Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey, guys, my name is Peggy Dean. I am an author, an educator, and an artist. This class is going to be a very fun project-based class. We are going to create a collage of an animal and this is going to be working with whatever you have around the house. Whether you have watercolor, or acrylic, or glitter, or confetti, or wrapping paper, or magazines, or junk mail, newspapers, you name it. We are going to be throwing these elements together to create texture, to create some really interesting finishes that we then cut, rip, tear, and put together to build your animal. I'm going to walk you through sketching basic shapes on how you can build up and structure your animal, and then walk you through all the fun techniques that you can use to create your texture and your color. We're going to have so much fun with that part. I promise, it's going to be your favorite. Then we're going to get into actually building your animal and creating a really fun unique to you piece that represents the journey and the process. Isn't that what it's all about? This class is for you if you just want to have a mindless, mindful, mindless project where you can sit back, relax, and create. I can't wait to see you in the class. Let's hang out and have some fun.
2. Materials (this part is so fun): I just want to say that before we even get into this class, while I am going to show you a ton and like a plethora of supplies right now, I want you to really remember that you can literally use whatever you have around your house. I'm just going to go over the things that I am using so that you know as we go along so that you're not like what is that? Or I want to use that. You get it. The things that you absolutely do need are paper, you don't even really need scissors because you can tear, but scissors, paper, a pencil, a paintbrush, and some paint, any kind, and glue, adhesive; tape, glue, whatever. Here's what I am using though. I'm grabbing Mix Media paper. This is a student grade by Canson. Mix Media paper is a 98-pound paper. It's not ideal for water media but because we are just going to end up using scraps, it doesn't matter. I don't want to waste my good watercolor paper, so I just grabbed this one and this is good to go. The reason why I do want to do at least 98 pounds is because that way, it's going to support that watercolor more so than any other kind of paper. It's not going to peel up or anything, so at least Mix Media paper is ideal. Unless you're not doing watercolor, and you are just doing regular paint, then hey, use whatever. You also want a canvas of some kind. I just want to point out that my canvas is going to be just like a chipboard, and I'll show you as soon as we get into that next lesson. But really anything, you could use anything, you could use cardboard. We're just playing in this class. The next thing is, you want paintbrushes, or I. I'm using the pigeon letters brushes and this is my personal brand. They're cruelty-free and they're professional-grade and I'm using a number eight-round brush and a one-inch wash brush. I'm also using a pencil. There's gold preferably because have fun. Glue, just any kind of glue, and then I also am using these adhesive strips, it just makes things really easy for me. I've linked everything, if you want to grab anything that I'm showing you, you can do that. The things that we'll get into as the class goes on is I have my watercolor palette. The colors that I'm using are by Daniel Smith. I also will be using the Matisse, the colored gesso. It's basically like the creamiest acrylic paint that you'll ever use in your life, best thing you won't even use acrylic paint anymore because it's so good, I promise I'll get into it. Then I'm also using Brusho by color craft. This is really exciting when we get into that one. This isn't optional. You want your jar of water if you're painting. Then some optional items, what I'm using with Brusho, I'm using just a spritz bottle for water. I also have some nail polish. Bear with me, you'll see why. Then I also have this bag of shredded metallic awesomeness confetti, and then I have some pressed flowers. This is all sounding very weird, I know, but we're going to get into it and we're going to have a lot of fun. Go around your house, grab some random objects, and things like objects, materials, whatever you can find really like get creative. I was just going through all of my stuff earlier, I was like, oh yeah, why not press flowers and metallic shards because that makes no sense together. Oh, why not glitter nail polish? It was just sitting over there. Also, this is where we get creative. Go around your house, go find some fun things, and meet me back.
