Mid-Century Illustration Fun with Markers & Ink: Make it Wonky!

1. Introduction: As artists, we all know how easy it is to get stuck in chasing the perfect outcome. All the overthinking and criticizing of our own work can get frustrating, even scary sometimes. But honestly, there is so much fun in just letting go and drawing freely lose full of life and character. And that's exactly what we're going to do in this class, exploring one of the most charming mid-century illustration styles where wonky lines and quirky shapes make everything come alive. Hi, I'm Jutta, an artist and illustrator from Germany. Over the past years, I've created several classes on mid-century Illustration, and it has really become one of my favorite art styles. Every time I dive into it, I discover something new and exciting. I really want to share with you. Today, I'll walk you through five different exercises. You'll learn to loosen up, let go of perfection, and boldly draw quirky motifs in mid-century style. You'll get to know the main characteristics of mid-century illustration and step by step, discover how to create without fear, but with joy, confidence, and courage. You'll be surprised how freeing it feels once you start. You can follow along with markers and pen on paper or on your iPad and Procreate using the resources I've created for you. And here's the best part. In this class, you have full permission to make mistakes and welcome these happy little accidents because being imperfect is perfect. So are you ready? Then let's dive right in and have some fun together. 2. Class Project: Creating a class project is a great way to put what you've learned into practice and make the class experience more fun and rewarding. It not only helps you solidify your new skills, but it also inspires others when they see your work. Five different exercises in this class, chances are you'll end up with at least one finished illustration that's perfect to share in the project gallery. Just head over to the Projects and Resources tab and click Submit Project. Give your project a title, upload an image and tell us how you enjoyed this freeing way of making art. One quick note. If you use a portrait image as your cover, it might get cropped. No worries. Upload it again and feel free to add even more project images, too, by just clicking the little add More Media icon. Once you've done, you just hit the Publish button. Now just imagine the gallery filling up with wonderful quirky illustrations, and how great it feels when other students and I leave encouraging comments on your work. Let's make this a fun, cheering gallery where we lift each other up. And with that said, let's move on to the next lesson where we talk about the materials we'll use in class. I'll see you there. 3. Materials & Resources: Let's talk about the materials. This is a hybrid class again, which means you can follow along on any medium you like. I'll be switching between paper with markers and ink and my iPad and Procreate. So just use whatever feels right for you. Because this class is more about the exercises than the final outcome, any paper or sketchbook will do. In case you're curious what I am working on, it's the color printer paper from Clair Fontaine. It's bright, white, smooth, so gentle on marker nibs, a little thicker than regular paper and of great quality for the price. For markers, I'm using my beloved huh markers, my Sadler pigment fine liner or my fountain pen, and sometimes a white gel liner for details. If you're in Procreate, you'll find everything you need in the projects and resources tab. I've put together a custom brush set and a color palette for you. Just tap the files on your iPad to download them and they land in your File apps Downloads folder by default. And when you tap an item there, it'll automatically import into Procreate. In the resources tab, you'll also find the reference photo we'll be using for exercise too. It's best to grab it now so you have it ready when you need it. And lastly, I've curated a Pinterest mood board full of style inspiration for you. The link is in the resources tab as well. Just remember to use other artists work as inspiration only. Now gather your materials, pick your colors for the exercises, and then let's move on to the next lesson where we'll talk about the mid-century illustration principles we're aiming for in this class. I see it there. 4. Style Principles & Visual Library: Alright, let's get a clear idea of where we need to keep in mind to create art in this wonky mid-century illustration style. To do that, we're going to look at my Pinterest mood board, where I've collected artwork that perfectly shows the style we're aiming for. And to help us remember these principles, we'll create a visual library, basically our own style guide as we go. You can do that in your sketchbook on a spare piece of paper or write in Procreate, and that's what I will be using. So let me quickly pull up Procreate in split screen. Now, the specific mid-century style I want to focus on today because there are many variations is characterized by black, often wonky linework and a very limited color palette. This combination makes each piece lively, playful, and interesting to look at. The motifs themselves aren't necessarily from the mid-century era. They can come from earlier periods like art deco, which often has more embellishments, swirls and decorative details we can borrow. Today, we want to focus on two main things the use of color and the line art. Let's start with color. As mentioned before, the color palettes are often extremely limited, most of the times even reduced to one or two colors only. Looking at our examples, I can see four main ways how color is used. First of all, here, we have abstract shapes in the background. I can see trapezoids or blobs or lines. They're not part of the main motif, but they add visual interest and balance. Let's note that. And second, there's one used to color parts of the motif like here and here. And when used to color part of the motif, there's not always an outline. And when there is an outline, the shape is often shifted slightly or even has a different shape than the outline. Let's add that to our notes, too. The next way of how color is being used in this mid-century style is by coloring the background and leaving some negative space for the main motif. As we can see here, the background has a solid color and the motif or sometimes it's even more than just one, they sit in cut outs of negative space. Let's jot that down as well. Since the class is all about wonkiness, you won't mind my wonky penmanship. The fourth way of how color is being used in this illustration style is with multiple colors for a themed collection. Here is a great example. We see some music instruments, and each one is held in a different color. This is another great example. They use only three different colors, but you can distinguish easily that there's different lamp shades. And with the linework, even with white marks, it looks quite different, versatile, and super interesting. So let's add that to our style guide, as well. Now, let's move on to the line art. I'm going to add a new layer, make this invisible, and write my line art here. And while there's a lot we could document, we'll focus on lines, flourishes, decorative patterns, and fillers. This one is a very good example. We can see all the lines are pretty wonky. Sometimes we have lines that are broken as well. And then we might have wavy lines. Here I see a great example for flourishes. Let's mark that down as well. Another great example for flourish is this kind of shape. Here I see a dotted line. So why don't we add that to our line art? As patterns, we see this kind of this hatched area, maybe crosshatching, maybe just hatching and maybe hatching in different directions. Then I could also see some dots here as a pattern. And, of course, we see stripes. Here we have little flowers. They could be either fillers or pattern. And remember, we want to keep it wonky. Here we have a nice plate pattern. Look at this. And we have a cool flower. So maybe we want to draw this rose, which is basically just a swirl. Oh, this is a great way of using a line with big and small dots and also this kind of mazy way of having a line. There's also a cool flourish. And you see here for the doors, we see a lot of boxes, a lot of round shapes. It's just super simple and very wonky, but the overall impression is really interesting. So this is also a great way of using a line and as you can see