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!
