Tag: card

Art: “Soldier & Lady making a snowman” (Step by step)

I will be mailing my parents their Christmas presents this year. And since my mum was so happy last year with my drawing of the Mackintosh’s Quality Street characters Soldier and Lady, I painted her a Christmas card with them making a snowman.

Finished version of the “Soldier & Lady making a snowman” postcard painted with gouache
Finished version of the “Soldier & Lady making a snowman” postcard painted with gouache

This is one of their design from the 1960s, I think. From the side of a tin box.

Step by step

Rough pencil sketch on grey toned paper of a woman in long dress and man in uniform making a snowman

Pencil sketch. The background being grey, I chose a toned paper so that I would only have to add colours and white on top of it. It’s from a Toned Blue Mixed Media vellum surface pad from Strathmore. The blue looks more like a grey. It’s 4 in. X 6 in. (10.2 x 15.2 cm), 184 lb. (300 g/m2)

Paper pad, paint tubes, palette and brush. I've started to paint the dress and uniform, and the snow

I have only a few tubes of gouache paint and watercolour to mix colours. I knew the painting colours would not be faithful to the original, in particular the Lady’s dress which is supposed to be pink and fuchsia. For the Soldier’s red jacket, I mixed burnt sienna gouache with titanium white opaque watercolor and ended it with a pinkish orange, to which I added Indian red watercolour and was satisfied. For the dress, I added white and a little bit of Prussian blue to my orange/red mix. The resulting colour was plum, and this was fine. I added more of the red mix and used that for the darker parts of the dress. Then I used titanium white watercolour to paint the snow, leaving untouched the areas of the footprints and shadows.

Both characters and the snowman are painted, the tree and fence as well.

I needed a few shades of grey for shadows on the snowman, under the dress, and on the soldier’s leg behind the snowman. For the faces I applied white and brown. Then I used some ivory black to decorate the dress’ fur, paint the hat, boots, Soldier’s hair, the snowman’s stick and eyes, and the shadows of the tree. The Lady’s scarf was supposed to be blue and dark green, but with a dark plum dress I thought leaf green was going to be better.

Snow added and gold details on the soldier's uniform.

Snowflakes! I used a white Posca pen to add dots that I immediately tapped with my finger to spread the ink unevenly. Then I added yellow ochre to my green to obtain something that passes for gold so I could finish the Soldier’s hat, the top of his boots, the decorations on his shoulders and the handle of his sword.

I redid their faces

I wasn’t happy with their faces so I attempted to make them better. In retrospect, the faces were fine as they were!

More work on their faces. I added my name and date at the bottom.

I fiddled some more with their faces and as soon as I had managed to make them look a bit less weird, I stopped. I made them look happier in the process, so it’s all good. I added a touch of white for the teeth, which aren’t visible in the original, but since their faces were so dark, I thought it would be a good alteration.

Painting inserted in two slits I cut in a white folded watercolour paper

I didn’t want to write on the painting in case my mum wants to frame it. So I folded a white sheet from my cheap watercolour paper block, cut a couple slits and inserted the painting. I will write inside and will mail everything tomorrow!

Art: Toothless gulping fish (step by step)

I made a habit these last few years to hand-make my son’s birthday cards. This year I did something new: asking HIM what theme he wanted me to explore. Toothless, from the movie “How to train your dragon”, he said. Ok! I love this character: he’s in fact a cat. With scales and wings.

Grey toned paper taped with masking tape and the pencil sketch of a sitting dragon with a fish in his mouth

I started with a pencil outline on toned thick paper, the size of a postcard.

Dark blue gouache paint applied in the background

Then I mixed my Holbein Artists gouache paint: Prussian blue and ivory black and added titanium white (just a teeny bit), which I laid on the paper. I made sure to be as precise as I could

Darker blue and lighter blue applied on the dragon and where there is light on him

I mixed further my blue mix: more blue and black for the areas of the dragon that were in the shadow, and more white for the parts of the dragon that were illuminated.

Yellow paint in his eyes and on the ground around his feet

Then I used leaf green mixed with with to paint the grass underneath and his eyes.

Thinner yellow in the background to represent light rays

Here, I had a very precise idea of what I wanted to achieve and it turned out I just could not! I wanted rays of golden light falling in the background. I mixed some yellow watercolor paint (I don’t have yellow gouache) and white. And there was no way I was able to get the yellow to play well with the blue background. I had thought that once the background was dry the new layer was never going to be change by it: big mistake.

Brown and light brown added to the rocks

So I ignored the yellow rays mess, mixed a bit of black and white and painted the dark parts of the rocks. Then added more white to the mix and painted the light areas of the rocks. I used some of those mixed on the ears. I added details using black for the pupils, white to accentuate the illuminated areas.

More yellow added to darken the light rays

At this point, I had wasted both time and yellow paint 🙂 None of the strokes would produce the gradient I wanted because either the moisture of the paint turned the layers to green, or the new layer was unblended and it was going to look bad.

I covered the yellow rays after all and now the background is shades of blue

So, I returned to my early mix of blue, black and white and covered as much of the yellow rays as I could. It gave some texture to the background. I painted the bit of the fish that sticks out of the dragon’s mouth.

Masking tape removed, white lettering added to wish my son a happy 13th birthday, dated in signed.

Final result with lettering done with a white Posca pen. I hope he likes it! His birthday is next Monday.

Art: Cranes on pine tree (+ time-lapse)

I made a simpler version of “two cranes on a pine tree” which I drew for a friend last year.

I used black, grey and ink brush pens, drew on a watercolour postcard, and painted a gold outline with a thin brush and liquid gold ink.

Black, grey and red ink drawing of two cranes on a pine tree branch

Time-lapse

22-second time-lapse of my hand drawing in black, grey and red ink two cranes on a pine tree branch

Art: (larger) Crane (+ time-lapse)

I made another ink drawing of a crane after some Chinese brushwork piece by artist Nanrae.

On a taupe toned paper I used a black ink brush pen, my Kuretake Light Grey and Geranium Red BrushWriters, and applied gold paint with a brush.

Finally, I went back to the piece afterwards to paint the body of the crane with a white ink Kuretake brushpen.

I gave the framed piece to Shadi.

Black, grey, white and red ink drawing on taupe toned paper of a Japanese crane standing between some reed and an old tree with red blossoms.

Time-lapse

21-second time-lapse of my two hands making with Black, grey, white and red ink drawing on taupe toned paper a Japanese crane standing between some reed and an old tree with red blossoms.