another detail, the artist here didn't really pay attention where the line starts and stops. So here it goes beyond the actual shape. The lines are really wonky, and here they also go beyond each other. So that's so cool. It gives you so much freedom. I actually like this way of having a line. And this is also a very simple way for a flourish. And here we see a nice example for fillers in an empty space of the paper. They just add dots and circles. So here I can see like a heart. I want to add a heart. I actually like this way of just adding ovals as a pattern. This way of having a flourish, like just basically these kind of shapes. And here we see this is this line repeating over and over and here we have even flowers, so cute. And here it's basically this pattern just flipped upside down. So you don't really need that many different items. And having these few items repeating in your illustration, that's what makes them cohesive. Here we see great examples for fillers. This is basically just whatever random little stipples or lines or dots. That's a way of having a line we did not put down yet. It's with dashes. Also a great way of having your lines end is with a little dot. Let's put that to flourishes. Oh, a great way of having a decoration is, like, just a simple bow tie. Or like this. I like this one a lot. Oh, I think we did not use this filler pattern here. Oh, here we see little star, so why not? Oh, the stars are here as well. And look at this line here, which is also really cool. It's basically a line with a lot of dots on the line itself. And I know we could spend hours collecting these ideas. There's so much to discover in this wonderful style. But the point of today's exercise is to create something you can refer back to whenever you feel stuck or want to stay consistent in your artwork. So feel free to check for more details you want to collect in your style guide, but I want to move on for now. So whenever you're trying to understand a new style, I highly recommend building your own guide like this. All right. Let's move on to the next lesson where we'll set a few playful rules or guidelines for our exercises. I'll see you there. 5. Tips & Tricks: I've noticed a few things that can make your drawing either more enjoyable or can get a little bit in the way. That's why I put together a few tips and tricks to help you get the most out of each exercise and feel confident when exploring this wonky mid-century style. My first tip is about reference photos. It's totally okay to use a reference, but here's a trick that really helps. Take a good look for about 20 seconds and then put it away. This way, you can focus on the essential without getting lost in the details. And of course, if you forget something, f free to peek again, but then put it away right after. My second tip Make mistakes. Don't be afraid of wrong lines or shapes or colors, and you don't need to erase them. This is your permission to create messy or imperfect work. And sometimes, figuring out what does not work is just as valuable. It teaches you a lot for your future choices. Here's tip number three, skip the safety net. For the main illustrations, we're going to skip detailed sketches. We're going to map out our composition on a little thumbnail. But then we're going to draw freely our main illustration because honestly, who really likes to sketch anyway. Tip number four is for our Procreate users. Procreate can get a little bit in your way when you're trying to achieve wonky lines because of all of its built in tools. So here's what I did. All my brushes come without streamline and stabilization. This way, the app is not going to smooth out your strokes. I recommend keeping it like that throughout the class. The same goes for the quick shape tool. It really makes your shapes look way too perfect for this style. I will show you even how to turn that off. And lastly, and that's probably the hardest one. Try not to hit undo all the time. Except your happy accidents, those unexpected little mistakes that actually make your artwork way more lively and unique. No one is gonna judge you. Remember, these exercises aren't about creating a perfect outcome. They're here for you to have fun, to experiment, and to embrace your own artistic style. The more you enjoy yourself and your unique art style, the more confident and free your drawing will feel. And with that s, let's jump right into our first exercise. I'll see you there. 6. Warm-Up Exercise: Okay, now that we have a clear vision of the style we're aiming for and the guidelines we want to follow in our illustrations, we can start with a little warm up exercise. This will help loosen your hand, get you into a playful mindset, and take the pressure of before we dive into our main projects. For this, I am using a sheet of a five paper a marker and my fountain pen. And since I'm drawing with alcohol markers, I put a little protection sheet underneath, since these alcohol markers tend to bleed through the paper. Of course, you can use whatever you have on hand or you draw in procreate. So what we're going to do now is we are going to draw three upright rectangles with our marker, and in procreate, you would choose the MCM marker. So don't worry about making them neat or perfectly straight. Wonky is perfect. Remember, so this is my square number one, and I don't really pay attention how I'm gonna color them. Sometimes I go beyond the line, but that's no problem at all. Remember, it's just a exercise, and we want to have fun and there to be wonky. Okay, my three rectangles are done. And now I will take my fountain pen. You can take your fine liner or whatever else you have on hand. And then we're going to turn these three rectangles into something. So let's see. I think this one is going to be a house. It kind of looks like a house. So let's see. Gonna start with the roof. And then I'm adding some windows. And maybe another one. Here's gonna be the door. And since it's a bit higher, it's gonna get some stairs. So let's add a window here. And maybe a handle. This. And here, the windows need something. Here are these shutters. And maybe on the roof, we're going to draw those window things, too. Maybe like this. Alright. That is definitely a house. And I found it was super nice to draw. I actually like the character of these lines. So some parts are a little bit thicker and some part where I was a little bit faster, the line is a little bit thinner, and I don't mind that. I actually really like this going beyond a shape. So overall, this looks super fun to me. Okay, let's move on and turn the next rectangle into something. How about how about we turn that into a table. So a table with a completely weird perspective. Here's another leg. And here is another leg. So, who cares? It doesn't matter. It's just about the overall impression we get when everything is done. So let's put some fun vase here in the middle. And it's going to have a little bit of a pattern. And in our vase, there are some flowers maybe like this. Oops. Oh, good. Alright. And some stems and some leaves. Maybe some leaves up here. And tada here we have a nice table, but maybe it's getting a little doily. And maybe how about, now I've added the table legs, but we could even add something like a tablecloth, something like this. And we could give it just funky Uh, like plate pattern. That's definitely a table and a vase. Alright. How about? What are we going to do with our last rectangle? Um, I think I think I'm going to turn that into just like a coffee pot or a jug or something. Let's see. So again, I'm not gonna give it an outline, just the way I did with the house. I am just gonna add something like a irke like lid. Maybe it has a little bit of stripes pattern here. And then we have the handle here, a nice flourish handle. And here we're gonna pour out the coffee. And I guess it needs a pattern, too. So how about we go with this one here? That's not mid-century, I don't know what is. Yeah. And that's it. See, I told you the wonkiness works. Even though we deliberately painted some pretty wonky shapes and wobbly lines everywhere, the overall image still feels harmonious and interesting to look at. And that's the beauty of this style. It doesn't rely on perfection. In fact, the imperfections are what make it alive and full of character. This exercise is a great reminder that you don't need flawless lines or correct proportions to create something that works. Just dare to be wonky and embrace the freedom of drawing, imperfect. You'll see there's no such thing as ugly art, only cool and funky stuff. Alright. And now that we're warmed up, we can head straight to the next lesson where we'll take these ideas a step further with a new exercise. I'll see you there. 