Episode 64

Hello, dears!

In honor of it being less than three weeks until Christmas, today I’m going to show you guys a tutorial on how to make easy but beautiful Christmas-themed art. Grab some art supplies, turn on some Christmas music, and here we go! 😀

Art Prompt: Watercolor Nativity Scene

I hope this isn’t cheating, but the art prompt for today is actually my own art… XD I made a series of printables like this one for my Etsy shop, and liked making them so much I wanted to show you guys how you to paint it for yourselves!

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You Will Need:

• Waterproof pen (like Microns) and/or a pencil
• Blue, black, and white paint (I used watercolor)
• White gel pen (optional)
• Painting supplies (paintbrush, heavy paper, water, etc.)

1. First, let’s draw the stable. I’m using a pen so it will show through the watercolor better later, but you can use a pencil if you want. This part is pretty easy – make a simple house shape, and a line beneath it for the ground.

2. Next we’ll make the manger. Draw a rectangle with a thick “X” beneath it. Then draw a tiny face and half an oval for the body.

3. Start drawing Joseph. (I penciled in the whole thing and then outlined it block by block in pen so it’s easier for you guys to follow along.) First, draw a tall, narrow triangle with a blunt end. If this looks weird, don’t worry – we’ll fill in everything with black later on, so the lines won’t show.

4. Finish Joseph. Add a short line connecting to the stable wall for his legs, and a curved line almost touching the manger for knees. Draw what shows of his arm coming from about the middle of the blunt triangle. The head is the trickiest part – I always just redraw it until it looks good. XD I gave him a short headscarf thingy as well.

5. Start drawing Mary. We’ll do the same thing with Mary. Draw a slightly shorter triangle than last time.

6.  Finish Mary. Add a wavy line from her neck to the ground, and legs and an arm like with Joseph. As you can see, I had to extend the manger a little bit because she was too far away to reach it. XD I also tried to make her face a little softer than Joseph’s, with a more prominent forehead and less prominent chin, and then gave her a longer headscarf thingy.

7. Paint the background. The hard part is over! Now cover the top portion of your paper with blue paint. Try to make it darkest at the top and lighter towards the ground. You can use a paper towel or a clean, dry brush to lift some paint and make lighter spots for a more galaxy-like texture.

8. Add some stars. I used white gouache, but you can use other paint or a white gel pen.  Make sure the blue is mostly dry, especially if you’re using a pen. If you’re using paint, dilute it with a little water and tap the paintbrush handle to splatter it across the paper. While you’re waiting for everything to dry, you can go ahead and paint the ground in with black.

9. Paint in the silhouettes. This part is fun. 🙂 After everything is dry, fill in your outlines with black paint, touching up  the shapes if you need to.

10. Add details with a white gel pen. This step is optional, but I think it really makes the drawing pop! I added the Star of Bethlehem above the stable, a few rays of light over baby Jesus, and then outlined all silhouettes with white gel pen.

And ta-daa! You’re finished. Looks lovely, doesn’t it? I love this type of art. ❤ If you made a piece of art inspired by this post, we’d love to see it! Find out how to add to our Art Lab gallery here.

What did you think of the painting? Are you excited for Christmas? (Like that’s even a question… XD) Isn’t splattering paint an entertaining pastime?  And do you think you’ll make this piece?

Thanks so much for reading, dears, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***

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Episode 63

Okay, I’m a bit annoyed at WordPress.  I had this all written out, and then the kind WordPress deleted it all for me. 🙂

Today I actually don’t have a prompt for today.  I was brainstorming what to do that was slightly Christmasy, but still something that will last well through January and February, and so I came up with some evergreens.  I wanted to give it a new twist, and so I chose my least used and detested art medium, water colors.

It seems that most artist really enjoy water-color, so I went with what the majority seems to enjoy.  What you’ll need for the art project is:

~water color paints~

~water color paper~

~pencil~

~brush~

~water~

~white acrylic paint~

So, to get started, grab your paper and pencil.

Lightly sketch your main pine tree.  I decided to do a typical pine tree, even though I’ve never seen this type where I live.  In the South, our pine trees look like this.

When I was little, I asked my mom why pine trees in the Christmas books didn’t look like real pine trees.  Apparently those kind of pine trees grow where it snows.

I decided to do four different colors on my picture, with four different zones.  Zone one is the farthest from focus, and zone four is closest.  I did zone two as mere peaks, and then added slight detail for zone three.  Now, grab your paints.

