No Perspective Still-Lifes: Playing With Line, Color & Composition

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] We're ready to look at still-lifes on their whole new life. They don't have to be an art form from the past. They don't have to be boring and certainly they don't have to be spilled. Forget about all technicalities and get ready to experiment a lot. I am Claudia Melchor. I'm originally from Spain and I studied architecture for almost six years. Since university, I started illustrating a lot and I've collaborated with a lot of brands, including [inaudible] for which I currently teach art workshops here in Switzerland. My own painting style is definitely different than the architectural alter ego. It's free of rules, very colorful, filled with movement and very inspired by nature. Into this class, we're going to be creating a still-life filled with dynamism, movement in color, and with no perspective. You will see that by waving goodbye perspective, we can concentrate on things that will help us make the painting a lot more interesting, such as composition and color. In our lessons, we will learn how to paint loose and confidence lines, simplifying objects, how to use compositional rules and how to create a narrative to color in order to guide the viewer's eye through the painting. Lastly, we will be adding some depth and texture by using some mark-making techniques. By the end of the class, we will have this amazing still-life with lots of different color combinations, very playful, very dynamic that truly represents your world vision. I think that a still-life with no perspective, is the perfect unconventional project in order to illustrate the idea that you really do not need to be an expert in order to create fun and compelling art. All levels of expertise are welcome to join this class. Art is and should be accessible for all. You just need to wave goodbye to prospective, approach the painting process with fun, and the results will show. Let's get started. 2. Class Project: [MUSIC] Let's talk about the class project. The goal today is to create your own unique still-life. By the end of the class, you will have your own unique painting with zero perspective, super customized, super playful, and with all the elements and colors that you chose. In order to take this class you actually just need one thing and that is the eagerness to experiment and to create some weird art with me. Yeah, we will be doing a lot of testing, a lot of experimenting so some weird things might come out of it. As for the materials that we're going to be using, I like to say that because we're using mixed media, you're welcome to use whatever you have at home. Please don't feel pressured to go out and buy anything. Just use the materials that you have and experiment with those. I personally really enjoy using gouache because it's very vibrant, you can reuse it once it's dry. I like how opaque it is. Also, for details, I like using some wax pastels, some pencils, but really, feel free to just take whatever you have. With that, we're actually ready to get started. Fetch your sketchbook and let's get to it. If you have any questions, feel free to write them in the discussion board below, and I will make sure to answer them. Let's talk a little bit more in-depth over the materials that we're going to be using in the next segment. see you there. [MUSIC] 3. Materials: Let's briefly talk about the materials that we will need for this lesson. As I said before, we're going to be using mixed media. For me, the main material will be gouache. If you don't have gouache, use whatever you have, acrylic paint, all paint, doesn't matter. The good thing about gouache is that it dries fast, it's very vibrant and opaque. I have many brands here, I have this Holbein, I have Caran d’Ache, I have Schmincke, just use whatever you have at home. The good thing about gouache, however, is also that when you put it down and it dries out, you can just re-wet it and reuse it again. My palette actually normally doesn't look like this. It's filled with paint. I have cleaned it for you guys. You're welcome. Very clean and shiny. Also, I normally have a big tube of white paint because you actually use a lot of white. It makes the gouache more opaque and vibrant and you end up just using a lot. So I always keep a big tube next to me. Then as a sidekick to our gouache, I have the Neo color wax pastels from Caran d’Ache and some prismacolor pencils. These ones are good for details and this ones will add a lot of texture to our painting towards the end of the painting process. Then of course you will need some brushes. Here I have a variety of different brushes. This one is a very thick one, then I normally recommend a number 8, this one is very versatile. You can use it for whatever you want. You can make small details with it or paint bigger areas. Doesn't matter. If you don't have many brushes, don't worry, just use the ones you already have at home. I normally also prefer synthetic hair instead of the real fur. I think it's less creepy. We also have a glass with water. The palette, as I said. If you don't have a palette like this, you can just use a ceramic plate. Then I have for sketching, pencil, pen, an eraser, and a sharpener. I also have a chopstick. You will see why in a bit. We also have some scrap pieces of paper to test out the colors, which will come handy when we're starting to paint. Then our main paper is a 300g acids free mixed media watercolor paper. It has a little bit of a texture, but it's not super overwhelming. I like it thick because you can use a lot of paint and a lot of water and it will not warp. You can also use some drafting paper. You see this translucent paper that you use for copying things over and over again. We use it a lot in architecture school, but if you don't have it, you can just use a window, your computer or iPad screen, or even a lightbox. Whatever you have is fine. Lastly, I would like for you to fetch your sketchbook because we will be doing a lot of testing and it's nice to keep all your tests together so that when you are lacking inspiration or you want to remember something, you can just flip through it. I have to warn you. My sketch book is actually not super nice. I'm not one of those artists that keep a super pristine sketchbook, but that's what it's for, testing. That's how it looks like. This is actually all of the things that we're going to be needing. You can start thinking about the elements that you want to incorporate in your still-life so that in the next lesson, we are going to be talking about how to destroy delusional space. You will ask yourself what that is, well, keep watching, you will see it in the next segment. 