7. Exercise 2: Gramophone: Hello, and welcome back to this exercise. This time, we're going to draw a gramophone. This is a perfect example of taking a motif from an earlier era and applying mid-century drawing techniques. In this case, are black and wonky lines and abstract shapes in the background. I'll be working in Procreate this time just to show you my workflow there as well. Of course, you can use whichever method you prefer analog or digital. I've already pulled up the reference photo, which you can find in the projects and resources tab as well. I found that on Pixel Bay, which by the way, is a great source for royalty free reference photos. Okay, let's look at the photo for around 20 seconds or so. Here we see the huge speaker, and this is the arm where it's attached to the box underneath. Here we have our shellac record, and there's a lot of carvings and decorations. And I also see that down there is a little bit wider of an area, and it stands on feet. We also have this lit crank here which you need to twist that the thing starts working at all. And then this arm with this circle kind of thing here, this is the needle which plays the music later on. I also noticed some embellishments and lines here on the speaker. And I guess that's all I need to know, so I can go over to Procreate and start my thumbnail. And here I am in Procreate with a 2000 by 2,500 pixel canvas. And I want to start with my thumbnail. This means I want to just just roughly map out my illustration to see how it looks later on. And then I can use that as my reference for my final illustration. So let's start moving over to black, and I'm going to pick my sketcher brush. So let's see what I remember obviously is this huge speaker, and it had kind of these petal like shapes here, all around the edge. And then there was this kind of funnel thing like this. Underneath, there was a box, and I want to make sure I make it a bit wonky. Like the bottom of the box was a bit wider. I don't know. Do I want it round or maybe angular? I don't know yet. And maybe we add another little line down here, and then we had the feet. I guess my feet are supposed to look like this. How about this? Yes, I like that. And then we had some carvings and decoration. And I guess I want to have it looking like this. And maybe maybe something else in here. How about how about we're going to go with flourishes like this? Alright. Yes, great. Up here, there was a Shellac record. And this can be wonky. It adds absolutely to the feel. And it has this kind of thing in the middle. Now we know where to attach our arm like this maybe. And there was some embellishment, as well. And how about we put the player arm like this? And here was this circle in the needle. And then, of course, the crankier which can also be super wonky Oh, I love that. Great. And there were some lines in here I remember. And there was some decoration. And I guess I want to go with just something like this. Maybe I could even, like, just dash these lines to have it not that distracting for the eye, maybe. How's that? Maybe like this. Yeah, we'll see later on. I guess I guess I like the dash lines better. They are not so they are not too bold, too obvious for the eye. And that's enough with our thumbnail. And as we said, we want to add some color in the background, just one blob, just one shape. And I thought of this typical mid-century kind of bean shape. I've just added another layer and pulled it underneath, so I'm not going to damage our thumbnail. So I thought of, why don't we just add this kind of How about this one? In the background. Let's see if we can do that in our final color right away. I think I like that a lot. That's super mid-century. Okay, I think my thumbnail is done and I'm really happy with it. So I'm going to say that in my camera role. I just want to turn down the opacity of the background a little bit that I can see my sketch a little bit better. So let's just share it as a JPAC in our camera role. Alright. Now I want to go over and open a new canvas that I'm not going to be tempted to draw with a sketch. I want to practice my visual imagination, so I'm going to start on a new canvas. So here I've opened the same size 2000 by 2,500 pixels. I will be starting with my orange right away. So I'm going to start by drawing this triangular beanish kind of shape here. All right, our background shape is ready. And now that I remember correctly what I wanted to draw, I'm going to pull up my thumbnail as a reference photo. So we go to the wrench tool. We switch to Canvas, and here we enable reference. Now I just need to pick my image. Here it is. And then I'm just going to pull it to the side that it's not too distracting to me. So I can see my speaker peaks beyond the shape, so this is what I'm going to do first. Here, the black. And I think I'm going to go with my fountain pen this time. Alright. And I start with these pedal kind of things. Here we are going to have this kind of little rectangle. And then we have our box underneath, and I want to make sure that I have enough space between the speaker and the box underneath. So I guess I'm going to start here. Go to the side. And that's a problem when you are working with Procreate. It turns your lines into the quick shape tools pretty quickly. We can change that, though, because this is quite bothering, and it keeps us away from having our wonderful wonky lines. So for now, I'm going to change that. I'm going to go to my wrench tool. I'm going to go over to preferences and then gesture control. And here we have the quick shape tool. So what is enabled right now is draw and hold, and I'm going to simply turn that off. Now there's not going to be any quick shape, perfect shape tool applied any longer, which I prefer. If you still want to use it, that's totally fine. Keep it on. I just want to turn it off for now. Alright, so let's go to the side and up and over. And then I said, I want to add this diagonal kind of bottom situation and another line and my feet. Like this. Amazing. Here we've said, we're going to add the flourishes. Let's do them this way. And here we go to mirror them if I can do it. Yes, great. Alright. And maybe we're gonna draw. We see. Maybe we're gonna fill in something in here, but maybe it's not really necessary. Alright, now, let's start with our record here. A little wonky. And then I want to fill it. But I want to make sure that I'm not gonna fill it entirely, but leave some spaces orange to indicate those typical lines in a vinyl, you might remember. There are those ridges engraved. And by keeping these, you can clearly tell this is a record, and it has this ridges. I hope this is the right word. Okay, and now my decoration, it was this kind of rectangle here. And I said, I'm gonna apply my typical loops. I love the loops. I really do. Okay, here. Let's see. Here we're going to attach the arm to our box. So now we need to embellish our funnel here. And I'm not gonna draw them all the way down because that's gonna get too narrow. I feel like there should be a little bit more black, maybe we just turn this black here, this tire little thingy and maybe the feet. How about this? There we have it our final gramophone illustration. Even though we focused on wonky lines and simplified shapes, it really comes together and looks super lively and fun, doesn't it? This exercise is a great reminder that we don't need perfect details to create something visually interesting. It's all about observing, experimenting, and just trusting your hand. So I hope you had as much fun as I did and that you can see how these techniques, wonky lines, abstract backgrounds, and playful patterns can add personality to your own work. Now let's move on to the next lesson where we're going to have just as much fun as we will be drawing some vintage picture frames together. I'll see you there. 