Illustrate a Cute Sloth

1. Introduction: guys. My name's Amy Richards, and I'm a freelance illustrator. Welcome to my class. How to illustrate a cute Slash As a freelance illustrator, I've created artwork for magazines and newspapers, a local city bus, our National Hockey League team, the Carolina Hurricanes, and even have a few slot related products in my home decor and paper goods. Collections in this class will go over some drawing watercolor washes and adding texture with watercolor and creating leaves. I've laid out all the supplies for you here. Go ahead, hit pause and make your list. 2. Drawing: We're going to begin this project by drawing our branch. This is where our sloth will hang. The sloth itself is made up of various shapes, Mostly long ovals can see. I'm drawing the arms here. I'm going into a larger oval for the body and again, another long oval for the head and neck Going to add a circle for the face and a muzzle. Next, we're going to come in and erase any unwanted line work. I've now started going over my main lines, adding some textured for detail. We're gonna add those signature clause. I don't have to worry about making any mistakes at this point because we can no met things later on during the tracing process. Next, we're gonna add those shapes around the eyes. They look very similar to a raccoon. How they kind of look like they have a mask on. Next, we're going to start tracing our sloth. It's best if you tape down your original sheet of paper and then also taped down your tracing sheet toe. Hold it in place while you trace. I'm using a paper mate flare in Capan here. It's a felt tip marker. They're just my favorite for tracing and actually for doing a lot of things 3. Transfer your drawing: The next step in our process is to flip over, are tracing paper and add graphite to the back of our felt tip pen drawing. You want to be sure to get pencil lead or graph I on the back of all parts of your line Work. Next, you will flip your drawing back over, and once again, we're going to tape down both sheets of paper and secure are tracing paper over our watercolor paper. Next, using a ballpoint pen, we're going to press the graph. I actually into the watercolor paper by tracing over are drawing once more. When you left the page, you can see that there is now a ghost image of your drawing on the watercolor paper. 4. Painting: next, we'll on paint to our palate. Feel free to hit. Pause here to take a better look. Any time you're painting a paper from edge to edge, it's always a good idea to taped on your edges with painter's masking tape. The first thing we're gonna do when painting is laid down our watercolor wash bass in the background. The color I have chosen is stay low green. You can see I'm using more water than paint here, and I'm really keeping the paint moving on the page. We're using broad strokes just to get it filled in, and I'm also using a size six brush, but you could also use a larger one. Next, we'll add pain to the sloths body. I'm using a mixture of Van Dyke, Brown and Bert number for cooler color. And once again we're using more water to paint ratio. You're going to continue to use those broad strokes to fill in this loss body. If at any point you lay down some color that is unwanted, all you need to dio is grab a paper towel and soak it up, and the color should come off pretty well after your painting has dried for about 20 minutes. You're gonna go in and start creating strokes of for with a small brush using our van dyke and burnt number mixture. This is going to give the slots for texture and really make him start to come toe life. You can add lighter and darker strokes. You're gonna want to go along with the shape of this loss body when making his for for these strokes, I'm using a size to brush, but you could also use a larger brush and just make sure that the tip is nice and smooth. Once again, I have sped up the process, but you can keep going over the same places where you've added for already toe add depth and more texture. Next, we're gonna add some dark paint to the back legs of this law. This is going to make them appear as though they set back in space. We're going to add some darker brown paint toe, highlight his muzzle, and using lamp black will create a gray to go around his eyes to create that mask like feature. Just a few more details and we're almost done painting the body. Once again. You can keep going back over with darker colors to create texture and the slots for using a mixture of van dyke, brown and Indian red. I'm going to fill in the branch and make it a little darker. The last thing that we're gonna add with paint are bright green vines and leaves. You can see here that by just applying very minimal pressure, I can get a pretty thin line to create your leaves. You're going to start out with less pressure. Come out with your stroke, adding more pressure, and then you're going to apply less pressure again to make the point of the leaf. Once again, I'm using a number two brush to create my leaves and vines the leaves and vines at a pop of color, texture and pattern to your slots habitat and really bring your final composition together . 5. Adding details with ink: carefully. We will start to remove the tape from the edges of our painting. Look at those nice crisp edges, so satisfying. Using a size 01 micron ink pen, I'm adding some details to the sloth space. I'm adding some fur around his muzzle and also some details of for around his eyes. I'm also going to go in and add some for details to his actual body and around his head. You can add as much or little detail with your ink pen as you like. I'm going to outline my leaves and also give them some veins. This makes them stand out more and gives them a little bit of character, adding just a few more details of for to the body. Our composition is just about complete. Thanks so much for following along with me today. I really can't wait to see all the adorable slots that the students in this class are going to create. Don't forget to upload it to the gallery page. Thanks again