4. Destroy the Illusion of Space: In this lesson, we're going to be talking about why we're choosing to ignore perspective and how this exactly looks like. I will be showing you some examples of some artists that ignore perspective, and by the end of the lesson, you will have understood what I mean by zero perspective. By ignoring perspective, you will be able to actually focus on other things that make the painting interesting, like the composition and the color choice. You will not feel the need to create a perfect sketch in order to get started, so the flow will be much easier, and you will see that you actually do not need to depict reality 100 percent in order to create an interesting drawing, and it will really let your style and your own vision of the world flown to the painting. Here are some examples of what I mean by zero perspective illustration. We have, for example, Mirella Bruno. She creates still layers or flat layers, like when you take your phone, and you take a picture from above. This automatically eliminates the perspective out of the objects. Also, when you look at an object from right in the front, it just looks like a shape, so it has no perspective. Then we have Seamoon, he's a Korean artist that creates a series of ordinary objects that you would normally not see in a still-life. If you have a subject that is very interesting, this automatically makes your painting also very interesting and out of the ordinary. Then Claire Milbrath. She actually depicts old masters and reinterprets them in her own style. If you feel like you're stuck, you can always look at Matisse or any of these old masters as these still lines and reinterpret them in your own style. This will also allow you to get to know what you like and how you like to paint. I would also like to recommend you on Instagram that's called Still Life Still Here. They post reference picture every month and many artists re-interpret it in their own style. Actually, it's a good source of inspiration, so if you'd like to check it out, feel free to do so. As you can see, it is not very hard to create a still-life with zero perspective. Throughout this class, we will play and challenge different design principles such asymmetry versus symmetry. Asymmetry is found in nature very often. Everything organic is asymmetric. We are asymmetric, and it will help you create focal points throughout your drawing by drawing attention to one point or another. Symmetry is calmly, is well-balanced, is nice to look at. It can also be interesting, but I do recommend using asymmetrical compositions in combination with symmetry. For example, in this example of Lea Maupetit, there you see a very symmetrical base with these different cherries that are in an odd number and a very asymmetrical background. Also, replacement of the whole still-life is symmetrical, and it gives interest to the piece. Another design principle you can challenge is scale. Scale is what makes the objects seem further or closer from each other. Also, it's very fun to play with something that's supposed to be very small, make it very big, or something that's big, make it very small. It can make your illustration quite unique and quite fantastical. In this example of Rebecca Green, we see different cups placed in different positions in regards to each other, and as you can see, it gives the painting depth even though it's completely flat. Another design principle would be, for example, the margins. The way you frame your painting is very important. Do you leave a lot of white around it? Do you incorporate the margin, the whites of margin into your painting? Do you play with white space? However you do it, it will have an impact on the final painting. Here in this example of Zenji Funabashi, we see how you can somehow recognize that the blue is the background, the green is the plane, and how the things are placed together. How would this painting, however, look with enlarging? It will look totally different. Another design principle that you can use is, for example, the visual hierarchy. You want to create a visual hierarchy in your painting. You can do it, for example, with the use of color, playing with hue, saturation, light, and darkness, you will make your composition pop. Using colors that work well together will create a balanced composition and using unexpected colors will make it more interesting. In this example by Matisse with the pomegranates, we see how all our attention focus on this one piece. As you see, all of these design principles are ready for you to use and to challenge. Now, I'm going to give you some tips that will really from the get-go, help to create a more flat still-life. The most important tips in order to make your illustrations in flat are, for example, using the same color for the whole background. This means the floor and the walls will have the same color like in this example of Matisse. You can see it creates a very flat effect, and it definitely erases all signs of perspective. Another tip would be, for example, to play with the scale and the relationship of the objects to each other like we saw before in the Rebecca Green example. This will help you to create depth when there is none, because we will be painting the objects without perspective. Also treating the objects as a collage like Picasso did, could help you really read everything off perspective and just be very graphic involved and paste the objects on top of each other. Feel free to cut things out and try out with this collage technique if you feel like it. Another very important tip is to really think about the margins, the framing, and the blank space in your drawing. Leaving things out wide will really help you to create a very graphic and bold effects. Lastly, but not least important is simplification. By simplifying the shape and the details of the objects, you will really read the object of reality and focus the attention of the viewer into what's really important. You will focus on composition and color, which are very important for a painting, and you will not have to worry about really just copying one-on-one everything that's around you. Forget about reality and just reinterpret what you see. Get ready for the next steps. We're actually going to start arranging, choosing, and photographing our elements for our still-life, super exciting. Let's get to it. [MUSIC] 5. Arrange & Shoot Your Elements: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we will be choosing the elements that are going to be featured in your still-life. You don't have to have all of the elements, you can also just use a reference picture or imagine them. Like for example, a car that you wish you had, or maybe a plant that you really like but you don't have and you want to feature, you can just imagine it. Remember, this is an unconventional still-life. Feel free to not follow what is normally featured and still lifes and just think outside the box. You can also try to create a narrative with what you are featuring. For example, all your cat's favorite toys, your grandpa's favorite flowers, whatever you wish. It doesn't have to be realistic, it can be very utopic. It can be whatever you want it to be actually. Some examples that are very fun, for example, could be like this still life with cigarettes. This other one where you can see a deconstructed ramen soup. This very symmetrical mushrooms. This one that features the crazy flower arrangement or this one where you can see a zoom in of a plant. Really also don't worry about scale, you can make things smaller, you can make things bigger and if your object is very intricate and very complicated, remember, we're not doing perspective, we're forgetting about it, and we're definitely simplifying the objects so feel free to also use very baroque flower arrangements if you wish to. Now we're going to be choosing our elements and actually I have mine almost all around here. Let's see. I have bought these flowers in the market. I think they look beautiful and I really want to paint them also because I really, really like flowers is one of my favorite things also one of my favorite things to paint. This is for me, for example, one of the things that we'll be featuring flowers, maybe not in this vase. I will imagine something. Other things are, for example, a fruit. I have this strawberries here, and also this little ceramic bowl that I made myself and actually strawberries are one-way favorite fruits with papayas, mangoes and you will ask yourself, why am I featuring a garlic? Well, in the old times in Spain when they were painting still lifes, the old masters used to just paint still lifes of onion and garlic because they didn't have anything else so this is an inside joke. Just has meaningful myself to put in a still-life. We're creating a very modern still-life, but there's still some hidden meaning above the old masters in there. It almost fell from my hands. Remember, you can also just include objects that have a hidden meaning for yourself. For