8. Exercise 3: Vintage Frames: And welcome back to our third exercise. In this one, we'll draw super fun vintage picture frames. You know, those orn decorative ones with plenty of flourishes and embellishments. We'll also add one color again this time to fill in some details of our illustration. I am sticking with paper, marker, and ink, but you can use whatever medium you like. Let's start by doing a quick Google search for some example. You can, of course, update your style guide while we do this if you want. I'm skipping that step for now because I already have mine set up. I just want to focus on finding some fresh visual inspiration here. And I'm searching for vintage frames. And then I switch over to Google Images. Here we go. I prefer using Google over Pinterest for this kind of search because my Pinterest boards are mostly filled with artwork I've collected. And while that's great for other things, it's not ideal here. I want to avoid copying someone else's illustration style. So I look for photos instead. That way, it's easier to make the idea completely my own. Alright, let's see what we've got here. This is a very nice example. It has something in the corners. It has something in the center of each side, and it's a rectangle. This one is also a very nice example. So it has this embellishment on top bottom and side. And in between, there's these curved lines, also very nice. And then we can see here in the inside, there's another brim or however you might want to call that, and it has tiny little dots. I don't know if you can see it on camera. It has dots here, so also a pattern. Oh, I find this really fancy here with this shape. Very interesting. And I also like this kind of wavy, whatever, frilly outside of this one. You see a lot of really fancy shapes. Like, for example, oh, this one here, you see those curvy fun lines that is neither rectangle nor circle oval or whatever, but it looks just gorgeous. And I also like this bow tie up here. Alright, I don't want us to go too deep down this rabbit hole. You get the idea. So feel free to browse as long as you like. But for now, let's get back to our illustration. If you get stuck along the way on how to decorate your frames, just refer back to your style guide. I'll keep mine to the side, though, mostly because my desk is really tiny. So let's begin with a quick thumbnail sketch to plan how we want to arrange our frames. I'm going to use my fine liner just to save up on ink. So of course, we want to mix up our shapes a bit to make the illustration as interesting as possible. So let's see. I think here, I'll go with an oval frame. And over here maybe a horizontal rectangle like this. Then perhaps an upright rectangle right here. And maybe how about Oh, how about we go totally wild and draw some fancy one like this here. With all these kind of fun curves. All right, a bit wonky, but this is just our thumbnail. No worries about that. Okay. So let's see how do we want to decorate them? What's very important for sure is that the frames themselves will get a pass partout kind of thing inside. And this is the frame. And then we will have something up here. And maybe some decoration in here in the frame throughout. Yeah. We don't need more right now. So let's see. I want to add some flourishes here in the corner like this. And let's turn around our thing. It's easier. Like this maybe. Whoops, maybe. Let's see. And then we're going to add something like this here, there, and there. And then, look, we're going to draw those curved lines here. Yeah, this looks gorgeous. Alright, then here is the frame itself and a pass part inside. And maybe here we gonna add another line set like this. Okay. That looks great. Um, in our next one, I guess. How about we start with cool flourishes here. Oops. The other way around. Oh, I really struggle with the direction in which they have to to look at. That's so funny. Alright, here and here and here, and Oops, um, here. All right. And then we can have the frame go like this. Oh, no, that's not gonna work. No, this is not gonna work. Um, how about? How about? Oh, we give it a little bit a little something in the corner. How about this? Oh, yes, I like that. This is cool. And maybe we just go on here with, let's see, another line here and there and here and there. And we just go on with our flourishes here like this and like this. And like this, we will make this later on. We make this smaller, and we just have this kind of flourish situation within the wood here. And then we have like a little bit of another one. And maybe some sort of fringe. Is that even a word? Maybe something like this. Here, around. Yes, that's plenty, and don't forget the passp inside. Alrighty. Okay. The last one. I feel that this one needs a lot of flourishes. First of all, let's go. Straw the frame itself. So then let me see. I want to have this. I want to have one here and one here, one here, and maybe some along here. And then how about this and this and this here and something kind of like this there. And then we'll just add some circles here in the frame, right? Okay. That looks gorgeous. I like that a lot. Okay, and that's enough for our thumbnail. It's just clear. What I want to do is I want to give the wood of the frames the yellow color. So let's see. So this is gonna be yellow. And this is gonna be yellow. And this here as well. And this as well. The embellishment, I think, can just stay black. So then I guess, let's see, we need to put some people into the frames. Alright, here, let's do. Let's put Aunt Agatha in this one, and she has a yellow blouse. And then how about Uncle Archibald? Let's see. Let's go with Uncle Archibald and his hair. His hair is yellow, and maybe he's wearing a bow tie in yellow. I think in this one, we would just put something like a landscape scene and there's the sun being yellow. And what about the last one? Oh, the last one, we're just going to put some sunflowers. Of course, they have a bigger center and just like this and then some leaves. So here's gonna be our mountains, and some trees and some more bushes over there. Yep. And here we have some leaves also and Uncle. What did we name him, Archibald? Yes. So here's his eyes, here's his mouth. And I guess he's wearing like, of course, he's wearing a white shirt over a black suit. Yes, great. And aunt or aunt Agatha, let's see. She has a very for sure, she has fringes here along her blouse. And she has a pearl necklace, and she has this kind of curly adu and just two eyes, and nose and her mouth, yes. And I think I think Aunt no uncle, Uncle Archibald, he needs this kind of monocal thing. Let's just put it like this. Oh, so fun. Okay. And that's our illustration mapped out. Let's take our actual paper now and start with colored frame shapes. So let me put my thumbnail over here. And then I'm gonna take my marker. And I want to lay my oval somewhere here. The horizontal rectangle kind of here. And the upright one we put Oops. The upright one we put here. And then our fancy curved one here. Great. We could add many more, but that's okay for this lesson. Um, how about? We said, we want to give it some loops up here. And I don't really need to stay outside of the line of the shape, I can also go inside or leave some white space. Okay, now let's decorate the inside of the frame with just some lines. Let's move on to this one here. Okay, what did we say? We said, It's gonna get something in the corners like this. All right. Okay. I think I want to add a second line in here. And then, of course, the past part too. So, here, what do we have here? Let's see. We have the wooden frame here. Problem. I need to turn around my paper all the time. Otherwise, I'm gonna get con No, here we here we are. No. What What's the direction? Ah. See, that's I don't know. It's really hard for me to mirror, but that's okay. Gosh, that's so okay. No one will notice that. This okay. So and then we said, we're gonna give it a little something here. Yes. And I guess that's enough for this one. All right. Let's go with a very lucious one here, the last one. Oh, boy, I really love that. So fun. And then, I think, since this has a very, very weird shape, I'm just giving it like an oval pass part thing. I guess this also needs a pass part. And then I think I might switch up the sunflowers and put them in here. And the mountains, because they're kind of high, I will put them here in this more slant in this narrower picture frame. Okay, so let's grab a marker again and start with the colored details. So let's make sure we put the sun in this one here, since this is the mountain scene. And then we have the sunflowers here. And then Uncle Archibald And aunt Agatha with her blouse. That's so fun. I know you can hear it. I have a lot of fun here. So let's see. I guess I should not start on the left, though, because then I'm gonna smudge my ink. Let's just make sure it's completely dry. Looks like it is. Alright. Let's start with Aunt Agatha on the right again. Tada Aunt Agatha is done. Oh, I love her. She looks so fun. Okay, let's move on. So here, Uncle Archibald. Oh That is Uncle Archibald. Done. Alright, let's move on. Here we have our sunflowers. Here we go. Alright. And the last one is going to be our mountains. So our four frames and paintings and pictures are done, and I find them gorgeous. I really love them. And you can tell I had such a great time drawing this. I could easily keep going and make even more frames. But I want to show you a few more ways to play with color. So let's move on to the next lesson. There we'll experiment with a color background and negative space. I see you there. 