Alcohol Based Markers & Learning Textures - A Misty Mountainscape

1. Introduction: Hey, there. I'm Sabrina Gosson, a certified wildlife biologist go freelance artist. Like many artistic professionals, I've taken on many creative exploits and have achieved diplomas in graphic design, digital photographic imaging, which is just a fancy way of saying photo editing and UX design. Over the past decade or so, I've been slowly growing my freelance illustration career where my primary medium is alcohol based markers. This class is part of a series where I demonstrate how I go about experimenting and creating texture swatches for reference in future projects. In this particular class, I'll be rendering a misty mountainscape, complete with sky and trees. It's a perfect opportunity to stretch those artistic muscles and practice a number of rendering techniques. This course can be taken on its own, but also acts as a follow up to my original texture challenge course, which you can find in my class list. I highly recommend it if you're interested in learning more about textures. By the end of this class, you'll have yourself a cute little landscape that can be used as decoration, as well as for reference for any future creative projects. Let's get started. 2. Project & Materials: Today's experiment is fairly straightforward and requires minimal material. You'll find the materials you'll need in the class resource list, where I've included a swatch list of the markers I've used. At a bare minimum, you'll also require some marker friendly paper to color on. Cut to the size of the cut to the size that you want for your texture swatch. Personally, I like them index card shaped because I can fit them in this practical little storage box. But that's by no means obligatory. And if you want to draw out your subject, you'll definitely require a pencil. I've also included the resource photo I've used in the class resource section. Now, are you ready to dive in? Let's go. 3. A Misty Mountainscape: Before we get started, you'll need to have your supplies ready. For my little texture experiments, I have started a collection of what I call texture swatches that are about five by 3 " or the size of a typical index card. There are two reasons for this. One, the smaller size allows me to really focus on a particular texture, and two, it makes for easy storage. For more on developing a collection of texture references, please check out my texture challenge class. There's a lot of useful tips in that one. But back to the task at hand. You'll also need your color swatch references, as well as your actual markers and a pencil and eraser if you want to start off with a sketch. Unless the subject is very detailed, it's not absolutely necessary to sketch things out, but I wanted to create a few guidelines to make sure I had enough layers of mountains to practice going from background to foreground. If you have a needed eraser, it's pretty useful in removing just enough of your lead so that you'll still see a hint of your sketch without the lead bleeding into your markers when you start coloring. For this texture, I had printed out my reference, but you can have it on your screen, too, whether it be your computer, mobile, whatever. Whatever's comfortable for you, it's very useful to have all the colors you need at the ready. And while you can't see them, I do have my markers prepped just off the screen. I'm using colors from both uhuhus 36 gray marker set and their 48 color set. I'll include a swatch list for you in the resources section of this class. If you don't have huh markers, you can match with whatever it is you do have or try your hand at choosing what colors you use. The sky wasn't the focus of this exercise, so I just did a quick render of it for practice. Starting off with yellow gray 04, I just went over the entire background with quick scribbles to fill it in. After that, I added some dark clouds with green gray 02. There's no need to follow the reference exactly, especially for something experimental like this, feel free to just try things out and see what techniques give you results that appeal to you. To blend the colors evenly, I went back with my yellow gray 04 to create a nice transition. Always with a circular motion in this case, following the shape of typical clouds. Adding a touch more depth, then I use my handy blender marker to really smooth things out. To get things looking the way I want, I often go back and forth between colors to fill things in, add shadow or a touch of color. You'll see here I have a piece of scrap paper to test colors or try out techniques before committing them to my actual illustration. It's super useful to have on hand, and I highly recommend always having a scrap piece of paper nearby, preferably of the same or similar quality as what you're drawing on. For the background mountains, I start with my lightest gray, which is cool gray to zero. The background mountains have the least detail and are the least saturated because colors appear less vibrant the further you are away from them. I also make a point of going slightly over the edge because in the reference photo, there is a slight outline where the sky meets the ground. After filling everything in, I go in with my green gray 02, which is my least saturated green gray. With it, I darken the lower areas of my background mountains. It's looking harsh now, but our blender will take care of that. Something that I should note about the blender, it's not always my go to option for creating smooth transitions between colors, as it often creates a grainy texture or pulls away too much ink. For the mountainscape here though, I do like the effect. Just goes to show why experimentation and creating texture swatches is really good practice. Now for the next layer of mountains, we start again with the cool gray 20. To cover more ground faster, I use the chisel tip of my brush. If you notice on a reference, the mountains have a reddish tint, so I go in with red gray 11 next. Both tinting and darkening where necessary. I've also added an extra little mountain for fun. Now back with green gray 02 again to build upon the darker areas. We need to blend everything together in the end, too. These mountains are darker than the ones behind them, so we add an extra step, green gray three to pull them away from the background layer. With this one, I paid a little more caution to where I put it, adding hints here and there to create a sort of topographical effect. Because this layer is still very far in the distance, we need to blend it well in order to create a softened, almost misty look. While the ink is still wet, I go back in with my lighter gray green followed by cool gray 20 because the transition is still too harsh. On top of which the blender took away a bit too much of the color, that's okay. This is what experimenting is for, and it's easier to put colors back on than it is to take them away. I decided to also add a layer of green gray one, which is a slightly more saturated green to pull this layer even further away from the mountains behind it. I avoid adding it towards the bottom of the mountains where it appears lighter due to how thick the air is versus at the top. As a final step, I go back with my two lightest colors, the cool gray and the lightest green gray to blend things even more. If you want to smooth your color transitions, but don't like the effect of the blender, I find that going back to the lightest color you've used will do the trick with minimal