me, it's the garlic. Maybe this nice candle in the candle holder that I found in a thrift shop. I really like it and I think I was very lucky to find it and it looks super good with this purplish candle, which also is the color of the flowers. This vase I also found in a thrift store. I might change the shape or I might use it as the vase that contains the flowers. Who knows? But I really like it, so we're also going to be featuring this. Of course, we will be featuring this table. Wait a minute, because there's one last element that I need to fetch that we're going to be featuring. This is my cat. He's called Cassie or Cassienido in long. Hello. He's very cute and we're going to try to pose him in a still-life. You remember when I say in the beginning that they don't have to be still, well, it's not going to be still. We have this little cat with us. I think if we have chosen all the elements, roughly, we can actually start. I might add or subtract some elements along the way. But for now this is what we're going to be using. Now let me clear the table and we're going to start arranging and shooting them. [MUSIC] As you can see, I have cleared the desk and now we only have the elements that we need, minus the cat who got bored and runaway. Before we actually start photographing your elements, you will need a phone for this. I want to give you a quick rundown of song composition basics that can help you arrange the elements in a way that's compelling to the eye. If you feel stuck, you can always refer to this and try something new for them. For example, one of these rules will be the rule of odds, which says that elements that are in odd numbers are nicer to look at than elements that are in pairs, as we can see in this illustration by Zenji Funabashi, these three elements, they're very compelling to the eye, you can judge for yourself if you want. Do you prefer the three strawberries or the two strawberries? A rule that can actually help you place the elements in this space is, for example, the rule of thirds. This rule of thirds to say is that you can divide the page in three equal horizontal and vertical lines and in the points where this line intersects, you can place the most important elements and the viewer's eye will directly look towards those. These are rules that I use very often and I think that it really works. So if you're stuck and you think that your composition doesn't really work, you can try this out. Another rule that many people use is the golden ratio. Especially Old Masters use this. The golden ratio is this little snail that says that if you place the elements in your painting in this specific direction, it will automatically be very well-balanced. You can also use triangle shapes in order to forward the attention of the viewer to certain elements, like for example, Gordon Hopkins in these paintings. Or you can use dynamic lines. Using dynamic lines will also emphasize the elements that you want to be emphasized. Another thing that you can think of is to place elements that have, for example, the same height or the same color together. This will make little groups throughout the painting and will make it a little bit more harmonious. But remember, if you don't use any of these rules, it's totally okay. Your eyes and your gut feeling will tell you if the composition work or it doesn't and rules are meant to be broken my friends, so just break them and forget about them. We are really doing a very loose and free illustration. Don't feel like you have to follow these rules is just a guideline in case you feel stuck. Also, you can look at what other artists do and how they approach their compositions. I personally have a folder on my computer filled with inspiration. I just refer to it when I feel a little bit stuck, don't feel like you have to get it right from the first time. You can do as you wish. So now we're going to actually start arranging our elements and taking some pictures. I however, going to do a little stop here to fetch the cat. Be right back. The cat, he was on top of the kitchen cabinets, so let's try arranging him. He's quite tall. I want him sitting, but probably he will not look at me. Cassie, stop like this. Let's put the Cassie here. Yes. Lay down baby boo. I hope this is not too much of a hassle for you to watch. He is the most important person in this. Actually the narrative that I want to tell with this still life is that he jumped on the table and he destroyed everything. I'm just going to place him in a few different ways so that it looks nice. I'm going to group the vases together and maybe do another group here and this I'm going to hide and let us quickly take pictures. [MUSIC] He's gone. You know what, we're going to ignore the cat for now because he doesn't want to collaborate. Now he's laying on the couch. Great. So without the cat, I got two pictures with him. They're cute in movement. Looking at the camera, you can see my setup here. One is sniffing the flowers before. They're cute. Yes, but we haven't applied any of our composition rules. Let's just do it now. First of all, I'm going to, as I said, group the vases. I like that this already has a triangle shape like this. You can see from the background, we're going to actually use an odd number of strawberries we have five. This one we're going to leave alone next to the garlic. Or no, this one we're going to place down here and the garlic actually, it's just like, a hidden meaning. So I actually want to hide him. Right now we have two groups of things and I'm going to photograph it from different angles. This is just dead on flat. Now I'm going to photograph them from above. I'm going to photograph them now in perspective from a different angle. Now I'm going to try to place this one's together with the garlic and this here also in a triangle formation. Let's photograph. We can do also like this. We do it from the side. Just take your time and photograph as much as you need from the top, from the bottom. Try as many composition rules as you want. For now, I think I might have enough and as you can see I will need to use a lot of my imagination because the cat doesn't want to be here. So this will all have to come from the imagination. [LAUGHTER] For now, I think we're going to be leaving our elements in front of us where we can refer to them. But we already have the pictures and we're ready to start with the next lesson. The next lesson is actually a little warm-up lesson where we're going to start trying out loose and confident lines, which will help us with the further development of our still-life. Let's get to it. Now the real deal starts. [MUSIC] 6. Warm Up: Loose & Confident Lines: [MUSIC] Now that we have all our painting, drawing utensils back on the table, we can start with a warm-up exercise. Here we're going to learn how to draw loose and confident lines. For that, fetch your sketchbook. As I said before, my sketchbook is really nothing nice. It has a little notes and unfinished paintings, lots of things just kept inside, lots of tests. I like to refer to a sketchbook as something that is like a museum of your own trial and error. As you see, you can just host anything and everything you want inside here, and you can always refer back to it in a later time. First of all, you're going to want to grab a pencil. I'm going to do it with a pen because it will be easier for you to see. But I prefer you to use a pencil because you'd have a little bit more control over how strong or how thin you do the lines. First thing we're going to do is lines. In architecture school, I had a teacher that did watercolor drawing, and he taught us this trick, that is to start the line with a dot and then do a little bit of a wobbling line and ending with a dot and create little squares of that. That's what we're going to do. Dot, wobbly line, dot. We're going to do it