3. Sketching Shapes: For the sake of proving that you can absolutely work with what you have, I cannot find the canvas that I was going to use. It was about this size and just like a flat canvas panel, but can't find it. So I am taking the backboard of my Legion Hotpress and I'm actually going to remove it and use this. Basically though, I want to work with what I have. The reason I went for this is because I've used these before as canvas, and I actually really like the way that they turn out because they're nice and thick. I can keep this side nice and go onto this side and cover all this up. This size is 7x10. I'm going to set that aside, and knowing that that's how large my canvas is going to be. I'll turn it over on this side so that you guys aren't distracted by the tear. Maybe it so I'm not distracted. But what I'm going to do is I'm taking mixed media paper, and I'm just going to cover it. I'm going to cover it with different types of textures, with different paint, with different opacities of paint. Then I might use some magazines. Actually, I'm going to be using a magazine to tear out additional finishes so that this will end up building up in an awesome way. But first, I want to sketch, give a loose sketch of what this is going to look like. I'm just going to grab a pencil. I want this to look a bit playful, and geometric, and not super accurate just because I want it to be really fun. I chose a pigeon. I chose a pigeon because I love birds, and I love pigeons, and also my brand is The Pigeon Letters, so it just seemed the most appropriate. Rather than make those look realistic, what I recommend doing is you can totally pull up an image of your animal and then go from there. I don't have an image up right now. I don't know how well this is going to go, but we're in it together. Here we go. I'm going to do just a round head. I'm not going to do the proportions correctly. I just want to focus on the top half of it. Round head. It doesn't matter how you draw or sketch because you're going to be covering this entirely. Okay, so there's my head and then I can come down. Actually, I want to really make the proportions exaggerative. I want to have this really skinny neck coming down and then I want to create its little separation in color that I know is there. Then I can have its little beak. I could have it looking to the side. You can just see, I'm just playing with how this is going to look. I want the eyeball to be pretty large. Here we go. Okay. It's just going to be a real simple, fun design of a pigeon. See how I've just created. I don't know how well you can see that. I'll darken it up a little bit. A really round head and then I've got this separation of color. It's going to get cut off right here and then I could put the backside here. I don't know if I'm going too though. I'll keep it there just to have it in mind. I could even exaggerate this more, but I think I like that width. Basically, I just wanted to take you through that process. If I were to do it, literally, you could see I would bring it down like this and down like this. Oh, man. Now I like that. This is what happens when you sketch. Okay, I think I'm going to do this. Yeah, let's do that. Oh, boy, I tell you. You guys know this creative process. This is exactly what happens. Don't sit there and judge me because you know you do the same thing. All right. From here, that seems good. Then from here, you can erase additional lines if they are distracting to you or just know that what you're going to cover up is what you're going to come up. That's how I sketch it. It's really, really simple. I just make sure that I have it in the general area that I want and then everything else is going to come with my application of my papers.
4. Mindless Watercolor: I have this sitting out right here so that I can see it as I am going into the next step, because that way I can see, like let's say I have an idea for what color I want the head to be, I don't have to paint this entire page because I know that it only needs to be yay high. However, there is a benefit of painting the entire page, which is, if you do it that way, then you're going to have more selection to choose from as far as what paint looks like here versus what it looks like here because you might have some really cool striations, or different textures of how things broke up here versus here. Whereas you know what? If you do it right here and you don't do it over there, you're not going to know the difference. But hey give yourself some options because it's fun. This is the fun part, this is my favorite part of this type of project, is when we start laying down color. The first thing I'm going to do is take out my watercolors. I'm using the pigeon letters, round number 8 and my palette that I custom made by Daniel Smith watercolors. But to my preferences, I also have them laid out because it helps me remember what's what and where, although it should be the right way. I'm also going to be using wash brush. I want to take up about half of this space because I want to be able to have some choices on what I want to work through. No one is telling you that you have to have appropriate colors for your animal, you can have it be any color that you want. The first thing I'm going to do is completely wet my brush, and I do this by going all the way in and actually pressing the side, so it looks like this when I'm in there and I'm moving it so that the water gets into the bristles. Then you can see I'm making some splatter, but I'm actually going to get my paper wet. Note the mixed media paper is not the best for watercolor, especially when you're doing a large wash like this and can make it so that the paper ends