Attempting More Details and Backgrounds

Here’s a fact about me regarding my watercolor paintings and drawings in general: I don’t usually have backgrounds. If you skim through all my artsy creations here in my blog, you’ll notice that I usually just draw a character and forego any specific background.

Lineart has always been my favorite part of making an artwork so I always have full concentration on that. Then I would breeze through the coloring or shading. I end up having a not-so detailed work and back then, I find that good enough.

Now skimming through different artists on Instagram and Youtube, I see how much work they put into the background and the little details in the piece.

It amazed me.

The result was this piece of work that’s more…complete, I guess. The characters aren’t just characters in white background. They have a story and a personality. There’s a certain mood that you won’t only see in the character’s expression but also backed up by the background and props.

And I decided, “I want that in my work.”

But deciding to change the way you create things is far easier than the act itself.

It was hard, extremely hard to add more into my “drawing routine.” And so I did it little by little this month.

Remember when I had that Poker-faced Girls Series of watercolor art? Well, I made another series but this time it’s four girls embodying the four natural elements—fire, earth, water, and air. It’s called Elemental Girls with Closed Eyes Series.

This is where I decided to put in a little more effort in tiny details. Each girl took up around a day to finish but that’s because I didn’t work with the next girl straightaway.

Water (I didn’t have time to think of their names, sorry) has this wavy-ish hair and the hem of her dress looks like sea foam. I had fun doing the seaweeds but omg, those bubbles feel so awkward. Or is it just me?water girl watercolor

Having Fire’s hair look like, well, fire was extremely fun, especially doing that gradient-like feel. Her seemingly burnt dress was an accident I made but a happy accident nonetheless.

fire girl watercolor

Air has no defining feature, honestly. You won’t be able to tell she’s Air without those clouds. But I like how dreamy she looks like, snuggled up in the clouds. Gosh, I want to be her.

air girl watercolor

Earth was the last elemental girl I drew and I loved her a lot. I honestly don’t know how I successfully made those cracks in the ground but they look so legit and I’m happy with it. 🙂

earth girl watercolor

Here are other works I made this November:

I painted the lineart I made last month and I was immediately in love with it. I made a short backstory about the five of them which you can see in my Instagram art account. (Psst! It’s a new account, give some lovin’ and I’ll spread it ;))

group watercolor and ink

My friend gave me this purple gel fountain pen-ish (I honestly don’t know what it’s called but the label has fountain pen so //shrugs) and I tried it out. I noted how the ink bleeds incredibly fast so I have to line a certain area real fast if I don’t want it to bleed.

violet-girl

I recently bought my first ever gouache tube set and I’m in love with how vivid the colors are! <3 I immediately tested it out along with my brush pen because I haven’t used that in a while. I learned that the brush pen bleeds with the gouache more easily than with watercolors as you can see with the Blue-haired girl. That was my first attempt.

blue-haired-girl

Don’t ask me what she’s looking at, even I don’t know.

This was my second attempt and I like how the gouache could be light and also used for details like the shadows of the hair.

ponytail-girl

This was my third attempt and I screwed up with the skin color but now when I look at her, it looks pretty with the light purple hair.

violet-hair-girl

This was my fourth attempt. At this point, I used watercolor for her skin and put in gouache with the rest and then lined it with the brush pen after. Meaning, I completely changed my drawing process. And it looked neater.

blonde-ribboned-girl

And that’s it! These are what I created this month. Do you have any favorites? 😉 Would you recommend something I would draw? Shoot me an email or comment it below!

Happy creating, awesome peeps!

Comments

Luna says:

shit you’re talented

Kate says:

Thank you Luna! 🙂

Your art always put me in awe, like seriously you have some mad skills

🙂 You’re so so so welcome Kate! And trust me you’re not trying, you’re killing it!

they. are. so. beautifully breathtakingly stunning xx

aw stop you’re melting my heart in this cold weather xx thank you

Aw can you melt my heart any more – the answer is yes <3

[…] the marvellous Kate from allthetrinkets. You guys should all take a second to follow her blog, her stunning pieces of artwork, and finally her awesome photography account here and her newly created art one here. For further […]

Lia says:

I love your drawing of the air girl! It’s so pretty! Your other drawings are so pretty too 🙂 I should draw more… I almost never do that anymore

Lia says:

Thanks! ❤
Your drawings are amazingly beautiful as well!

Leave a Reply to flawedsilence Cancel reply


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.