quickly. The wobbling becomes less wobbling, and the dots become less of a dots. See, now we have this little square where our quality of line has changed already just by doing this exercise. Now we're going to try to do it in diagonal. This will turn out like a square, is okay. Now we can try to do longer ones. Dot wobbling line, dot. It will not be straight, but you can do a little bit of the wobble and it will help you loosen up your hand. It's just basically doing lines. We started with the dots, we ended with the dots. We started with a line, with a little wobbly, and we ended with a dot. Very quick. Now we can start doing shorter lines that we also start with a dot and end with a dot. Quick, don't look, just draw it without looking. Quick lines. This will help you improve your quality of line. Now we're going do a zigzag. Just keep doing this until you feel like you've warmed up your hand. For the next exercises, we're actually going to start sketching a little bit. Now that I have this flowers in front of me, I'm going to try sketching them with this technique that we just used right now. Let's start. I'm going to be doing this one here. Wobbly line. Wobbly line and dot. As you can see, this line already has a different quality than a normal sketching line. Just maybe it takes a little bit more time to get used to it and your hand really needs a little bit of practice, but I can assure you it will help you improve your sketches a lot. We can also do the leaves just like that. You also don't really have to feel like you have to finish all the drawings. You can left it a little bit unfinished. You see, I'm not actually connecting the leaves with each other, which gives the sketch a little bit of dynamism. Now, for some fun exercises, I'm sure you're asking yourself, what do you need the chopstick for? Well, this is exactly the moment of truth. Actually, we also need our masking tape. I can't find it anywhere, I'm sure the cat stole it. Oh no, the cat stole the masking tape. I'm so blind, it's here. I put it away, always blaming the poor cat for everything. To be fair, 90 percent of the things are the cat's fault. Let's take your chopstick and let's take, in this case, I'm going to be taking a pen, but you take a pencil and attach your pencil to the chopstick. You will see this way you're actually forced to have a loose line because you've completely lose control over your drawing device. It's a really fun exercise. We can try to paint another flower, maybe this big one here. Actually I don't even see that much, but we can try to paint it. It has big leaves like this. Try to really hold it very far away. [MUSIC] You can see it's already super confident, these lines, and very loose and sketchy. [MUSIC] It actually looks very nice. Let's try another one. I'm going to try this pink one that you can see here. I'm going to start with this center, then doing around. We can actually only see half circles at some point. They're pointing upward and then they're pointing downwards. Then it just has a nice little stem. It looks very nice. It looks way more sketchy than the first one that we did where I was holding the pen. Now we're going to just liberate our little friends from here. If you didn't want to do it with a chopstick, you could actually just skip this step and try with your left hand. In my case, I normally draw with the right hand, so the exterior hand is the left one. We're going to try and paint again this purple one to compare what happens. I don't even know how to hold the pen. I'm a little nervous. Lets concentrate. The tongue is out, I'm sorry, I'll keep it in my mouth. Very loose, not so confident. Definitely with less details in this one, and more simplified. It actually looks like nice. Maybe I should switch to painting with my left hand all the time. You cannot see too well because I have placed the other camera in a way for a right-handed person. But look, it looks nice. I think so, I really like it. If none of these tricks have helped for you, another thing that you can try is to draw any object that you have out of one line. I'm going to try to draw this little candle holder thing out of one line. This time I will be using my right hand. But if you want to be extra saucy, you can really just try to draw it out one hand using your left hand. That's a big challenge. I'm going to do it. Let's do it in one, two, three. Could be better. What happened here? We don't know. Let's try again. This is better, because this one, I don't know why it has so many bubbles. But there you see, it's also very loose and definitely confident. What you can also try is actually to paint without looking down at the paper. I'm going to try to paint the strawberry, and I'm just going to look at the strawberry, and also do it out of one line. That's a strawberry. [LAUGHTER] It looks funny. It looks like a horse that's got too much wind in its hair. I'm going to try an arrangement of many. I looked down. I looked to the camera. No, I cannot, I need to look at the strawberries. I'll look at the strawberries. The concentration is real. I hope I was ending it there. Hey, it doesn't look that bad. Now we can just, with our confidence and loose hands, do some mark-making, to make it look more juicy. Look, it looks nice. This is a way to warm up and really get the quality of your line going. I recommend you to fill a few pages of your sketchbook with this exercises. They're fun and easy. You can do them anytime also before you start drawing. To get the juices flowing, you can try out whatever you want, as many times as you want, as many times as you need. By training your hands to have loose and confident lines, you're actually working on your line work, which is something that many beginners don't have, but it's very easy to train. You see with this very fun exercises, you quickly get a grasp of how a nice and loose sketch can look like, and you can apply it unconsciously to your other paintings. Once you have finished filling out two, three sketchbook pages, we can continue to the next step, which is to start painting your sketch by simplifying your elements. [MUSIC] 7. Simplify Your Still Life : Now we will start with the real lessons that will help us compose our final still-life. I have transferred the pictures from my phone into my iPad, which I'm actually going to use as sort of a light box in order to draw over the images. Here I have one of the only ones that I actually got with the cat on it. We're actually going to start simplifying the shapes. For that, I'm using this tracing paper, as I said before, you're welcome to use whatever you want or just directly draw without having to trace. For me, it's easier right now to show you how I simplify the objects with this tracing paper. In architecture school, they showed me how to break it without actually having to get scissors. You take one corner and you direct it towards your elbow and it should be somewhat straight. Let's hope for that. One, two, three. [NOISE] Not bad. Let's use this and let's do a little bit of like this. This, as I said before, it's one of the only ones that I got with the cats, so let's just trace it real quick. I'm going to start by simplifying the shapes. You can first imagine the shapes of geometric shapes. You don't have to really pay attention to their perspective, just really trace the shape and think of it as geometry. Also, use the lessons that we learned before about how to do loose and confident lines. This will help you right now in order to sketch very simple and very loose lines. [NOISE] That was the cat. Let's start. Let's start with the cat. He has a round face. As you can see, I'm being very quick. He's very rounded. I'm imagining where his tail was at. Here's the eye and here's this. This could be more or less the cat, and then for the flowers, [NOISE] we just quickly do some round shapes and