up warping. For this project, I don't care. I think that that adds to it, but if you're doing watercolor watercolor, you're going to want to avoid that. Now I'm going to go in and I'm going to grab some of my color, and the first one that I want to bring in will be a gray color, and I'm going to make it pretty saturated with water, and I have a little bit of black that I want to dip into also. There we go. Get some more water on there and I'm just going to lay it down on the page and let it do its thing. This is what I mean. You might have some areas that really react cool and then some other areas that you're not as drawn to, so give yourself those options by making a larger area. I'm going to do the same thing on this side, but I'm going to change the color up a little bit, make it real messy. Luckily, you can't see my full desk space. Then I'm going to grab this dull blue color and mix it with a little bit of gray. It's gray titanium, it almost has a beige undertone, which I think is really cool. I'm just giving myself some options here, and then I'll grab a little bit of purplish color, and I'm going to make this muddy because I'm not really going for a pretty color, I just want this to be dark and see where it takes me, because pigeons have those iridescent colors or whatever, but they're dulled down. Then maybe on this side I will dirty it up with some of that gray and black a little bit more but with color. In case you are interested in these colors because I know a lot of times I get asked like, "What color is that?" Because it's really pretty I'd want to know too. This is perylene violet, the blue is Mayan blue, the purple color is not a purple color, it's a mixture of these phthalo blue-green shade, which is right here, and then the perylene violet. Because I'm not a huge purple fan, so I don't have it in my pellet. As you can see that's basically what I'm going to do here, and if you want to do those fun watercolor tricks where you apply salt or you apply Saran Wrap and let it dry or any sort of texture tricks, you totally do that, I'm just going to leave it as is. You can also go back in and add splatter, and the fun thing about splatter, I'm always a fan of splatter, is when you do it while the paint is still wet, then what ends up happening is it will bleed. Let me show you with black. You get your brush real wet on the sides, without even dragging on the side I'm grabbing black, so it's nice and wet still and I'm just holding it right above my paper and tapping. When you do it while it's still wet, it starts to bleed a little bit as you can see. If I was to wait for it to dry, it's going to look more like this, so it's going to look more pinpointed. Either way there's not a wrong answer, it's always fun. I'm not going to overdo it because I want to see how this dries as is. That's my first page. That's applying watercolor. Look at my mess. I also want to show you another watercolorish trick, and that is with a product called, you guys don't do what I'm doing, I'm just really messy and I don't care about my clothes. So it's with a product called Brusho, and it looks like this. It's by Color Craft and they have a lot of different colors, this is turquoise. It's going to be pretty bright, I might also add in some of this violet color. This stuff is awesome. It is powder watercolor, so I'm going to spray some water onto my page, and I'm spraying it because I want it to be in some areas dryer than others because it reacts differently, you'll see what I mean. I'll show you how this magic works. I'm going to spray my page from a distance, and then I'm going to open this guy up, be careful. It looks like little tiny sand. Oops, there you go. I'm going to take a little bit of it and then I'm just going to tap the side and let it fall where it will. Then after it grabs the area that's wet, I can shake it off to get the excess off, but you can see how it reacts. Also you can take your spray bottle and spray it again and see what ends up happening. It's really fun to play with. Then I'll do the same with this purple color in some spots. This is a really fun one if you like painting galaxies, because it really does do that seamless blend. I used a lot, you don't have to use that much. But then if you want to after that, you can also push it and act, use it as watercolor. That makes for a really interesting effect. What I was talking about was the reason I wanted to spray it first and then lay pigment. This area here is really, really textured, it looks like powder, and it is. Because I didn't shake that off right away, it's actually already wet, so it's going to adhere as is. That's what I wanted to go for, because the more it sprays, the more it goes out. See these swirls, it's a matter of ratio. If I was using this for watercolor painting of some kind, this is wrong, this is not how you want to use this product. But because I'm using it for what I'm using it for, those really concentrated areas are going to come out really cool. Then you can see the outside here where this powder's being sprayed outward or there's just a little bit of it. I'll do a little bit and you'll see how much, you can't even probably see that what I'm doing but when I spray it, look at that. If you want it to be a lot lighter, it's literally dust, you're just putting dust on there and then spraying it. Magic. This stuff is so cool. Also, I just drenched this page and it's mixed media paper, so it's not going to be very happy with me, also do not unless you don't care about how it's going to look. Try to take your page off while it's still wet. I'm going to let this dry. You can see it's pretty wet, but there are a lot of really cool textures going on.
