller]

Oh, this is lovely! I like the style with the light washes.

[flamebyrd]

Thank you so much! I'm really liking this style and want to try some more things in it soon.