ovals, some triangles. This is the vase, it's basically a square, the other vase. This is also rectangle. We break down the candle holder, the vase is basically like this, and this is the garlic. We have this first still-life. Now we can actually choose another side. Maybe we can try to do the flat lay. As you can see, this is basically just round shapes. Round shapes and ovals. It's actually easier to paint all of these flowers from above because really then you are killing the prospective per se. Tracing it actually helps you break down the shapes. But I want you to really do it quickly like I'm doing. You see, I'm not stopping to look twice. If there's something wrong, then I just go with it. Doing it quickly will really help you just focus on what's important. In this case, the only important thing is basically the shape. You're doing it as quick as you can, and this actually doesn't look like a vase, but it's okay. This doesn't look like a candle and this doesn't look like a garlic. This is how it looks like, this one is very abstract. But it's okay. I still like it. Let's take more of the sketching paper and choose another painting, maybe we can choose, how about this one with the cat too. This one's fun as well. [NOISE] We break another piece and we start sketching it again. Quickly, we do the cat. He's smelling some flowers. The vase, this is again a rectangle. We break the candle holder into its basic shapes. We don't really look at what we're drawing, we just look at the shapes and we do it quickly. [NOISE] It would be nice to incorporate the table because we actually want to incorporate it in our drawing, and maybe the plant from the background. This is just a bonus. This is how it looks like [NOISE]. I also think this one looks very nice. I really like the position of the cat. I'm really happy with how he's sniffing the flowers because this is basically the story that I want to tell, which is that he jumped on the table and then he wanted to maybe eat the garlic or the strawberries, then accidentally, he drops the vase and everything was filled with water. Maybe this position of him that we have randomly selected is a good one. Then let's just try one without him. This one is a very typical scene. We can do it here. You see, we're really not paying attention to any details and we're simplifying the shapes. They're super playful and fun and they have nothing to do with reality at all but it actually makes the painting look very special. Squinting your eyes can really help you with the quality of your lines and how the sketch actually turns out. Right now we're really just doing shapes. We can do more details in the next step where we actually tweak our scene and we sketch the final sketch. But for now, we have all of these different variations that we have done. We can look at them and decide which one we like the most. I actually really enjoyed this scene, so I think I'm going to start basing my own illustration on this scene here, and in the next step, we will actually tweak it to make it look a little bit more composed. Let's get to it. [MUSIC] 8. Tweak Your Scene: [MUSIC] Now we're going to start making the still-life more your own, based on the sketches that we have done before, we're going to start redrawing it and refining it and making a little bit more your own. We're going to be really conscious about placing a focal point, and also arranging the elements in a way that they tell a story. First of all, let's look at the sketches that we did before. You're welcome to do many more based on the pictures that you took in the beginning. I was happy with the amount that I did and I clearly have a winner. So I'm going to be basing my still-life on this one where the cat is sniffing the flowers. We're going to start making it a little bit more our own [NOISE]. Let's put this one to the side. Fold, the one that we don't need in order for us to see this one here [NOISE]. Very good. So this is the one we need. Let's place it right next [NOISE] to us so we can actually really see. Fetch your sketch book. Here's where we're going to do the different variations and open it on the pages that are free. For example here, and grab a pen or a pencil and let's start drawing. So basically, I have decided that I want my focal point to be the cat. My papers actually squarish. We're going to be basing all the composition rules on a square piece of paper. Let's start this by drawing some little thumbnails of it here, 1, 2, 3, 4. First of all, I'm going to start by drawing a grid. This will be like the rule of thirds. We're dividing the paper in different sections. Then I'm going to do a grid division that is similar to the golden ratio, basically like this. Then we're going to think about using triangles. Let's actually write it down so we don't forget, rule of thirds, this is golden ratio, triangles. In this one, we leave it empty for now. Let's start with the rule of thirds. I would like to place my cat in a way that he is the focal point. So he has to be in one of these spots here. Doesn't exactly have to be there, but it will be good if he was placed more or less in this spaces. I'm just trying to redraw him really quick. Just like that. Then another focal point would be the flowers. As I've said before in my mind, I see the scene as something that Cassimido just jumped on top of the table. Then he was fetching maybe one of his toys. The flowers accidentally fell down and there was a lot of water everywhere. So that will be the second thing. First, the jumping Cassimido, which is this thing, then the flowers in our sketch actually they are totally upright, but we can just make them so that they are laying down. We have to think about the size of the vase. We hear all the flowers falling. Then of course, Cassimido was fetching something. I think I'm just going to invent one of his toys. He has this fish thing. Actually it didn't take it as an element because I didn't think it was important for me, but in hindsight, I think it is. Now the rest of the elements like the candle and the strawberries and the other vase we can maybe just put in the background just to harmonize a little bit because it's all happening in this line. So maybe we just do something like here's the bowl with the strawberries. The vase maybe like here. Then we can do the table in the asymmetric way. It goes like this, the round table. Maybe it also has like a cloth on top and because he was jumping the cloth has moved So it's only covering half of the table. Something like this. I feel like everything is very condensed here and there's not enough things down here. Then we, of course, we still have the garlic which we can choose to put down. I'm not so sure if I will include the candle. Maybe it's too much. Let's try the golden ratio now. Everything has to move like this actually. We can place our sniffing cat. Looks like a camel right now. Here, follow with the curve. Looks a little strange right now. The flowers are maybe also following this. The golden ratio actually is nothing for me. It looks like a yin-yang and I don't want to do this. Let's do more with the triangles. We can actually combine these two a little bit. Let's refine the one that we did. I'm going to actually use a pencil to sketch the grid so that we don't focus so much on it. Let's start by placing the cat, looking at the sketch again with the triangles. Maybe the cloth isn't triangle shape. Then we have here the round table like that. Then fallen down is the vase with the flowers, and maybe there's also some water that again falls in a triangle shape. So it's all looking in this direction. The other elements, maybe the bowl is again here in the back. I think this needs to shift a little bit into this side. Let's try it again, but I think this composition looks a little bit better than this one. So let's try it again. You see slowly