Alcohol-Based Markers: Illustrate the Northern Lights

1. Introduction: Hey there, I'm Sabrina Gosling, a certified wildlife biologists, gone freelance illustrator and Photoshop retouching. I've dabbled in several artistic mediums and today I'll be teaching you about alcohol-based markers, which had been a favorite of mine for almost a decade. Now, in this smaller scale class, I'll be showing you how I go about rendering a gorgeous aurora borealis night sky will be focusing on one technique, blending, or should I say, extreme blending. This project will get you really working your rendering muscles as it will force you to work fast and understand the importance of patients and trusting the process. I would recommend this class to those who have at least a slight familiarity with alcohol-based markers and how they work. But you don't need to have any drawing skills whatsoever as there will be no base sketch involved. My hope for this class and future short form classes is to give people an understanding of how alcohol-based markers can be used on a larger scale for the creation of complete illustrations and scenes. When you've completed this class, you will have gained some thorough practice with extreme alcohol marker blending and be able to create more intricate works of art without having to rely on different materials to get the look you want. So without further ado, let's get coloring. 2. Your Project: In this class, we will focus on extreme blending techniques to create a stunning and realistic aurora borealis night sky scene. I will provide you with the reference photo you need and guide you through the tools and colors required for this project. You could, however, also choose your own reference photo. Unsplash.com and pexels.com are great options for royalty-free photos. The northern lights or the perfect subject for practicing blending with alcohol markers. As they are simplistic in their form, really force you to develop your rendering skills. We will start by prepping our markers and choosing the right color palette. Then we will jump straight into rendering the aurora borealis. No need for sketching. You will learn how to blend colors to create a smooth and seamless transition from one color to another, giving your night sky a gorgeous gradient effect. By the end of this class, you will have created a beautiful unique illustration you can be proud of. You will have also gained valuable skills and experience with alcohol marker blending techniques that can be applied to other projects and subjects. Don't forget to share your project in the project section of this class and comment on other people's work. Your feedback and encouragement can go a long way in helping your fellow classmates grow and learn, and vice versa. So, let's get started and create a stunning aurora borealis night sky scene together. 3. Recommended Materials: Excited to begin. Great. Let's start by going over the supplies that you'll need for this project. First and foremost, you will, of course, need alcohol-based markers. For this course, I'll be using colors from Oahu whose set of 48 classic brush markers. If you already own markers and the appropriate colors, which we will be going over in the next lesson. Feel free to use what you have. I just chose to go with this particular set because not only does it include all the colors will need, oh, who, who markers are inexpensive and excellent quality for what you pay for. Perfect for someone who's just starting out or who doesn't have that bigger collection. Next on the list is a white gel pen. We will be using this for adding stars toward the end of our project. I personally am a fan of the Sakura Gelly Roll 08 and uni-ball signal, UM, one phi three. But you can use any white gel pen or any white medium that you have on hand. Just make sure that whatever you choose is opaque enough for the ink below not to show through and be able to create small dots, of course. For paper, I'll be using oh, who, whose marker pad? Specifically the one that is 8.9 by 8.3 ". It's a good size for this particular project, has micro perforated pages so you can easily remove your beautiful artwork to display if you so desire. It also works really well with Oahu who markers, of course, as they're meant to be used together. If you prefer to use a different paper, just make sure that it's smooth, which is hot pressed thick, which is at least 200 GSM. And meant to be used with markers. Bristol paper or illustration board, which are also great for pen and ink, are great options. Avoid using mixed media paper as it may cause bleeding. Speaking of, you should always test your markers on your chosen paper before committing to your final illustration. This way, you can test how the markers react to the surface and how the colors show up. Optional materials include a pencil and eraser if you want to sketch out your aurora borealis before coloring. If you choose to do so, make sure to use an HB pencil which can easily be erased. Now that we've gone over the supplies required for this project, it's time to choose the colors will need. 4. Choosing Colours: It's time to figure out what colors will need to create our aurora borealis illustration. I