5. The BEST Acrylic Paint (you're welcome): Now I want to show you a product that I have become obsessed with as of the last six months or so and I don't know if any of you have tried to or do regularly use acrylic, but I found the Matisse Gesso. This medium is awesome and you see it a lot of times in transparent forms where it's focused on making your acrylics spread, making them nice and creamy, so they're really, really glide, rather than just straight out of the tube. You'll see them in different textures. This one is High Tooth so I'm going to use it to create some texture. But otherwise, they have a tone that are colors and I've replaced all of my acrylic paints with these guys. I just love using this and I'll show you how easily this glides on here. It's incredible. I don't think I've opened this one yet. New color today, how exciting. I actually end up using a lot of this too because salvage, you know. I'll grab my wash brush and I'm just going to take a little bit off of here. You see my brush it has very little, but look at this. That is like creamy, opaque, goodness. Oh, I love it. A little bit goes a long way and then these tubes are giant in comparison to what you get on paper so that's rad. Once I have that done, I'm going to add a couple more colors in. I'm just going to do a few here. This is Victoria pink, what I just used is antique green. Note, if you care, rinse your brush before you go in because you could transfer color. I wiped mine off pretty well. I'm also pretty messy. I just like the way that layering looks and what not and I just don't really care about keeping color's integrity. I know not everybody thinks that way. As you can see, I'm just keeping some of these areas true to their color, I'm overlapping some, creating some texture in here and then getting that color on its own as well. Then I can add black. I wanted to add black to a little bit of this to gray it up. Here we go. This is darker gray and then I'll do some lighter gray. I'm going to get this off my brush for the most part, come back and bring more of this in so it gets a little bit lighter and then even lighter. You can see I'm just playing with how I am able to mix this and then I'm bringing more color along with me. This all started with a little bit of this black and I'm just bringing it into over here. I'm choosing Victoria pink because I think that it adds a little more interest than had I chosen light gray or white to mix. I just like how it has a dirtier undertone if you will. I made that a little too dark, here we go. Then I just layer and I layer until I'm happy with the color that it results in. Then when you get the color that you like, you can go over it so it's nice and smooth or you can do a whole bunch of different directions so that it's more textured and then I can go in and grab some of this. I don't think I've used this one yet either, nope. Some of this toothy texture. I'm making a big mess, it's fine. This is our texture, I'm going to put it in here. The thing about the texture is, see how that's creating that toothy. Look at that closer so you can see. It's creating a toothy raised texture. That can be really fun to work with as far as a paint brush or external materials. Like I could use the end of my paint brush. See how that creates a little design in there. I could use like a toothpick or I could use like found objects, even sticks, so just creating that added texture. This is white, it's not clear. That's something to note, if you use textures like this. The more you use, the more toothy it can become because it's going to dry that way. I just don't want it to look like it's obviously laid down with a paint brush. I could use something else, but I'm not going to. You can also grab your finger, go on to a different area and see that results in a different result. Sure. Just play with it. Like get messy. The idea here is just, we're playing, we're diving, and we're having some fun. One thing I want to note, when you're using this kind of medium, it's not the same as when you're using watercolor. When I use watercolor, I can easily go into my water and just rinse my brush really well and call it good. This one I actually want to go in and run under a sink and I'm not using any sort of brush cleaner. I just don't think it's necessary. It's toxic and gross and nobody needs it. I just go in and I'm going to open my bristles like this under the water and really massage in so that it gets all of this out. That's what I'm going to do and then we're going to go into the next portion.
6. Magazines - What to Look For : The next element that I want to show you is by using newspaper, magazines, junk mail. If you don't, just really find anything that's lying around. Photos can render some really cool textures. As I look through this, I will just show you what's standing out to me, this one, really, if you were to take this apart and you're only seeing this area here, it just looks like some awesome green texture. As I work through it, that's what I'm looking for, is like this situation is awesome, this situation is awesome, so I'm going to tear this out and add it to my end results of what I am going to look through as far as choosing what to put or what to build my pigeon out of. This was really cool too. You see, like obviously, it's stars when we look at this, but if you were just to isolate just that texture, then you could have something really cool come out of that. I'm going to take that and then I'm going to continue on. I'm looking primarily for grays, anything that's dark, and then also maybe some purples and blues because that's what's in my animal. I'm not doing it like realistically, but I'm doing it more realistically, like I'm not looking for pink and red or anything like that. You can also find like little mark-making things like this. If I was to break just a piece of that up, then it's not going to look like a map anymore. It's going to look like this line work, which by the way, please feel free and welcome to do patterns on your pages too. If I was to take an ink pen or a brush or something and just to make little marks like this, then that adds extra interest as well. Looking through here, I don't spend a whole lot of time through these because I don't usually put a lot of the picture elements in, but you totally can. Another thing to think about though is grab some text. I was looking for this project, but I have a huge thesaurus that I grabbed from a huge dictionary, might be a dictionary, I don't know, but a huge one. Really thick that I grabbed from Goodwill and it's so thick, it's got so many words in it. I was going to just take the definition of pigeon and use that as a part of this because I thought that would be really fun to incorporate, but I cannot find it, alas, and I was really excited to get into this class, so we're going without. Another interesting idea would be if I was looking through like a National Geographic or something where there were a lot of birds, specifically the bird that I am thinking of, like that were small and they were all in flight, that would be a really cool element to add. It's like images that make up images, like that, but it's just like a small element of your collage. Just looking through here, like this would be a really interesting texture to add, so I might include that. This would be fun. Looks like I've used this before. Here's a ton of texture to choose from. I have plenty of this kind, so I'm not going to really focus too much on looking for that, but like here's texture that would be great to add. Here's some great texture, like you wouldn't think, how cool would it be knowing that you have all these flowers within your piece? Now I'm tempted to do that. I might do that. I'll take it. I know green isn't a color I was looking for, but that's the part that's really fun about this discovery as you move through looking at these elements. I'm also going to take this because it's really light gray. Then you'll see when we make our selections of what we actually want to include, how this is just going to come together very fun. I think I'm pretty much done with this. Yeah. Grab what you have sitting around. Grab some text if you want too, it's really fun. I might grab some text. There we go. I've got text. Don't know what it says, but it's from National Geographic. I saw the word animal in here somewhere. It's about cloning animals, I don't want that. You get what I'm saying, go get some texts and go from there. Not really threw me.