but surely we are refining the composition, and now we can start by sketching a little bit lighter. How we want actually the table to look like. Maybe like this, and the cloth really in a triangle, and the water also maybe in a triangle but a little rounded. [MUSIC] This could be an option. Let's continue with more. Let's do a few more options. I'm still not completely happy. I think I want the cat to really be inside the scene, so that we still haven't figured out yet. But it's okay. We'll do as many options as we need to. This is just about finding the right composition and really tweaking the scene to have no perspective how you see and really only taking shapes. So the table is aligned, the cloth is aligned. There's no perspective involved whatsoever. We're just working with a general shape. Let's again do a little bit of the rule of thirds here with our pencil. [MUSIC] I think this is the right direction. It actually looks nice. I just wish that his head was a little bit more up. Maybe he's not doing this crunching position to forward, but he's more standing upright. I don't really have a reference picture for that, but I'll just imagine it. So let's do it again. [MUSIC] Like this, which are two lines that really indicate that this is the main point and this is the table. Now it looks a little bit smaller than here. I like this comical effect but where is he standing on is this, what is this? You don't really understand what's going on here. [MUSIC] I am really starting to like this. I just really wish that the head was a little bit more further up. No, it's slacking a little bit of importance. So let's try it again. [MUSIC] This might need to be a little bit shorter so that it doesn't compete with the cat. But let's go with this one. Now, what we need to do is actually just transfer this one onto a sketching paper, and how we're going to do it is not by tracing or anything. We're just going to eyeball it. Let's get your sketching paper and transfer this one that we have decided onto the piece of paper. If you feel like you need to do many more variations and feel free to test any of the composition rules that we talked about. Here we mostly did the ones for positioning the things. We didn't play that much with symmetry or asymmetry in a way we did do the very dynamic lines and the triangle shapes. We have some elements of symmetry and asymmetry with the strawberries that are in odd numbers here and there, and we for sure can define it a little bit more once we start sketching the flowers a little bit better. But for now I'm really happy with this rough sketch. So let's put it down on paper and that will be our final sketch. [MUSIC] 9. Sketch Your Scene: [MUSIC] Let's just transfer the sketch that we have chosen as the one that we really like onto our big piece of paper. As I said before, this is a 300 gram paper, is very thick, and very good for using a lot of water. Let's just start by doing some borders. Some people like to use masking tape around it or use a ruler. You can do whatever you want. I like the organic feel of hand drawing the border. I'm just going to go ahead and use a pencil to do so. It doesn't matter if it's not completely perfect. That's actually what I like about it. We go ahead, all around, do our margin, perfect. Now, let's erase this here. Now, let's lightly sketch the rule of that very lightly and also just eyeballing it. Now we have it. Now we know how to place more or less the elements. Let's start with the cat, which is the most important. He's actually in here and goes like this. Then we just do the table and the tablecloth with actually goes a little bit over like this. It's one line here and one line in the back. Very good. Now we do the vase and the flowers are going to be like here and here is our other vase for now it's just a square. Here's going to be placed the toy of the cat pointing towards him. Here we can place the bowl and here's some other elements. Let's start finishing it like this. We have done the general geometric shapes of the sketch. Now we can actually start defining the little face of the cat a little bit more. [MUSIC] Maybe the head could be a little bigger and the ears too. [MUSIC] Let's leave it like this. Then let's continue with the other elements. First, let's do the vase with the flowers which are going to be changing a little bit the shape. Now let's just choose some flowers. Basically, I like all of them. Let's just do a few of them. We're going to be using the trick that we learned in the beginning, sketching very loosely. Then we might be doing this one as well. [MUSIC] I think this is enough of the flowers. We should actually alter it so that it also looks like it's continuing out of the scene. Maybe this, instead of being so straightforward. We're going to also point it a little bit towards the cat. [MUSIC] Now we have a reference. Look at him. Look there. Good boy. He doesn't really have such a pointy nose. It's more of stompy. Now it looks more like you Cassie. Let's continue. We were at the flowers. Very good. Now we're going to do this vase. I actually don't like that it has this thing on it. So I'm just going to make it symmetrical. We don't have that many symmetrical elements and I think it will be good. Not as high as the cat of course. But maybe here and symmetrical and very geometric. Like this. Then we're going to do the bowl. The bowl we're just actually going to do a circle that's a little bit cut and then a semicircle, so it's a little bit too deep. A semicircle like this and then we're going to place some strawberries inside. For this, we are going to exactly do what we did the last time. Which is paint with one line. Here we also are going to place another strawberry. Cassie, leave us alone. Come on. Going to continue with the strawberry. Let's just take one as a reference. One here. Then the garlic. Maybe the garlic we just place it here as a funny gag. Then lastly, we're going to place the toy of Cassie Miro, the little fish. That's actually like a triangle. It will point in his direction. Then we have more triangles like this and like this. It's like an arrow pointing towards him. We had said that we have this tablecloth that goes actually like here and some water that runs out of this just like this to unify all of the things. Now we can actually paint a little bit of the head of the cat. [MUSIC] I think if we look at it, it looks like a nice composition. Might want to make this a little shorter because it's still competing a little bit with the cat. We just put it here in the background. I really do not think that we need the candle holder. It's already pretty full. We have this amount of vases and flowers in it. More space around here and it looks like this. Some space for the table and some space for the background. I think we're set to go. In the next lesson, we're actually going to start coloring it in. We're going to try first with some little thumbnails which color combinations we like. After that it's time to use our gouache. 