highly recommend having a filled out color chart handy to help you identify which colors you'll need. Because the caps on markers are really not representative of the inks actual color. Who, who provides blank color charts with each of their packs. But if you have a different brand, you can get your own by searching whatever brand it is on the internet. Or alternatively, you can just create your own. Okay, I'll set, let's go. First things first. Let's take a look at our reference photo and identify the color groups we see. Breaking things down like this will make it easier to pinpoint the markers will need. We have greenish northern lights, a purplish blue sky, and orange towards the horizon. There's also a touch of blue towards the tail end of our Northern Lights gradient. Now that we've identified the color groups, we can start selecting our actual colors. Let's start with the northern lights. To create the greenish color of the Aurora will be using G8 glass green as our palest color. G11, pale green, G12, grass green, and G5 turquoise ink blue towards the end to help us blend into the night sky. These colors will give us a range of shades of green. We can blend together to create a more realistic effect. Moving onto the night sky will be using our turquoise ink, blue to transition into the night sky, followed by our cool gray shades. Cg to zero for which is cool gray to four. And C G27, which is cool gray to, with these three colors, will be able to create a subtle gradient effect. We can also use the colorless blender to help blend the colors together and create a smoother transition between the shades. For the orange horizon will be using WG zero-one, warm gray one. B are three rows, beige, which we'll use for a warmer areas. And are 11, move shadow, which is a cooler shade. These colors will give us a range of tones to create a gradient effect that goes from sunset tonight tones, like in our reference. Lastly, for the monotone ground, we'll be using are cool grays again. Because we're keeping the horizons simple. It won't overpower the rest of the illustration. Now that we have our colors selected, it's important to test them on a scrap piece of paper to make sure that they work together and to get a feel for how they blend. Remember to keep the colorless blender close by two, as it will be an essential tool for blending the colors together and creating a smooth transition between the shades. Especially for this project as the Aurora Borealis requires a lot of blending. 5. Illustrating the Northern Lights PT 1: Before starting any illustration, I always make sure I have everything I think I'll need within reach, preferably in an organized way. This includes my handy color charts. And well, in this case, I'm using part of my actual page as a test area. Normally, I'd have an extra paper to scribble and experiment on. I suggest keeping your color charts in a place where you're not likely to brush against with your arm or hand while coloring or reaching for a marker. For me, it's on the right side of my Canvas is I'm a lefty. So let's start with our lightest green. For those of us with the OH, who, who markers said I mentioned in the materials section, this would be glass screen. Feel free to make a light sketch of where you want to place your aurora borealis. But it's not absolutely necessary. For this project. I'll be using purely the chisel tip of my markers because I want to lay down a lot of color and fast. It's also perfect for giving that layered sky look. Set the color down with quick upward strokes following the shape of the lights. To be sure my markers blend well, I'll be continuously adding layers relatively quickly. It may look a bit streaky at first, but things blend out more with each layer. For this project, I'll be using the blender a lot. So definitely keep it close. We really want those northern lights to blend into the night sky. And at least with Oahu who markers. The blender is particularly useful at achieving that effect. More high-end markers like Capex and pro markers may not necessarily need as much help with the blender marker as they already blend together extremely well. I would still keep it handy though. As blending into the night sky itself, which is quite a shifting colors, may prove a tad challenging. It's also useful in smoothing out streaks and transitioning colors smoothly into an almost white, which for our Northern Lights is super handy. Next up is pale green. You'll see that it starts off as a really harsh transition. But we're going to refine it with our blender and lots and lots and lots of layering. Just like before. We go in with quick upward strokes. You'll see the blender really helps to smooth out that harsh line. We still need to layer. However. Next step is grass green. You'll see I often go back over everything with my initial glass green, our lightest shade to blend as well as keep the tones overall similar. This may not have been absolutely necessary, but I threw in a few dabs of cloud blue to delineate where we really start to see the night sky peeking out from behind our northern lights. Our next color, turquoise ink blue, basically overpowers it. As you see here. I use this color to cover