impact on the darkness of your shades. If you notice something you've already done needs adjusting, go ahead and fix it. Here I decided to add an extra little mountain with green gray three between our two mountain ranges because I felt it was a little barren. I should also mention, you shouldn't feel obligated to follow your reference photo to a T unless that's your goal. I prefer, especially for these little texture explorations, to use my photos as inspirational guidelines for the most part. For the last layer of mountains, I start much in the same way with my green gray 02, as I want to keep the colors consistent. They are, after all, part of the same mountainscape. It's a good idea to outline your shape before filling it in, to make sure you don't go over the edge with your marker, especially if what's next to it is a lighter color. I know I'm going to be adding a lot of layers, so I'm not too concerned with all the streaks I'm making. Just quickly filling things in as this is meant to be a quick study. With my green gray one now, I'm a bit more selective with my strokes using it to create the idea of depth variety within foreground mountains. Just like before, I'm making sure the lower areas are brighter than the top. Blending things with a trusty blender. I mentioned earlier, but I really like the textured effect it gives, which works well in implying rough and rocky terrain. Now, the trees. Using green gray three, I make quick short strokes in a random pattern with my brush tip to suggest the idea of trees being in the distance. Be sure to keep them spaced just far enough to not become a solid blob, or you'll lose the effect we're after. I decided that there'd be a forestless valley within the mountains. So as we go down, I reduced the amount of marks I made, building them back up again where I hinted at a mountaintop with my green gray one. When you're creating your trees, try to follow the topography you've created with your previous colors. As we get lower, be sure to slightly increase the size of your brush strokes, since the trees are closer to the viewer, while still keeping some variety as not every tree is the same height. As we get even closer, you can start making slightly more obvious tree shapes by switching your single marks into a few diagonal brush strokes. M. I didn't bother going all the way to the bottom because I knew I was going to go over this area with our closest foreground, a bunch of big trees next. To add some saturation and color variety, I went in with some brighter greens. Starting with absinthe, I threw in a few extra trees in there before going over some of the field with yellow green to really make the foreground pop and stand out as being closer to us. If you look at the reference, there's an almost yellowish tint. So I added a hint of it with gentle quick strokes using a knees. Now for our big trees, to really pull them apart from the background, I used green gray 06, a very dark muted green. To start creating the shapes I made several lines of varying lengths. These are going to serve as our trunks, which we use as anchors to create the tree's branches. For this, we started the trunk pulling our stroke diagonally downward in short quick motions. Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect as this isn't meant as a final illustration, but it will be good practice to get the feeling of how to create this type of marker stroke in the future. Just keep going and feel free to add more trees as you see fit. It can be a full forest or just a few sparse trees. I noticed some were looking a little scrawny in the middle, so I thickened them up with a quick squiggle down their trunk in order to beef them up. After I had my basive trees, I added some depth to them using my green gray one. Basically just going over some of the branches here and there to get them looking fuller. I also added some extra trees in behind to enhance the effect of there being a forest and not just a random line of trees. Then I moved on to a brighter green, pale green to bring in some vibrancy. Uh Finally, I added just a touch more depth to the shadows by adding hints of an even darker green green gray five. I also used it to fill in some of the gaps I thought looked a bit out of place and empty. Just keep going until you feel satisfied. I decided I need to add even more depth, so I went back with my green gray one and green gray three to add an extra layer of smaller trees. One more look. A few more touches. And Yep, I'd say that's an acceptable texture swatch for a little mountainscape. Now let's take some notes on it. 4. Taking Notes: For the notes, you can organize them however you like. I'm building a collection of texture swatches, so I wanted to be able to glue mine into the back of my little illustration for easy storage. Normally, I would use an index card to take notes, but in this case, I didn't have one handy, so I just cut out a scrap piece of paper. I would say one of the most useful pieces of information to put in your notes is what materials you use to create your texture. I'll be putting the names of the colors I used along with a swatch so I can easily find an alternative shade should the need arise. I went a little hastily this time, but I also find it useful to add which colors were my base or foundation colors, along with any other small bits of potentially useful info. Along with the marker colors, I include whatever other tools I needed to create the texture. In this case, I only used markers, but some examples of other materials could be gel pen or fine liner pens. Next to this list, you can write whatever useful notes you can think of. I came up with a few examples of what could be written. For example, I found the blender extremely useful when rendering the mountains. Also, be wary of adding the appropriate vibrancy or saturation depending on if it's background, midground, or foreground elements. It's up to you to write down what you personally would find useful. Another option, by the way, is to either record yourself creating your texture swatch, take work in progress photos, or have a note taking app or piece of paper next to you to take down notes as you go. Whatever suits your personal preference. I also suggest writing a title to both the texture swatch and the notes so that in the case that they get separated, it's easy to match them back up. That's a fun little experiment in texture rendering. Hope you enjoyed. 5. Conclusion: Thank you so much for joining me as we added another fun texture experiment to our ever growing collection. How many do you have now? If you haven't checked out my previous classes on textures, feel free to visit my skill share profile. I have a number of courses available, including a texture challenge class where I show you how to render three other similar swatches. Before you go off on other creative adventures, please be sure to share your work in the project section of this class. It's a wonderful way to celebrate your progress, gather feedback, and inspire your peers. Take a moment to engage with your fellow students by leaving comments on their work. Your encouragement can uplift and motivate them to keep creating. If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the discussion section of this class. And if you want to keep up to date with future classes, please give me a follow. It's really appreciated. Thank you once again for joining me in this class. I can't wait to see what you come up with. See you soon and happy creating.