10. Use Color to Enhance Your Composition: Now that we have our sketch finalized, we're ready to test out the colors, which is for me the most interesting part about the painting process. We're going to be testing them in the same way as we did with the little sketches so, with little thumbnails. Here you see we did a lot of variations and we're going to be doing the same with the colors. For that, I really recommend you to have something quick and easy, for example, the wax pastels or the pencils. This will allow you to test without having to mix all the time and you already have some pre-made, prefabricated colors. Don't worry if you don't have all the nuances. When we work with gouache, we will be able to create many more different types of colors but for now, we just want to create a general idea of the colors that we will be using. Let's flip the page. Before we start, I want to tell you a little bit about the color wheel. I have painted this color wheel just using three colors. I started by using the blue, the yellow, and the red. These are the primary colors. Sometimes instead of red, you use the magenta because it actually has a value that will help you create the purple and all the other colors a little bit easier, it's colder. This red is a little bit warmer. As you see, as I said before, here's the primary colors then the secondary colors which happen when you mix this two and two together, and from there on you get the tertiary colors, which is the mixture of a primary and a secondary color. The rules that you can apply onto your painting that will always work and will always make it pop are for example, complimentary colors. A complimentary color is a color that's placed opposite each other in the color wheel. For example, the green and the red or the blue and the orange, they will always have very striking impact because they compliment each other. They bring out the best of each other. If you just want to have a more calm approach or you need a little bit of calmness in your painting, I recommend you to use the analogous colors, which are colors that are placed close together in the color wheel, for example, these two blue hues or these two green hues. If you need to add another color, but you're a little bit unsure which one, you can always follow the triadic color rule, which is that the colors that are this spaced together in the color wheel will always look good together. It's this one, this one, and this one. Then you can just turn it around and all those three colors will always complement each other a lot. Apart from the analogous, the complimentary colors, the triadic, we have monochromatic. Monochromatic is basically just using one color and by changing its hue, saturation, darkness, and lightness, you can create a lot more hues out of it. Here you see, we started with the red and we progressed by adding white into a pink, same thing here, started with the red and by adding black we progress into a dark burgundy. From one color, you can already have a lot of different nuances and a lot of play. Don't feel like you need to incorporate a lot of colors because that will just make your painting a little confusing. It is better to keep to a little bit of a minimal color palette and that will help you a lot to make a very coherent and striking painting. Just use the colors that are different for pops of color, for the elements that you actually want to make a little bit nicer or a little bit more poppy. Let's start by doing the little thumbnails. I'm going to leave the color wheel here just to remind us of our possibilities. Then we're just lightly going to sketch some thumbnails as we did before. [MUSIC] Make them so they look square. We're going to just quickly trace this, the main elements. So, we have the cat, we have the vase, we have the flowers, we have the tables cloth, we have the table and we have this bowl maybe. Let's just do this elements. Maybe we'll also do the water because that's an important feature. Now that we are ready with this, let's start using some colors. For sure we have to actually start with the color of the cat. He's black, so let's paint in black because I really want him to be recognizable. I'm going to make him black in all of the compositions. Actually, if you feel like it fits better to your composition, you don't have to adhere to the standard colors. The sky doesn't always have to be blue, the water doesn't always have to be blue, a stem of a flower doesn't have to be green, you can be creative with the color choices. As I said before, none of my walls in my apartment are actually pink, but I really like pink and magenta. I think I'm going to either paint them pink or this red. Let's try them out. I think I'm going to paint them in one magenta. We can try all of them out. In this variation it's going to be magenta. I also think it's very striking against the black of the cat, so we would make him pop. But this is actually really just because I really enjoy the color pink. I wish one wall or the kitchen cabinets in my apartment were pink [NOISE]. Now with a light one. [NOISE] One of them we're actually going to leave blank because I want to test out how it looks with blank space. Another one, why not green? This green, I don't like that much. It's too neon. Let's use this one. Every color looks quite striking against the black. I've been really on an orange cake lately. Why don't we try orange? Let's try out these two oranges that we have here. Maybe the strongest one. Now for the tablecloth, I think we have to start first with the background and then work with the other elements. For the tablecloth, I'm actually going to also be using pink in this one. I really like this monochromatic, pink, and red, and so on. I think it looks pretty fun. Maybe in this one, we use this magenta. Look good? No, it has to be something lighter. Normally, I would do something darker in the bottom and something lighter on the topic because I think that makes the painting read a little bit better. But because we have this black cat there, I think it's nicer if there's something actually darker here, but we can try the opposite actually. Let's try the opposite as here in this one. [NOISE] Very good. Also I feel like maybe with this green, this magenta could look good. Let's try it out. [NOISE] With this orange, we can again try the pink. This is just because I liked the colors. I'm actually, as you'll see, not really following any compositional rules at this point, I'm just doing what I wish my house looked like or the colors that I actually like. If you ever feel stuck with choosing colors, there's also many other resources that you can do. Sometimes I used to take pictures of the old masters or of contemporary artists that I really like and with a little droplet in Photoshop, analyzed which colors they used. That really helped me gain a little bit of perspective on which colors work well together or which unexpected color compositions other artists use. Now let's take some yellow. Maybe here the tablecloth is yellow. Yellow and red are also quite a striking color combination. Here we haven't thought at all about what we're going to do. Why don't we do a purple tablecloth? [NOISE] We can start also by putting the flowers a little green. [NOISE] Maybe here this green that has a little bit more of a blue hue will work best. [NOISE] But of course it also needs something a little lighter. I think this blue looks very well with the pink. It's like a third quiz. Maybe it also works with this one here. [NOISE] This is for the water. [MUSIC] The table however, I have decided to keep white from the beginning because it actually will help the composition a lot. It's always good to leave something white because it will really help to bring a lot of light in. [MUSIC] I feel like here the table cannot be white, so we're going to maybe do it also a neutral color like gray. It's okay to repeat colors actually. Here we're going to do the vase, the same colors here. We will have to remember that actually we will have many more nuances once we start with the gouache. [MUSIC] We have done quite a bit of tests. We could actually keep going until the end of time. But let's just see what we like and what we don't like about each one of them. I really like the combination of the pink and the magenta. I think this is it. More or less, this is going to be the color for our wall and this is going to be the color for our tablecloth. With this color, this one really looks very good. What I'm not so sure about is the color of the water. Let's try out different colors for the water with these one's in mind. We have this [NOISE] different blue shades, a little bit colder, a little bit more towards the