I’ve been MIA this March, partly because it’s my birth month (ya gal is an older 20-something now!) but mostly because I’ve not really felt the urge to write anything. I do have some blog post ideas on my notes app but none that compel me enough to have a sit down and write my thoughts.
I have been more active over on Instagram (@keetnoodles). I just finished my second month-long art project on March which I might talk about more on here in the future.
In the meantime, here’s a watercolor process video I posted months ago. I joined in an art challenge hosted by an art friend I met over on insta. Enjoy!
Hello! The past few weeks, I’ve been working more on my art so expect this space to be a bit quieter for a while. I’m still thinking about scheduling posts on here and the type of stuff I want to discuss often. I have some ideas that I hopefully will be able to work on, now that I’ve quit my job.
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 thatPoker-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?
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.
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.
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. 🙂
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 ;))
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
(I’m giving a cookie to anyone who gets the reference)
Lame greetings aside, I’ve recently been experimenting with Photoshop. You probably noticed the change of quality of the graphics recently. Or probably not.
Don’t get me wrong, I freaking love Phonto. But the difference in image quality you get from editing with Photoshop is huge. So I decided to enhance the watercolor graphics you see in the sidebar over there >>>
Handmade graphics can be a pretty addition in your overall blog design. As this is a creative blog, I feel like they add to what this blog is all about.
Also, I just love watercolors so much.
I plan on using my own made-from-scratch graphics on all aspects of my blog someday. But for now, since the Free Plan has limited customization features, these graphics made in 7 easy steps will do.
So let’s get to it, yeah?
Step 1: Open the image you want to edit
This could be anything handdrawn, not just watercolors. You can either scan it or take a picture. If you do go with the latter, you want to make sure your camera has a good enough quality. I used an 8 MP phone camera for this one and manipulated with the sharpness, the brightness and the color using a combination of Snapseed, VSCO and MS Paint. And it looked alright. If you want a tutorial for this one, let me know. 🙂
Step 2: Unlock background
I find it’s better that the handdrawn graphics have a transparent background. That way, you won’t have to worry about how unclean it will look in your blog’s background. But that’s me talking about my own preferences.
So you simply double-click the Background layer in the Layer Panel and this will pop out.
Then click OK. You’ll see that the Background changed into a Layer 0.
Step 3: Add a new layer
I think this is what makes the editing of the graphics as neat and sharp as it could be. You just want to click that…dog-eared paper? And a new layer, default name Layer 1, will pop above Layer 0.
This will be your temporary background until you’ll have a transparent one and it will help you see that your handdrawn image is neatly edited. Next, drag that new layer down so it will be below Layer 0.
Step 4: Fill the background
Now still selecting Layer 1, click on the Paint Bucket Tool on the left or click G. Make sure that your current color is in contrast with whatever color your handdrawn image is. You can see that I used a pink that contrasts well with the blue watercolor brush stroke. After that, click on any part of the image.
You wouldn’t see any changes in the image itself but you’ll notice in the Layers Panel that the rectangle beside Layer 0 has changed to color pink.
Step 5: Erase the white background
Now I want you to select on Layer 0 so that only the items in that layer (the image itself) will be affected by whatever change you do. Click the drop down arrow beside the Eraser Tool and click on Magic Eraser Tool.
This is kinda like the opposite of the Paint Bucket Tool. Once you do that, you’ll be able to see the pink underneath.
Step 6: Polish
At this point, you just need to use the Eraser Tool (not the Magic one) to polish the edges. I wanted a faded effect around the edges so I increased the size of the eraser and simply grazed the circle cursor over the edges. For that neat stroke-y look on the right end, I decreased the size so it will only erase the part in between and also decreased the opacity.
And voila! A neat watercolor brush stroke graphics! But are you done?
Step 7: Delete Layer 1
Of course not yet! I did say 7 easy steps earlier. Here’s the last one. Right click on Layer 1 and click on Delete Layer. You’ll see the image now has tat checkered background which indicates that your background is transparent.