9. Exercise 4: Coffee Set Thumbnail: And here we are with our fourth exercise. And this time, we're going to draw a mid-century tea and coffee set. Well, just a few items spread across the canvas. In this one, I want to show you how you can work with negative space in your illustration. I'll be working in Procreate again, but as always, you draw wherever you feel the most comfortable. I have my iPad in split screen mode again because I want to research shapes of pots and cups and map out my thumbnail at the same time. We'll keep the illustration simple because working without a detailed sketch, while focusing on negative space, can feel a little bit intimidating. But don't worry. No one is judging you. This is just a great exercise to sharpen your visual imagination. And always remember we're practicing here. It's not about the outcome. It's not about perfection. It's about gaining confidence, having fun, being bold and brave and also remembering that mistakes don't define your value. And with that said, I'll start my research for mid-century tea and coffee sets. And again, move over to images. And here we see a lot of cute examples already. Oh, my God, how adorable. You need to know, my mom had a real passion for beautiful China, and growing up, I learned the differences between coffee and tea cups and pots. We had a huge collection of sugar spoons and tongs, and, of course, an impressive number of different sets. Just in case you were wondering what make me think of this as our motif. So, but let's see now what Google shows us. I love that. Already, this is adorable, and I really like this pattern here and the shape. And in case you don't know, my mom told me a long and slender pot is for coffee, whereas a smaller and more rounded pot is for tea. Now you know too. So some random, uninteresting facts. However, let's go on, well, this is adorable too. I think I want to go with this shape for my coffee pot, let's see. I want to have the sketcher again and I'm on black. So I want the pot to be really long and slender, maybe more towards down here. I also want to have some, sorry, I love flourishes, even though it might not be too mid-century. I want to add a flourished handle here, and then we have the thing to pour out the coffee like this. And then I want to exaggerate the shape of the top of the lid, and this is going to be the knob. Then I'm just going to draw this pattern as the pattern for the pot. So here we have a coffee pot. That means we would also need a teapot, and that's going to be maybe down here. It's a bit more rounded. Maybe it has a flat bottom, and it has this kind of I don't know how it's called, but it has since it's one service or one set, since it's one service, it has the same shape of the lid here and also the same pattern like this. That's super simple. That's something we can easily portrait later on in our main illustration. Let's go and find more bigger shapes because they will appear like really obvious and they fill the canvas. So afterwards, we can spread the smaller items a little bit easier. So I guess I want to go with a plate right here, just around cake plate. And it has the same pattern here all along the brim. So what else do we need? For sure, we need a coffee, a coffee cup. This, for example, is more of a coffee cup as it is slender and higher. So let's see. I'm going to put that here. But I want to give it a little bit of a foot as well. And I also want to have this flourished. You know, artists choice. Let's add a sugar pot, maybe down here and it maybe gets this kind of shape and also a little foot. I guess I want to add a little foot to the coffee pot as well. And then it has the same lid here with this kind of knob at the top. Of course, it has the same the same pattern, and I guess this one gets two handles. Whoops, like this, maybe. Ah, how cute. I like it. Alright. And then, next, what else do we need? We need a teapot. I guess I want this to be more more rounded. And also, with a florished handle, I just don't want all the handles. Oh, we forgot the handle here like this. Just don't want the handles all to be in one side. So let's put this here. And I think I'm going to erase this one. And I'm gonna make this a little bit bigger. And then I'm going to add Oops. The handle to this side. And I guess I want to put the teapot somewhere else as well because it looks a little bit too crowded down here. So let's go for this here, and I guess the sugar thingy should be a little bit bigger. Okay. And then I guess we need we need a milk jug thingy. So let's see. Let's see. Let's see we go this way. And since this is a very plain shape, we're gonna be plain as well and add this kind of pouring thing, but the same lit because it's all one service. Alright. And probably another handle. Now we are to crowd it up here. So let's move this a little bit and make it maybe a little bit smaller like that. Maybe the teapot is also a little bit too big. Maybe like that. That's better. And we can also move the plate around. So as long as you guys are in your sketch, or some nail, you can do whatever you want. Move it around, erase, start new. That's no problem at all until you are happy with the outcome. Alright. And then up here, we still have, like, a free space. And here, I guess I want to add I want to add a spoon. So let's go like this, maybe. And then something down here with a little pattern here. And, of course, oh, I think the spoon is huge. Let's make it a little bit smaller. Okay. That's a good size. And now I guess I want to put the fork the other direction just like this, just to create more interest. And here we have a nice fork with something down here. Yes, and this looks like a very, very nice layout already. I guess I want to I'm not very happy with this one. I think it's too big and too close to the edge. Alright, we can close Google. Let's think about how we want to place the negative space. Some items I want to keep white and without a outline later on. That's very important. If you have a white shape, this is not going to get an outline. So for that, we should be able to tell the shape more or less, yeah. And also, I also changed my mind. I guess I want to add a little bit of a wonky perspective to the openings of my cups. And that's because we want to work with black. The negative space means white and the background color we are going to use. And by only having white spaces and some black thin lines, it would look quite boring. So that's why I want to spread out some black areas. And I guess I'm going to do it here as well with our teapot. By creating a little bit of a dimension here with the opening, but it can be really don't worry about it. It can be really wonky. It doesn't need to be the proper real shape. All right. Like this, maybe. And then the lid goes down here and we see some black and the knobs here up there. They got to be black as well. And maybe we could even turn that black. We'll see. We'll see how that looks later on. Okay, I think what I want is this cup to be white. The plate to be white, the teapot, and the coffee pot. And the rest is going to be just filled with a background color. So let's indicate that. I think this time we're going to go with pink. Let's add a layer underneath and go to our marker. And now you will understand why drawing with negative space can feel a little bit intimidating. It's because you need to be able to tell the exact shape of something because you don't draw an outline. If I would just go like this, like I would usually do, then it would be hard to tell that this is a teapot due to the, you know, irregular shapes. However, I still have a tool in my toolbox for keeping the outlines crisp without a sketch. So keep that in mind for later on, we will talk about that once more. Let's go back to this layer and start over new. So I'm going to try to kind of just roughly tell me later on that I remember that this is going to be negative space. This is going to be filled. This is going to be negative space again, but not the handle. The handle is just going to be on top of pink. Alright, let's see. Here, negative space, negative space. I think the plate can be negative, as well. This would be an easy shape. And let's go here. And I guess up there, the cup is going to be negative space. So white like this. And the rest is just going to be covered. That's great. Alright. And now you see those black accents really make a difference. Okay, I'm happy with my thumbnail right now. Now let's move on to the next lesson where we turn this into our final illustration. I'll see you there. 