Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my paintings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
I was kinda stumped on what to get Sean for Christmas last year, then I remembered Sean once told me he used to dream of sharing soup with his future gf and during our first Christmas together, that's exactly what we did!
It was just a simple thing we did together, but it was really special to us. And so I decided to immortalise it in a painting for him for Christmas in 2019! This also gave me an idea for all future gifts - paintings of all our special moments!
So anyway, it was my first time drawing the 2 of us, and I wanted to keep it simple, so I went for a more cartoony style.
For the bowl I drew the classic Asian soup bowl with the rooster on it just because.
I added some background elements and a couple of our foodie friends like corgi loaf and rice bowl doggo (which we named Gohan-kun). They're a reference to a gachapon machine we found during one of our recent trips to Japan:
And we thankfully managed to get 3 different ones and they're so cute! :3
Anyway, it was outline time!
I kinda messed up on the ducky face on the bottom though.
And the star on the tree when I went to colour it with marker.
I did what I could with markers but most of the colouring would be done with paint. I knew I needed some unique colours for the skin tone (especially for Sean) so this gave me a chance to try out my new gouache paints!
So this was done with watercolours:
The watercolour set I was using was a cheap one from IKEA. It got the job done most times, but it was impossible to mix your own custom shades which limited my colour range. So I decided to try some gouache!
I really only needed gouache for Sean's skin tone since I could just use watercolours for the rest. But it took me quite some time to get the right shade. I had so many layers blending together trying to make it look just right.
And ths was after lining once more! I think it came out alright though! I might have made myself a bit too pale, but it's okay! I was still new to mixing paints so I didn't want to chance it too much.
I also fixed the ducky on the bottom and the star on the tree by just redrawing it and pasting over.
The background seemed a little bland so I decided to throw in some light orange to give it a warm light look.
I was gonna leave it at that, but a few days after this was done I decided it was a little empty on the right side, so I added in another one of our friends!
It's Melon Kuma - the mascot of Yubari City in Hokkaido! His name is literally Melon Bear, and he is exactly what that sounds like:
He can be pretty frightening, or he can be really cute. I of course decided to make him cute instead, following these stickers!
As I had already painted the background I didn't want to risk ruining it so I had to draw it on another piece of paper and stick him on.
And this was the final result:
I think this piece came out pretty alright! Especially for my first time drawing actual people, pretty much. This style helped a lot though, and I'm glad Sean liked it when I gave it to him for Christmas!
Sorry for the long post! But I hope you enjoyed seeing the behind-the-scenes! These art gifts can be pretty personal but I like to share the little details so I'll always remember them.
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