7. Measuring Your Cuts: I've got a ton of elements here. I've got so much to choose from and only a small little guy to put it on, which is exciting because that means I have choices. I could have kept going, there are so many elements that you can do. I'm actually going to add some fun little details at the end with even more material that I'll show you, but for now, I want to plan out where I'm going to put what. The first thing I want to do is identify what colors I want to go where. I know that I want this body for the most part, this entire area here to be gray. I'm going to write gray, and then show where I want that to be. The area here and the head, I want it to be primarily like a deep purply, oops, I can spell, purply blueish color, dark gray, I get it. Something that's going to make you understand what you want to do there and then the beak, I could have this be a gray tone. I'm going to put a question mark and that's just because I'm not certain on it yet. I could also have it be like a lighter color of some kind. I'm not married to the idea of it being a realistic beak color. The eye, I want the main part to be like really light, almost white, and then the pupil I don't care, something dark. Then this head part is the same, so I'm going to draw an arrow up there. I know now for the most part what I want to do here. If I could make this fatter, so I keep changing my mind about stuff. I like that shape for the most part, I like what's going on here. Now that I know the colors here, yeah, maybe this whole area is this deep purply color, dark grayish. That doesn't mean that I can't change it up. I might do like one strip or section here, it might feather in where it creates this ripped torn paper effect to something here. That's what I'm going to figure out now, because I want to determine what I did that I want to put and include. Oh, I also have this little part on the beak which I want to be, I think I want that to be really light like the eye. Just my own notes, do it to whatever makes the most sense to you. Now I'm going to pull and see what I have here. Do I want to include any elements of this? Let's see, I've got purply, deep purply, it's not dark enough for me here. Do I want to add any of these tones anywhere else? I might like this area to be right here, so that's something to consider. It's about yay big, this is the part where you have to eyeball because I can't use a simple light pad because it's not like a piece of paper. I would cut out a shape similar to that and then I can just make adjustments as I'm cutting it and holding it up to see. I could also do this area here which might be fun. So these are possibilities. I recommend with you when you are determining your possibilities to actually cut out the shapes. This is so that you're not looking at it as one big piece anymore, you're actually looking at it like it's an element that you might include. I'm also not cutting this exactly to the shape and I know that, I'm just doing it slightly larger so I can see what that looks like. Then I'll do this one because this is going to render a different effect, knowing that it's a different tone altogether. This is not cut right but that's okay because I can make adjustments. See what I mean, this is more of a bluish-green, this is more of like a purply color. I think I like this one better, so I can get rid of that one. Process of elimination. However, we don't know what this is going to look like yet, and maybe this one is going to harmonize better with what we put in here. Does that make sense where you are going with the flow, if you will. Now, here's some areas with the splatter that could also be fun right there. I will cut out a general shape, maybe. It doesn't have to be perfect, I can adjust it later, because right now I'm just holding things up and seeing how they look and then I will make. I don't like that as much. This is where you can play because things will look different on the page. Now I have this part, I know that it's like a grayish color and I want this to be a lighter color but I'm not sure what yet. So I'm going to go with the areas that I know, definitely what I want to put there. Down here I want it to be gray. This one is definitely something I'm drawn to, I also like the texture that it rendered. I also like how it separates right here, I just think that's fun, which works out because that would make it large enough to do that. I'm going to cut just along here and I'm okay with having this white in here, I think that's fun, and then just cut this off real quick. If I have it like so, I can see where that wants to go and then I'd have to find something to put into that area too. But I think I actually want to raise this quite a bit. Then I can see like here's where that area comes down to. There's my cut line, and you can eyeball it or you can go lift the paper so that you can see exactly where that line hits exactly to help you line that up. Then I can cut off this area and cut off this area. Looks good to me. Whoops that was way too high but that's okay, because I can overlap with the same ones or with different ones. I like how that looks because what it will do if I do it this way, is it might build on it as if it's like the wing is starting, so that's an opportunity. They form organically which is something I really like about it. This is just a fun project when you let that happen. See what I mean, happy accidents. This is one of those projects that you never need to worry about perfection. Then I'm just going to do a little line so that I know where the page ends and then that will help me realign it up when I place it again. Now I want this part to be even darker and I can grab from really anything. I really like this deep teal color. If I did choose that, I'd have to