10. Exercise 4: Coffee Set Illustration: Okay, I'm happy with my thumbnail right now, and I'm going to take a picture again, so I'm going to share it in my camera role. And then I will start a new canvas. Let's go back, start new. Let's use the same dimensions. All right. And let's refer back to our sketch. Go to the wrench tool, Canvas and reference. And now we pick the image. All right. Let's move the whole thing to the side and Can we make it a bit smaller? Let's try laying down the color first and don't be scared. We can fix something that we've messed up, but also feel free to draw with pencil on a separate layer that makes it easier for you. But because I'm so stubborn, I want to try it without. So let's go ahead and mark the outline of my coffee pot. So it's gonna be here and it's gonna have this thing here. And that. That's my coffee pot. And here's gonna be my teapot. And then here we have the plate. And here we have the teacup. Alright. And the rest can just be pink. All right. And now we're ready for our line work. So let's pick black as our color. And maybe this time I'm going to go with my MCM nice liner. So first of all, I see this looks kind of a bit messy here and it's hard to tell what it's going to be. Let's see if it gets better by adding the lines for the lid. Like this and our pattern and giving the foot here also some black. It is much better, although I still don't like this kind of situation here, but we can fix that. And this is something that you could even do on paper by just using your gel pen that has the same color as your paper. So you just take your white and you just go over this weird area a little bit to make it a little bit more even and easier to understand what we see. Boom, done. Looks so much better already. And I think I want to go and do the same here, maybe a little bit of cleaning up So, right, let's go back to black here, and I think I want to make this a little bit wider. And then I need to clean up a little bit more of the pink here. And then we can really tell what we see. Alright. And now let's move on to our coffee pot. So let's see. Um, we create this. Oops, we're still at white, so let's go back to black. Alright, we'll creing this kind of oval shape. Like this kind of the same size, kind of the same size. Alright, and then we're gonna draw our pattern. And I really like that. And a little foot down here. That's what we said. Just to create more different colored areas here. Alright. I think we need to clean up a little bit, too. So let's go back to our white. Amazing. Now we can totally tell what we see. I think with a plate, it's totally fine. So we go on with our plate. And here we have our wonderful wonky teacup. And I think I want to clean up this weird thinking, No, not erasing. Just pick white and just go along here. Just this spot here. All right. Perfect. And oh, it needs a handle. It needs a handle. Did we draw handles? No, we did not draw handles yet, so let's go. Let's go and do our handles here. So I want to start with a big flourish and end with a small one. And here we're going to do it a little bit longer like this. Tata and here we have again, like this. Okay. Oh, that looks so cool. I love it. And now let's move on to our two hour milk jug. It gets around opening as well. And, of course, the top lid situ Oops. No, no, no, no, no. Okay? This is a little bit thicker. Who cares? We make mistakes. Like this. And it also has a handle. Maybe just a small one here and the pattern that cannot be missed. And here we have our sugar. Pot with a tiny little foot down here as well. And pattern and the lit. And again, the knob up here. And I decided differently. I don't want to give it handles because there's not enough space, but I'm just going to put a spoon in there. Boom, done. And I think I think our lids should have a little line here. And then we need another cup here. Okay. And here, you're going to fill in. Maybe it doesn't have to be maybe it doesn't have to be straight. Look, how about? How about? How about we gonna go like this? A spoon goes here. Like this. And here with the pattern and maybe another the fork maybe the fork is just down here. Ta da. Oh, wonderful. That looks amazing. I really like that. So let's see did we add all the details we wanted to do? I think we did. And I think that's something I would do on paper, as well. I think I would add some I think I would add some sugar cubes to just fill some areas which seem to be a little bit empty by just adding, you know, just a cube like this. Uh, I love it. I really do. Oh, wait. We forgot the we forgot the here. Do you see that? How can you pour the milk? You cannot pour the milk here. Now you can pour the milk. Here we go. Alright, I really love how this has turned out. The lack of too many details keeps it fresh and light. And those white areas without any outline work just beautifully here. They give the whole piece such a mid-century feel. It's just a great reminder, you know, that you don't have to fill every inch with lines or color for it to feel complete. Sometimes the empty spaces do the heavy lifting. And now let's move on to our next exercise where we'll have just as much fun drawing vintage doors. I'll see you there. 11. Exercise 5: Vintage Doors Thumbnail: Welcome back to our final exercise. This time, we're going to draw vintage doors. It's a perfect opportunity to practice our wonky lines and play a little bit with composition, especially when it comes to placing colors, since we'll be using more than one in this exercise. I'll draw my final illustration on paper, but I'll use my iPad to create the thumbnail first so I can gather some inspiration from Google images at the same time. You just go with whatever works best for you now. So I've opened my split view again. On the left, I have a canvas in Procreate, and on the right, I have Google ready to search. This illustration will be in a portrait format, so that's why I opened this canvas like this, and I'm going to just grab my Apple pencil, and then I will type in vintage doors and see what we get. Let's move over to images. And here we start right away with some very, very cool examples. I think I want to illustrate six different ones in two rows of each three different doors. And of course, we want to switch up door shapes and patterns. So we will look for the overall door shape, whether it's rectangle or round or just curved. And we will also pick different patterns like windows or panels, and maybe even this wrought iron decoration. Let's start with a rectangle door here. Then maybe one that's really rounded at the top, like this here. Then let's go for another rectangle, but maybe this has kind of 22 really narrow doors. And down here, let's see. O with a slight curve at the top only. Let's see, there's a whole collection. More like this, maybe a little bit rounded, but not like a crescent shape. Let's see. Let's put that here. This, maybe another rectangle, just regular plane one in the center. How about maybe we do differently? How about we put the one with a slight curve over here, a plain rectangle in the center, and maybe another two door 12 door thing here, so we don't have the direct repetition below each other like this. So here I definitely want to have this kind of shape. So here with this kind of lines in the window. And I think I definitely want to have these kind of panels in there and maybe maybe a double one like this and with these kind of lines. Can you see that? Lines towards the outside, just like this. And again, this is just a map. It doesn't really matter. Wait, what are we doing the Maybe on the bottom, we'll get like a really big one like this. The same pattern. And here we have like, what is it? A ladder adder slot, I guess, that's how you call it. And maybe here we have this knocking ring situation. And it needs a knob. Alright. So this door is done. Okay. Alright. Let's go for this