Honestly, I don’t understand how you would like water colors.  They stress me out. XD But, I chose the dark blue paint for the sky, and slathered it on there.  While it was still wet, I used my finger tips to add texture.  I think that’s my favorite part of the whole picture. 🙂

For zone two, I chose blue-green, and put it on there.  Since the dark blue was still wet, they kinda combined, but I actually decided I liked that look.  Now it was less defined.

For zone three I used the brightest green I had.  I love the pop of color, and I just slathered it on.

On zone four, I took dark green, and added dark areas here, and lighter areas there, until I was happy with it.  Just play around until it agrees with your eye. 😀

Now, I kinda forgot to take a picture in-between?  So, we’ll have to go with this.  The paint had started drying, and so I took the light green and used it to define zone three slightly.  Don’t go over board, because we don’t want the viewer’s eye to be drawn there.  Take the dark blue and add it to zone four, along with some dryer dark green.

Next, take some acrylic and mix it with water.  Put some white on the top of zone four, and then take the left over and splatter it all over the picture to make it look like snow.  Let the picture dry before you sign it, and you’re done.

Do you enjoy water-color?  Are you looking forward to the holidays?  What is your favorite Thanksgiving food?

~~Amie~~

Episode 62

Hello, everyone! I was actually supposed to post this yesterday, but unfortunately WordPress decided to be mean and not let me upload photos or save my draft. -_- So here I am today! Also, I had inspiration for this artwork, but that too decided to be mean and disappear off the face of the earth. Let’s just say it kind of the same except with music notes instead of stars. Anyways, let’s get started!

This is what we will be creating today.

You will need:

• A sketchbook or a blank piece of paper
• A black, fine-tip pen
• A pencil

I started by drawing the figure with my pencil.

Then I started adding details. You can make the dress look however you want, but I decided to make it fairly simple with stars instead of music notes. 😀

This is what mine looked like when I was done with the brief sketch.

Once I was done with the sketch, I started penning it in!

This was when I was about halfway through. I decided to color in my stars, but you can just outline yours if you would like. 😀 And yes, the stars were as time-consuming as they seem. :p

Finally, once I penned in everything, I erased my pencil lines, and voila! I hope y’all enjoyed, and have a fabulous day!

~Danielle

Episode 61

Hey guys! Welcome back to Art Lab! We all know that distressed clothing items are in right now, but what about distressed art? I got the idea of “distressed art” from an old pair of jeans while cleaning out my closet the other day. (who knew that old jeans could be art inspiration? XD) After a few attempts I finally got it right – and I’m super excited to share it!

Episode 58

Hello, everyone! I’m Danielle, one of the new members of The Art Lab! I’m so excited to be sharing art tutorials with y’all, and hopefully you’ll like what I post. :p

Today’s artwork wasn’t really inspired by any particular piece of artwork. What I’m doing today is a pretty common style of watercolor, but my sister did help me come up with this and I have seen a lot of artwork similar to this,  so I guess you can say I got my inspiration from there. :p

(also, Hannah did some beautiful pen and watercolor autumn leaves in Episode 56 that I partially took inspiration from)

This is what we’ll be creating today. 😀

You will need:

• Paper (preferably watercolor paper, but I don’t have any at the moment, so I just used my sketchbook)
• Watercolors
• A black, fine-tip pen
• A pencil
• A paintbrush

And now we shall commence. 😉

First, I lightly sketched the wand (you can make it look however you want) with my pencil.

Then I just outlined the wand with my pen and added detail to the handle. 🙂

For the watercolor/magic part you can pick out any colors you want. I picked fall hues because it is fall, and I needed/wanted to make this kind of fall-ish. XD

Once you’ve picked out your colors, you can just start painting random swirls from the tip of the wand.

You can blend the colors together when you branch swirls off of each other.

Make sure your paint is completely dry before you add the pen detailing, or your pen will be ruined. I decided to add a few swirly lines to add a bit more depth to the painting. I did actually have to get a different pen (not because of the paint :p) for this part because my sister killed mine while working on her BuJo. -_- R.I.P. dear pen. (Don’t worry, my pen’s ink comes back after a couple of days with the cap on XD)

And thus we arrive at the finishing touches. I added some twinkles with my pen. If you want, you can add a background with your paint and add white stars, but I decided to leave mine simple. 😀

For me, this a Harry Potter wand, but you may draw whatever you want. You could do a fairy wand, a book, or a vintage bike. You could even draw a cheeseburger. XD The watercolor just represents the magic coming out of the object. For instance, I drew this jack ‘o lantern later:

I thought it was really cute and Halloween-ish. :p

I hope you enjoyed!

~Danielle

(Note: I forgot to sign them, so please don’t use these photos without permission)