make more of it. But I also want to visit and see what happened here, so see how there's those deep colors. I don't think I want to use that for anything in this project. However, I might use part of this area for the iris itself, I think that would be fun. I think I like the idea, even though it's not correct according to what the color of a pigeon is. I like the idea of using this teal color. I'm going to do more of that teal color, and I'm just going to overlay it on top of this color here because I like how that mixture looks, I think it's fun. Where is my brush? Here it is. This is just like where you build upon your project as you are working on it. Then I want to add some more color in here, so maybe more of that pink. Then I might add a little bit of grayish color, we shall see where this takes us, I want to get most of this green off and then I'll go back in here. It looks really bright, but the more that you work it in, the more it just becomes like additional tone, and then I will add in a little bit of this black color. Just for some extra tone differences, shade differences, tone, and shade differences depending on where it's at. Then I can change the direction so that it's not like a perfect stroke. Okay. I might actually even put in some solid black areas that just have some mark making, because I think that, that would be really fun too, not too much but, enough to where it adds some interest. Then go back in with some more of this green, and then you can see it creates this cool texture. I don't want this to be even. Okay. Cool. So I'm happy with that for the most part. Let me see though what it looks like against those colors, I like that, I think that, that's fine. I'm going to let that dry, and for you, you don't have to wait because we're going to go into where it dries right now. Okay. Don't worry, I waited for it to be mostly dry. Okay. So now I want to basically cover this entire area and I actually want to make it so that I don't want it to be one solid piece. I like how it looks when I overlap like, even if it's the same color overlap, so I'm going to do something a little bit different. First of all, I'm going to make it so that I have put some of this white area, and so right there, I'm going to make sure that I have this general line drawn out so I know where to cut. But then I want to tear at the inside. I don't necessarily want to take all this down. It's just I want this to be one piece and then I can tear, and when I tear it, it actually creates a really cool effect. For example, if I just slowly do this toward me rather than tear sideways, I can get some of this off. See how it's creating this really cool torn edge look, and I like that. I'm going to go for that on the interior, so I'm just going to cut out a little wider than my pencil marks so that I can make sure that I have coverage and I can always trim down if and when I need to. Okay. So I have that base and then I don't have to worry about that line because now I want to do that tear. Just remember that, let's say, to help you, if you lay it down and start tearing toward you, then know that, that's going to make it, and you could do a little bit to see, that's going to make it so that only this side on the left, since I'm tearing up with the right side, that it's going to be that torn edge look, and then this part it's not. If I take the left side and do that, then it's going to make the torn edge side on the right side, which is the piece that I'm working on. So as you are working on that, then you have control over what side shows up like that. Okay. So I can place that, see how that looks. That looks good to me, and then I can cut this according to where that shape wants to go. I don't care if I have pencil marks here, but you can just go and erase them pretty easily on most media. I was going to say medium. Now I'm going to do this part and I'm just going to, I'm want to use this area if it'll fit in right here. So I'm bringing it up a little bit because I also want some of this white edge, I just think it looks cool how it's, I just think it looks more less sloppy, but organic, and then right here. I'm going to cut those areas. I just like the texture it creates, mainly, where is that? But I also know it's going to overlap. Here we go and see the edge here also has that tear. I could cut that off or I can leave it, I actually think it looks cool, so I'm going to leave it. Then it's going to have that overlap here from these colors. I like how that's looking and I might actually do one more tear here and then slip that underneath. I think that looks fun, it's divided a couple of different ways. Then you can also, if you want, take a piece, not that one, and then tear that up and just overlay it somewhere in here so that it's not like that, only one solid piece is there. If I round this out, I could put it somewhere here, tear this more, like that, somewhere there, I'll place it somewhere there when we get into it. Okay. I have my main pieces that are set, let's put that here. Then I've got this piece here, I'll probably overlap somehow. You could also make it so that these pieces have that same effect. Some places all the way through however you want to it, and then I can choose the rest. I've got my main sections done. So I've got my dark area here, I've got my gray area here, and now it is time to choose, make sure that they're not with my scrubs. Now it's time to isolate what we're going to do for the rest of the space. So what I'm going to do for the beak, what I'm going to do for the eye? I think that I had talked about that, but already I have completely lost what I was going to do. I think it might be fun to use text instead for the eye and I can have it go the regular side or upside down might be cool. This is about