plain one. I think. I think I like this one where there's so many different panels in this one. So let's just go ahead and draw a lot of panels in here. Like this. And I guess it needs a frame, another one. Maybe like so. And here again, here again, here again. Here again, and number five. And then, let's see, where do we at the door knob? Mm. I think the knob is here, and then we have a little keyhole down here. And I think I want to add a second here in the center. And then I want to have it like a raised like looking like a raised panel, maybe like this. And then it gets this kind of cross here. Just like this. Oh, that's fine. I like that. What kind of door are we giving this one? I think should we just go with something like this, very plain. So let's add two big panels here. And then we have two of those rings. They look really cool. I like them. And we should not forget, like the kind of I don't know how this is called the bottom part of the door. You see? It's usually a little bit longer than the brim up here. So let's add that as well. Maybe like this, just a little extra one extra box. Could be the doorstep, could also be just the bottom of the door. Alright. And maybe how about we're just adding like a letter slot in this one side here. And then the other side gets a knob or keyhole, whatever you want. So, here we have this door that's just a little bit rounded and not a full crescent or half circle. And I guess I want this to have a whole lot of pattern. I think I want to go with this kind of thing. Oh, yes, I like that. Like this. So there could be there could be this panel here with a window here in the center, and maybe even maybe this also has this pattern. A, here we have a big panel, just a wooden panel. Maybe it's raised like this. And then here we have this kind of longer and handle thingy going on. Here we put the ladder slot, and here, don't forget the bottom or the step. Okay, so this is going to be a window. Let me mark that. And this is going to be a window. And now I need to check. If we have enough windows up there, there's another window, yes. Okay. And I think in my illustration, I will continue to color the windows black and then draw my highlights or the patterned linework in white, just like this. This is just another way of illustrating in that style, just for you to get another idea and another tool for your toolbox. Alright. So, let's go. Let's go with this one. I think I want something like, really I don't know. Wrought iron. Um, I don't know. Flourished, decorated, embellished one. So let's see. Let's see. I guess. Okay, let's see. I guess we have a lot of panels maybe up here. And then, no, I changed my mind because here we have a window, and I think this is gonna get more windows. And then we'll add, how about a big panel down here is the bottom of our door. How about Oh, I like this one. This looks really cool. Let's see. I think I'm going to use this for that, and this one stays just wood. And maybe like this. And then maybe we have the same big panel down here. So maybe we just do let's erase that. We'll just do two longer panels down there. How about that? How does that look? Like this and like this. Yes, I like that. And maybe we could just add some wooden carvings in here like this. How do we like that? Oh, that's cool. Blop and blop. Just squiggles right now, maybe even later on. Yes, I like that. That's carvings. That's also really cool. And how about we put the letter slot the letter slot upright. And just a door knob in the center and maybe a keyhole here. Yes, I like that. That's great. And I guess I want to go with this pattern here. Can we see that? Like this? I guess I want to have how do we do it? Let's see. We will have just some carvings up here. Like this. Very simple. Then we have two windows, like this. And then we have two panels down here. And the bottom of the door, but that also gets Let's see. Is it a slab or is it the bottom whizzing. Doesn't really matter right now. Okay, so here we have whoops. Here we want to color that in black because that's a window. That's the carving. So I leave that in white. No, that's not a window. This is a window. Okay. And then we just at the circle. In here. Now, that doesn't really look right. That doesn't look right. Let's see. How about the shape is wrong? Let's see. Let's do it again. How about we just add the dark windows in round and the rest gets the color. Let's see. So a round window. And down there, the other shape to make it rectangular. Just like this. That looks kind of cool. Like this. Exactly. Yeah. And then this one gets another panel singing, and then whatever pattern carved in here like this. And then we have this kind of longer situation here. And here, I guess I really want to add some I don't know. So decoration. Just some flourishes like this. Oh, yes, I like that. That's cool. And maybe maybe here, two lines. And then, you know, this kind of embellishment. I don't even look at Google anymore because I get so many ideas once I just started. So let's see what we've got here. Yes, that looks amazing. The lines are wonky, but even though even as it is right now, like, really scribbled and wonky, I absolutely love how this looks like. So let's just add quickly a layer below. And then we'll check and see how we want to color. Since orange is the most popping one, I guess I want to start with that. And I guess I want this door to be orange. And maybe also this one like this. And then let's see. Then I think I want to go with my turquoise here. I think the bottom does not get the turquoise because this looks like a doorstep and the same here, I guess. So whoops. Let's go here and draw this turquoise, as well. Oh, boy. It gets this mid-century feel right away. I don't know. I am so in love with that. Okay. And I guess yellow. For this one, I really want to use all the colors. We've picked for this class. I still haven't decided, is it a step or is it part of the door? I guess here it is part of the door. Let's see. And this one, what's left pink this one. This door will get pink. Don't you want a pink door, too? I would love to have a pink door. Oh, yes. I really like that. So, right. That was the mapping out of our illustration. Now let's move on to the next lesson where we turn this into our final illustration. I'll see you there. 12. Exercise 5: Vintage Doors Illustration: Alright. Now we have our six different doors mapped out with color and embellishment. Now, let's just start with our final illustration. And since I have my thumbnail on my iPad, I'm just going to put that aside. That I can still see it, but you probably won't because it's out of the camera angle. Okay, I'm again using an A four piece of paper. This time, I want to use it in portrait mode. And as you saw on the iPad already, I'm going to go with four colors. These four. And I've added a black this time, but I don't ruin my fountain pen and my fine liners, either. Then I have my white gel pen, and I have a fountain pen for the linework. This is what I'm going to use for the linework. Since we have mapped out our doors with the colors, I want to start with my markers and putting out the colors for our doors. I'm just seeing on the thumbnail both turquoise doors have two wing doors, and I actually don't really like that. So I wonder how it looks like if I switch pink and turquoise in my final illustration. So I'm going to go for that. So that means the top right door is going to be turquoise, and I'm just roughly drawing my rectangle, not really caring about how I fill it, how it looks wonky or not. That's just how I want to draw that. And the center, bottom door thing is also in turquoise. That's what we just decided. Okay. Next color, let me go for yellow. And this one has this rounded top. So this is how I want to color it. And again, you go with the colors or medium you really like. What works best for you, this is what works for me. Okay, that's the orange door. And the other orange door down here, this has this curved top like this. And again, I draw, like, really wonky, don't pay attention. And the last door here is going to get a little bit wider because it has two wings. Is that how you say it? Two wings. And I will call that pig again. And again, I don't really pay attention. I think this style just lives from the wonkiness even in coloring. Okay. Now onto the night workork. Let's grab the fountain pen, and we start with the right one, which, first of all, has a step on the bottom. Like this. I'm still thinking, pondering whether or not I want to