Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings 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!
So if you missed the last couple of posts, I've been sharing the process behind one of my biggest art challenges ever - the Christmas Countdown Challenge! Which is where I draw pieces according to the song; The 12 Days of Christmas!
I'm sure everyone is familiar with that song and we're currently up to Day 4 now since we did the third day last week - three french hens!
So the next line in the song is:
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me,
Four calling birds,
Three french hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree
I actually had to google what a calling bird is, and I found that apparently no one really knows, and that it could just mean any type of bird that makes a lot of noise? The first google search result is actually an article called 'Is it “Four Calling Birds” or “Four Colly Birds”? A “Twelve Days of Christmas” Debate'
Source: blogs.loc.gov
In this case if it was actually "colly" birds, then that would mean they were blackbirds. But I thought black birds would be kinda boring to draw. And anyway the actual lyrics were calling birds, so I decided to go with my first interpretation, i.e. any bird that makes noise.
And one of the first thoughts I had was of the seagull meme that I'm sure most people would've seen:
Source: imgflip
So I decided on 4 seagulls as the calling birds for this piece. And I happened to come across this stock image on Google, which was perfect!
Source: Alamy
For the background I chose a simple dock and ocean view, as a throwback to one of my favourite watercolour pieces that I've done in memory of the times I spent gaming with my bros in Stardew Valley!
But I needed a slightly different perspective now, and wanted a view of the dock with the ocean in the back this time, just like many of the Google image results I found when I was looking for references for that painting. Which made it pretty easy tbh.
I didn't really have a sketch for this piece, I pretty much just went for it. So first, we draw the outline for the dock:
Then I traced the outline for the seagulls from that Christmas stamp:
For colour sourcing, I got references from this super cute picture of a seagull I found online!
Source: Pinterest
I loved this picture because it's so adorable! So I used the similar colours for my seagulls.
Next was colouring in the dock! I added in some extra details like the ropes and some shadows to give it a little more definition and detail.
Next was painting the ocean! This one was a little more challenging since I wanted to give it some depth so I had to blend different shades together and make the foreground darker and the background lighter. I also had to make it even darker under the actual dock to give it some shadows. I think I could've gone darker though.
And finally, we add in the sunset in the background and we get this!
I chose a sunset since the orange and red would contrast the blue of the ocean pretty well. And I made it a little blurry just to contrast the clear outlines of the seagulls and dock, since they were supposed to be the focal point of this piece anyway. I wasn't too sure of the blending, but I think it looks pretty good!
Overall, I really liked this piece! It's simple but still has enough detail and nicely contrasting colours and shades. And the seagulls don't stand out too much since the dock is also outlined. A pretty cohesive piece altogether! And I guess it also serves as a tribute to a funny meme so there's that. 😆
I think this piece probably took the least amount of time of all that I've done so far so I was quite relieved to have a break since I basically did these pieces daily as part of the challenge. Hope you're liking this series and tune in next week for day 5, which was quite a doozy!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