manatees, which is fun, and random those strange hairs all over its face, I think that's fun. Maybe I'll just isolate strange hairs even though you won't be able to see it, I just think it adds a little bit more interest when you can be intentional with the words that you choose, if you're going to do text, it just makes you appreciate the piece more. Okay. So that's a general circle, I will cut that out. It's funny because it's also talking about cats in this little circle. It has nothing to do with cats, but that makes me like it even more. There we go. See, I love it, it's so stupid and fun. Okay. Then I can add the pupil, I could do one of these isolated areas that's got a lot of texture. If I cut up into that, I'm actually just going to cut this out, and then shape it will be easier. Okay. So I like that, that's fine. Then that's going to go over this and this, so I've got this done if it helps you to fill it out so you know that it's done, this is done. I've got this piece, so this is done, and then I just need to do the beak. All right. I'm going to place this stuff back on because I want to see exactly what I want to do with the beak. So just in general, so I have my main colors set, how would this look as a beak? That could be fun, I didn't end up using this. I like this for a beak, that would be fun. Okay. Yeah, I'm going to try that. Overall, I'm going to set this down, about where the beak goes. I might want to use the edge like that, because this part goes along with it. I'm just loosely drawing that. Going in and fix that in a sec. Yeah, I think that's fun. Then it's going to stop about right there, then it's going to cover up with that little watercolor piece that I had.Yeah. All right. Now you have all of your elements and then any extra detail can come after you lay these pieces and we'll talk about that afterwards, but for now, let's lay them down.
8. Building Up Your Layers: To lay it down you can use anything. I've got this Tombow Mono glue. I also have the Mono Dots Adhesive. They are like little tiny glue dots basically, but you run it along like it's one of those strips of white-out. No, they're not sponsoring me to say this, I just really like this product in particular. Now, it's time to lay this down. Here's where it gets a little bit tricky. Once I put this down, I have then covered up where my beak goes. If that's going to really bother you and you're going to really want to remember exactly the spacing, you can take a picture of this first and then you can use it as reference, the image. But honestly, you drew this out, you drew your sketch out, so you're going to be able to piece things together, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. The other part that might be confusing, is what do you do with all this blank space around here? This is up to you. Sometimes I leave it like this chipboard is really fun. I think it's funny because I said I was going to work on this side, and I totally didn't. It's okay. It's really fun. I might leave that as is, but because I have all this pencil mark, because I have some splotches right here, what I recommend doing, is before you put anything down, paint a little background here that's going to stand out from the rest of it. I'm going to go with this China red. It's really vibrant and annoying and that's what I love. That's what I'm going to put in here. What I'm going to do, is I'm just taking it and applying it like I'm just doing a slight overlap. Nothing major, just enough to where it's going to definitely be behind the collage papers that I put down. If you are super messy like me, put something down before you start painting, because then you won't have to work really hard to clean your white desk later. But I do it every time. I'm also going to mix some of that whisper pink in here, just because I want to have some dimension. I just like the way that it looks when things are a little bit layered because I'm all about that texture. Now that's done, now I can start to add my pieces in. I'm going to turn this over. It's going to be the first one I do. I'm going to grab my adhesive strip. You can use any kind of glue that you want. Just want to make sure all the edges, especially, are covered as close to the edge as I can get it, and then some of the interior. Then, I want to place this onto my canvas. I got a little bit of red paint because this isn't dry. Guess what? I'm going to leave it because it's fun. Sorry for yelling. I'm going to get rid of these two pencil marks. I'm not going to brush it off yet because this is why and then it'll get in there, and I don't want that. Note, real fast, I put this all the way down without realizing that's my overlap part. I'm just going to pick it up a little bit and then slide this underneath. But not before I add the adhesive. Then I can press this top part down. Perfect. Then I see that I have this little area. Now, I don't have to worry too much about filling it perfectly because I already have, where is it? My other piece, here it is, cut to frame that the way it should. I'm not going to worry about that too much. I want to use this one in fact, which is funny because it's not what I planned out, but that's part of building it that makes it fun. I'm just going to slide that in here, push that down, and then I am going to tear a little more of this one because I like the way it looks. Again, you totally don't have to, you can just have it cut. There. Then this was that and I was going to do and then this is going to go underneath here somewhere. I'm bringing this all the way to this corner here, then I can trim off any excess. See I got some red there again. Don't care, I think it's fun. Then the last piece can come up a little bit higher like this and then I can cut off anything that's hanging