And voila fo’ reals! You’re done!
I hope this helped you a bit. Let me know if you want to see any specific tutorials and I’ll see what I can do to help. 🙂 But until then,
Hey guys! This is going to be a new feature here in the blog and you can expect it during Saturdays–although, not every Saturday. It’s kinda like Paint with Me or Get Ready with Me for lifestyle bloggers but since I plan on getting crafty every now and then, I thought “Create” will cover the broad scope of creative experiments and projects that I’ll have in the future.
Please note that these aren’t tutorials. Although I may have tutorials in the future, Create with Me will basically be a glimpse on what happens in the learning curve part of… well, whatever I’m learning. In this case, watercoloring.
I’ve also added some lessons I’ve learned during the whole experience including one lesson that I think can be applied to life in general. Because life lessons from mundane activities are awesome, no?
One thing you can expect: Lots of messes, mistakes and disasters. But that’s okay! As they say, every expert was once a beginner. And I seriously believe that the path of learning comes with lots of messes and mistakes and cussing. 😉
So let’s get to it! Today, I will show you how I made this kinda cute watercolor flower garden.
I love adding flower gardens in my sketchpads because they’re so pretty. But I’ve only ever tried one finished watercolor flower garden and…it was too messy for my taste. This one was my second attempt and it was a tad bit better.
The first thing I did was pick my color palette. I got two shades of green, one dark and one lighter, for the leaves and stems. I tried different colors for different stems the first time and that didn’t sit well with me. It looked messy. But if that’s what you like, go ahead and try it! I have three kinds of flowers in three different colors too.
Lesson #1: Always check if your brush was washed before dipping it in your palette. I forgot mine still had dried green watercolor from when I last used it and my golden yellow turned into this greenish color that looked like the color of mucus. Sigh. Had to add more yellow into it afterwards.
Gosh, I haven’t even started putting brush on paper, and I’m already messing things up. 😩
Okay, after recovering from that mucus disaster, I started painting the ferns and other leaves on the bottom part.
Lesson #2: There’s nothing wrong with rotating your paper if you want to. I mean, it’s far better than twisting your wrist. Less painful too, believe me. Unless of course you’re also improving your flexibility. 😉
Then I painted the flowers. At this point, I was winging it. Since this isn’t a realistic drawing but something quirky and informal in style, I wasn’t really focusing on perfect flowers. I added buds for each flower too.
And to show how noob I still am at watercoloring, when I got to painting the orange flower that was supposed to be this cute kind with more than five petals, this happened.
Oh no!
Lesson #3: Mind your hands and make sure they don’t touch a still-wet part.
Lesson #3.5: If it does, cussing is okay.
Lesson #4: But don’t give up on your work instantly. (As a perfectionist, this is a hard lesson to learn.) If you can still save it, try to.
After that disaster, I was so into painting the rest of the flower heads that I forgot taking pictures of the process. But this is how it looked afterwards.
I, then, added the leaves and stems.
Lesson #5: There are very few straightedges in the natural world. So don’t fret too much if your lines are crooked. 🙂
Also: did you know that the scientific term for when a plant’s stem stretches to reach enough sunlight is called etoliation? Fun fact, yo.
I added some finishing touches and it’s done!
I had so much fun making this, despite the many disasters (disaster #2 happend more than twice) that happened. I was also playing some music while working and it was quiet so it was kind of like a therapy.
Here’s the life lesson I learned: In life, we often encounter mess-ups and things not going according to plan. And we automatically give up. I know I did countless times. I almost did in this artwork.
But maybe, you can still save something. Maybe a little change in the plan can be good. See if you can do something else before you completely give up on whatever it is you’re working. Who knows, maybe that little change could make a positive impact bigger than you would expect. 😉
If you did something crafty or creative recently, let me know in the comments below and add some lessons you’ve made while doing it. I would love to hear about it! 🙂