give them a outline, but I think I do because I want to have not only the door itself, but also a slide frame just makes it easier to distinguish. Then this door is to part door like this. And it has two long panels here. And I really, really, really don't pay much attention to how I draw my line. I just let them happen. Like this, like this and like that. Okay. So here we have a tiny keyhole singing. Here is our ladders slot like this. And here we have the I don't know, how do you call them knocking rings? I don't know. This one gets, like, a little something down there. Ah, cool. Let's move on to the next one. So here we have No step, but the door itself like this. And here we have this half circle window. And this is what I'm gonna color in black later on. Let's just continue right now with more panels. So here I said I'm going to have two narrow ones and one big one down here. And I will draw the white lines later once the black is dry. The next one, let's go on with the orange one. This one is just a door. I really like that the color peaks over here at the top, whereas here are some spot where there's no color. This makes it so lively, in my opinion. I really like that. Okay, now we get a wooden door, a completely wooden door. It is important for you and for this style that you really draw confident lines. It doesn't matter if they get wonky or you miss the end and don't hit it perfectly. That doesn't matter as long as your lines are, like, really brave and bold. And onto our last door. So this one is gonna get a doorstep down here again. Okay. And we said, we want to give it a little bit of white as well. So in this window, I'm going to start with this crescent thing and then some rays moving outwards. This is a typical door window pattern. And here, we're going to have this kind of diamond pattern as well as here. Do And here we said we want to have just some flourishes like this, like that. And here. Oh, man, I like that. And on the bottom, as well, like this. And then here we have two lines. It's basically the pattern from up there, continuing down there. And then we just have this kind of thing and this kind of thing. Oh, very, very ornate here. Oh, my God. And here we go. That's our six doors. Let's just take a step back and look at the whole illustration. Even though the shapes and lines might be wonky, I think the composition just works. And as you can see, the fun comes from daring to be wonky and make mistakes and then discovering unexpected details you might love throughout the process. So I really hope you continue to experiment drawing freely and bravely and don't worry about mistakes. And that wraps up the last exercise in this class. For all procreate users. Just join me in the next lesson where I'll show you how to add paper texture to your digital artwork. I see you there. 13. Final Touches: I promised I showed you my technique for touching up illustrations in Procreate. We've done an amazing job drawing loose and wonky, and maybe our illustration turned out so well that we really want to use it in our portfolio or just share it on our socials. But there are a few details we're not happy about, which we want to refine before presenting our work to the world. This process is absolutely legit. Pretty much every artist does these final refinements. It's also a perfect way to digitalize your illustrations that were originally made on paper. Our first step is, of course, open your artwork in Procreate. This could be a welded photo or a scan of your drawing. I'm just going to work with my Procreate coffee set illustration I made earlier in class. Looking at it, I want to make some minor amendments. First of all, I'm bothered by some dark areas here where my marker brush overlapped. I can fix that by carefully smudging with my markup brush. Let me show you. I'm just going to open my smudge tool here and make sure I'm on the right brush. All right. Next, I want to select my layer. Since I want to keep my white areas nice and crisp, I want to make sure I'm not going to damage them with smudging. And by selecting my layer, just tapping it and tap select, I can only make some amendments here, but not in the white area. So I want to just get rid of these obvious kind of weird, darker spots here. Yeah, that's much better. I would go all around my illustration to fix these kind of weird overlapping areas here, but there's something else I really would like to fix, and that's the outer edge here. So let me turn off the selection. And now I'm just going to erase. I want to make sure I'm erasing with my fountain pen. So I'm just going to tap and hold my eraser, and this is going to use the same brush. Alright. And I want to get rid of these weird bumps here and there. I don't need to be too straight. I just don't like these kind of bumps here. What look really cool is if the handle would go beyond. So let's see if I can just redraw. Awesome. Great. Great. Now, let's see if we can move the entire layer a little bit towards the center. Let's see. Snapping is enabled. So U. Make sure we have both golden lines here appearing. That means it's perfectly center. Great. And in my next step, I want to show you how you can get rid of this kind of flat appearance some digital illustrations really have and to make it more paper like. So if you have watched my other mid-century classes, you know the trick already. I am going to use brushes to make my canvas look more like paper. So I would add another layer. And I would change to the stipples brush here, and then I would just apply some darker spots here. This is what I just applied, those kind of I don't know, tiny little flakes. The paper back then in the 50s and 60s wasn't as bleached and as white as it is nowadays. There were always some kind of imperfection in it, and this is what we can just easily show with this brush. It's just a little bit too harsh for my taste right now. So I would just go and play with the opacity. But I would also change the blend mode, the blend mode to multiply so that it works together with the colors in the background and that makes it very subtle but still visible. Let me zoom in a little bit to show it to you. Here you can see it's subtle. It's there, but it just doesn't jump into your eyes. In my next step, I would also add some paper texture. How you going to do that, it's super simple. I would add even another layer. And here, I will turn the blend mode to linear burn. I just think this gives the better results. Feel free to play with the blend modes as much as you want. On this layer, I want to add my paper texture and I do have the CransonPaper texture brush in here. Now, we could go ahead and use black it would be very obvious and very strong. However, if I zoom in, I really don't like that look, especially. It reminds me too much of these 90s wallpapers. So I don't like that. Instead, let's undo. Instead, I'm going to switch to my beige color. This color is also integrated in the color palette. And by adding this in beige, you get, like, really subtle texture. And the beige tone doesn't alter the color used in the illustration below, either. So that's a win. And I really like this. You see a little bit, a subtle amount of texture, and it takes away the flatness completely. And that's it. You can take as much time as you want to refine your illustration and don't forget to sign your artwork before sharing it with the world. And now join me in the final lesson to wrap up this class. 14. Final Thoughts: And here we are at the end of this class. Thank you so much for staying here with me today. By now, you've learned a lot about the wonky mid-century illustration style and all its characteristics. You've also learned to let loose and how freeing it feels to draw without the fear of making mistakes. I hope you've embraced a few happy little accidents. Remember, this is just the beginning. Keep experimenting, keep playing with shapes, colors, and won key lines and don't forget to share your projects in the project gallery. It's a wonderful way to celebrate your work and to see what other students have created. Leave comments, cheer each other on, and be part of the supportive creative community. If you have a moment, please leave a review as it helps more students discover this class. Follow me here and on social media. And when you post your artwork, feel free to tag me. I love to see my students work and feature it in my stories. So thank you so much for joining me today. I can't wait to see what you create. And then I'll see you in my next class. Bye.