over to get rid of any pencil lines if I don't want them. I don't mind keeping that one at the bottom. Then add the stuff on top. Nothing like if you hate the color you use as a background color, you can also change it once things are laid down. I've been able to paint literally white over red or white over black. I'm going to use something on the bottom this time. It actually covers because it's so opaque. It's amazing. You can lift pieces of this up to suit it under there. That's why just doing it beforehand is more helpful. I'm just going to do this real fast, so you don't have to watch it. Once that's done, then yeah, I like that color better. I want to focus on the pigeon. Now, I'm going to add the rest of the elements that are actually going on top of the body. I've got the beak and I know that that goes approximately right here. I'm going to put that down. Listen, again, it doesn't matter if it's exactly where your sketch was, you can always take that picture and look at it as you are working. But I'm just going to place it where I want it to go by holding it and figuring it out. It might be any spot, but that's where I like it right now, so that's where it's going. Then I got the little part that goes above the beak. What is that called? I bet it has a name. I love random facts, so if anybody can tell me the name of what that thing, that little part on a bird's beak, what that's called, I'd appreciate it. Then right there-ish looks fine to me and then grab manatee, strange hairs. I got cuts out of there, but it's fun. I love manatees so much, so that's why one of the reasons it's fun. You can put text sideways or upside down. I'm going to go upside down because it adds more interest and then place the eye where I want it to go. Then same thing with the pupil. Isn't that's funny, out of that entire strip that I did of the brush technique, I only took this tiny circle. Here or here? Right there. Now, this could be complete as is, which is really weird but very fun or I can add some more elements. When I say adding more elements, I mean, you could totally add more detail, more layers, things like that, but I'm actually going to add real pressed flowers. These are flowers that I've collected and pressed just like wild flowers that I've found, and I want these to peekaboo in random places. I'm just going to take some and hold them up and see if I like any anywhere because they can just add some really fun interest. In birds, they can have one being held in their beak or you could have them coming from behind. Like these one here would be really fun. Just think about what you could do with that if you want to or don't. I think I want to do some texture, maybe on the bird itself, so I could take my glue stick and just work at this as I go.
9. Fun Details to Add: As you can see, I have changed the color again. I'm notorious for doing this with background colors because I love experimenting with colors. But then I can also show you that this is just one coat of this Victoria Pink over black, and look at how well it did. Little bit wet here still and I bumped it. But beside the point, this is just fun. I just want to show you some finishing touches. As far as texture goes, I put all these flowers on here. It totally covered up the gray that I painted, that I actually really liked. But it's okay, because I think that these flowers have a cool element that they added. I did decide to go all out, which wasn't expected. But now, I have this bag of this silver shredded like [inaudible] or something. I don't know. It's fine. I can hold this up and see like do I want to add this or is it going to be too much? I think I might add a little bit just because it's really fun. I'm going to take a pinch of this. This is a giant, like this bag, I've had this for years, and years, and years. I just pinch that and it was so much, so it lasts forever. I will link it in the description so that you guys can grab some as well if you love this because it makes for great confetti too, to put in like an envelope or something. Going to just do some dabs along the side here. Nothing too much. I don't want to make this too crazy. I'm just going to grab a pinch of it and put it down. I don't want too much. I just wanted to accent it. Then you could also think about using like, I have this fingernail polish. You don't even need to go fancy and this is just like a gold glitter. I could put that somewhere maybe the eye or I can add this little eyelid. I could just do a little swipe on the eyelid and then look how fancy. That's it. Then he has this really fun shimmer that's just understated. It doesn't take away from everything. It's just enough to add a little bling, which is fun, totally unnecessary, but also totally worth it. Then of course, you can change the background, add patterns, add lines, do anything that's really fun if you want to or you can leave it as is. But I think that this is a good stopping point for me because I really like the way that it's looking and it just becomes this really fun project. I feel happy about it. Look at this fun little weirdo.
10. Now do this!: We have come to the end of the class. You guys, I cannot wait to see what animal you've chose, how you decided to put it together, what media you used, so make sure that you upload your projects to the project gallery. I want you to explain to me and to everybody, why you chose the animal that you chose? What medium that you used or media that you used? Any weird things and strange cool elements that you added? Point them out because we want to appreciate them. I want to appreciate your creative choices here because they are so fun. I can't wait to see everything. Thank you guys so much for joining me. I'll see you next time.
Peggy Dean, Top Teacher | The Pigeon Letters
