Created with Canson Drawing 220 paper and Mepxy Brush Markers
Hello all and welcome to a different sort of tutorial. Well not too different. Just BIG and broken up into two parts! Now let's get into it.
I start by lining out my drawing. I use any art liner in sizes 0.8 to 0.2.
You may have noticed that my sides are missing in the drawing. This is because I used 3M Micropore tape to lone out my edges. I'm trying this technique to see how this tape holds up against the might Mepxy marker. I have used this before with water colour and it has not leaked through leaving my with a shape edge to frame my picture. Fingers are crossed.
Now the fun really begins. I start by using my darkest shade of green and shade the inner most part of the acorn leaf. I then come in with my medium tone and go over the entire area. This helps blend the harsh edges of the darker green. You can see I'm being very cautious with the edges where the tape is as I don't want to be too bold as to assume it won't bleed through.
aFor the wee acorns I use a bright green and a jade green just to make them pop against the incoming tide of green.
Next is the ranch. I only use two shades of brown as I still really want slight contrast in them. I use the darkest brown of them all to create the wood grain effect then go over the entire area with the lightest brown. This, again, helps blend the two together.
The acorn tops are going to be two different colours as the acorns will also be two different colours (mature and immature). I start by speckling the acorn tops with a medium brown tone. I then come through with a light brown on one acorn and a light green (the same one I used for the tiny acorns) and go over the whole acorn top. This helps the two different acorn top colours to blend with the medium brown tone.
For the immature acorns I use slimy green colour to contour and shadow it. I them go over with my bright green. One thing to keep in mind is to try not over complicate things. Keep it simple for yourself. When you over complicate by using so may different colours on small objects there is generally a point that the paper will get to where it won't be able to take anymore ink and start to break down. You don't want this to happen. So remember, if you're working on smaller areas, keep it simple to two or three colours.
I repeat the same action for the same process with the mature acorn.
Here is this little corner finished. You can see that the tape may not be working as you can slightly see the marker through it. It was worth a try but this technique was not successful. I will leave the tape on here for now as my guide.
BULK ACORN LEAF SHADING
These next 10 images will show you my process for colouring all the remaining acorn leaves. I use the same technique I used for the first leaf. Start with the darkest of the two greens you have chosen and shade the inner most part of the leaf then go over the entire area with you lightest green. I use a few different greens to create contrast, this will help the picture stand out.
As you can see I continued shading in the remaining leaves and acorns on the deer's antlers as I used the same process as I explained earlier.
The eyes of any creature are my favourite part. It's what brings your art to life. As they say, Eyes are the window to the soul. I whole-heartedly believe that. You can create so much emotion so simply. OK, so I use three colours for the eyes as I want a little more depth. Firstly I used a darker brown and shade just under the eyelid. Then i use a medium brown, a similar tone to the dark brown and shade either side of the darker brown. I don't take it all the way around the iris, just the sides. I then use a mustard yellow to the shade the bottom part of the iris. This helps to liven things up a bit. Sorry that I didn't take step by step photos of this part. I got carried away.
For the pupil I use black the shade the very top followed by a dark grey for the bottom.
I then shade the sides on the eye as I don't want them to be bright white. I used a very light grey for this.
aNow for the nose I use a dark grey and cover the majority of the nose. Then go over the whole area with a medium grey. I try and blend this one quite a bit as the dark grey I used was a bit too dark I thought after. So by going over and over (gently and slowly) i saturated the area where the dark grey was and was able to "bleed" it out with the medium grey.
I then went over the nose methodically with a white art liner and dotted areas to try and create a "wet" look for his nose. I then went over the dots with a light grey as they were so bright and I wanted the dull them a little bit.
For the antlers I speckled them with a neutral brown then I used a "whipping" technique with a dark sandy colour and went over the speckled area. Then I used a very light sand tone and went over the remaining area of the antler and blend (only slightly) the light sand tone and the darker sand tone. I also used the dark sandy colour over the antler sporadically to create some small depth in the antlers. I continued with this same technique over most of the antlers. The still blank parts I have planned to do differently. Stay tuned for part 2!
That's all folks. I hope you have enjoyed the first instalment of this tutorial. I'll be back next week with part 2! Many thanks for all your support everyone :)
Colours used: 00, 120, NG05, NG06, NG07, NG08, NG10, N52, L25, W39, N27, W37, N18, N25, N54, Y19, L67, O27, G28, W35, L24, N50, N07, G99