most of the night sky. It marks the transition from Aurora Borealis to sky and is the lightest shade of the night sky. Back to Larry to assure a really smooth transition. Go over the gradient with each color using the blender. When you notice a particularly rough area, just make sure you don't go into the lighter areas with your dark shades. Because the blender can only do so much, so much to fix mistakes like this. Back to this guy itself. Sticking to the markers from our OU, who, who said, I use cool gray to four and cool great to use seven for the actual night sky colors. These two actually really blend well together. So there's not much for the blender to do. Here. I'm trying to pull the greens into the sky to give it that fading Northern Light look. My strokes are long and mostly upwards, but feel free to pull down a bit to really blend the sky and greens together. Trying to enhance that effect with my grass green. This is also helpful because it gives us some fresh ink for our blender marker to take from. Just keep going with layers of long strokes until you're satisfied. You'll see at the end of our reference there is a hint of darker green. So I dabbed a few spots of pale green where our Northern Lights meet the bottom part of the sky. And Blend, Blend, Blend. Be sure to go pass the actual tip of the lights. As that will help to have a little bit of smoother transition. We want the bottom transition to be harsher than the top, but not a solid line either. I want our bottom sky to have a hint of sunlight peeking from the horizon. So I went with warmer colors, starting with warm gray one, I cover the entirety of the bottom. It's such a light color that whatever goes on top of it will overpower it. Using the blender, I tried to get a bit of a dark to light gradient. The next color we'll use is Rose Bache, which starts off a super harsh. But behold again, the magic of the blender and layers. Getting closer to our night sky colors now we go with more of a shadow. And now to squeezing the 2 gy that make up the darker night sky. You'll see later, I can shift the whole gradient down a touch because I didn't give myself enough space. That's fine. Since for this particular project, we aren't following any particular sketch or line art. For this area. My marks are more random and squiggly in order to avoid streaks. For the Aurora Borealis, streaks were actually welcome, but not for this part. Now focusing on the edge between the northern lights and the sky, I add a touch of glass green. You don't want to add too much. So go in with very small squiggles. I then add a touch of FreshGrade in order to be able to blend it into the greens. You can use a mix of Blender and glass green for this part. The mix of the two make for a natural looking edge. Now for a second, go at the bottom sky. This is where I shift everything down a touch and we're using the same colors just in the opposite direction. Still with the random squiggles to avoid streaks and keep the gradient smooth. Before going to the next part, which is to add the ground, we have to make sure things are dry otherwise, since alcohol-based markers blend together by nature, our horizon will wind up blending into the sky. So let's wait a couple of minutes and come back to this. 6. Illustrating the Northern Lights PT 2: Okay, Now that everything is nice and dry, we get to do our final touches. Let's start with the stars. I'll be using my Gelly Roll pen. But you can use whatever white gel pen or pain you prefer. Just testing it out to make sure it's working. And blue, blue random stars everywhere. Be sure to make some clusters and some lonely stars of different sizes to make it look natural. Don't forget to add some in the actual northern lights too, because even though they're hard to see, they're still there. Finally, our horizon. You can add detail to it if you want. But I decided to just go with a solid color for simplicity's sake. I'll be using cool gray to seven because I find plain black is just too harsh. Feel free to create whatever horizon you want. I made mine simple. But you can add trees, silhouettes of people, buildings, whatever you feel like. There we go. Done. Feel free to cut it out to make a bookmark or keep it in your sketchbook and scan it into your computer as the design for all sorts of projects. 7. A Few Last Thoughts: Congratulations, you did it. You learn the essential techniques required to create a stunning aurora borealis night sky scene with alcohol-based markers. Right now. Well, why not create a beautiful bookmark prints or even print on demand products featuring your amazing creation. Or you could delve further with your new found skills, as this technique is versatile and lends itself well to similar textures such as clouds, rainbows, and even other cosmic backgrounds. I hope you had fun learning and creating your masterpiece. Remember to share your project in the project section of this class, and don't hesitate to ask questions or leave comments in the discussion section. If you enjoyed this class and found it helpful, please leave a review and follow my profile to keep up-to-date with future courses and other news. Thank you so much for joining me and keep creating.