green. Feel like it has to be something light though. Maybe it's purple. It's between this and this. Let's say half-half will do something between these two or between this one's here for the water. [NOISE] I really enjoy having a dark blue as well. Actually, I think scrap it, we're going to go for this one because this painting is a little bit more light. Basically, this and then a little bit more of the greens, maybe this. This could be a color combination here with this blue. Actually, I also really enjoy this one, which is basically made out of this color, this magenta, this olive green, the dark purple, a lot of complimentary colors here. Maybe instead of the pink, we could add an orange. No, I think we need to add the pink. Pink is always cool. I don't know. So many options, see this is so hard. Actually, I think I'm going to go for this one. I just think the magenta and the pink really work well with the black. I really enjoy the contrast. Also, they're my favorite colors. I really like the combination of pinks and blues. This one has a lot of green as well. I think it's going to be good. We'll leave this here for reference when we start painting but for now we can put away our crayons or our pencils and continue to the next step, which is actually going to put the biggest scholars of our sketch. There's no turning back now, be ready, see you in the next lesson. [MUSIC] 11. Color Your Still Life: We're going to start coloring our still-life. From now on it's easy breezy, you have already done all the hard work. You have chosen the composition, you have photographed the subjects, you have chosen a story line, you have chosen your colors, now it's only relaxing and painting. As I said before, I'm going to be using gouache. I will give you some tips, quick tips on how to use the gouache but if you have something else, really feel free to use it. Let's just start with the background. I like to actually start from left to right because I'm right-handed and in that way I don't get in my own way and I don't get a very colorful hand. Let's just start mixing this magenta color. I don't want it as striking as here because actually it's a lot, but I want something similar. I'm going to start mixing. As you can see, all of my paints are really used because I really use them almost everyday. I'm going to mix a little bit of red, it's all about mixing at this stage, a little bit of magenta and I think it's going to be too light so we might need some black, but we'll see. First we add some of the white because we don't want it to be so super striking. It's running out. This is the small tube of white, that's why I have the big tube right next to me. Let's just start mixing and see what actually comes out. For this, we're going to have one of these little pieces of scrap paper so that we can actually test out which color comes out and if we like it or not before we put it down on the page. This right now, I see it's way too red and peachy. Maybe for something else, but definitely not for this. Let's add some blue, Oops, now it's too blue. Oh, no, that was too much blue now it's purple, which is also a great color, but not exactly the one we were looking for. But actually, we have purple flowers there, that was a lot of white, let's put it somewhere else. Let's see what happens with all of this white here. I'm trying then to have a lilac like this. That's a nice color too, but not the red we were looking for. Let's start again. Maybe we use a little bit of a colder and darker red this time to mix. This looks more promising, definitely. I actually really like it, but I still think it's a little bit too striking and maybe still even a little bit too red, too pink sorry. I'm going to add a little bit of red to it. The mixing of the colors is really a lot about trial and error. See when it gets too much and when it's too little. Yeah, this is definitely more red, maybe it's also too strong still, still too pink to my liking, I'm sorry, this is like the thing that takes the longest, actually mixing the colors. You can of course just buy the tubes done but I don't like having that many colors and actually creating them myself because I think it's a little bit more fun. I think I like this one. Let's see, yeah, we're going to be using this one, It's dark enough, but not super striking, it will look good. As you see the consistency is very creamy and super opaque because we have added white, this has actually made the paint a little more opaque. Make also sure to mix enough because you don't want to have to find this color again, that would be torture. Don't worry if you go inside or outside the line. It's okay, you can correct it with the next layer, especially with a cat in my case, because it's black. This parts around the white table, we actually want to make very nice and clear because we will not be painting over them so they should be crisp lines. If you feel like you need a second layer because you can see a lot of brushstrokes and you don't like that, feel free to do a second layer. For me, I actually like to see the brushstrokes and the texture of the material that has been used so I'm just leaving it like this. Perfect. Now let's do the tablecloth, I think that would be good. Maybe we can directly just do a pink here. No, it turned out a little sad as you can see this color is a little sad for. But maybe if we use more magenta and a little bit more white, definitely putting the white here. We're trying to save this color and make it a nice pink. I really want something like this, but maybe a little bit colder. We might be on the right track. It's in my opinion still a little too purplish, maybe if we add a little bit of yellow to brighten it up, make it a little bit more peachy. Oh yeah, I think this is definitely a better color. Yeah, we're just going to actually add a little bit more white. As I said, we're using tons of white, that's why we have the big tube. That was too much, that was definitely too much white, going to reserve this for another occasion. Yeah, this color is perfect. We're actually just going to make a little bit of space here and use it for the tablecloth, which in the end is around. This was not supposed to be this color, but it's okay, we'll correct it now. The gouache really covers the other paint. Even though if you add too much water, then it will actually mix together. I would not recommend that. The cat we will paint last because it's black and the black color is actually impossible to take out once you have applied it. Now we can start mixing some colors for the blue. Still a little bit unsure about which blue we should use, but why don't we start with this one that comes straight from the cap, lift from the package. Very good, so this is like very, very geometric. Let's transform this blue into something a little darker for that is going to place a little bit of black. Now we can actually use some of these also in the flowers. Why not? I said before it doesn't have to be reality and it's nice to reuse the colors so that the painting has a little bit of coherence. You see, I'm actually doing something quite nice with the brush. I don't have any more leaves to show you, but I'm actually putting one, the thick part down and then I'm twisting so it creates this leaf effect. That's why they look like they have so much movement. That's very nice. All of this huge and blues and greens and so on. We can now continue with the flowers. Like listen to the painting because it's nice, but it's a little dark, especially when we will add the cat, it will look very, very dark. You should be patient with the drying time, because if not, the paint is going to go all over the place, like right now. Now with just plain white we're actually going to do the last touches. For example, this little flowers around here Add some nice details to this flower already with the brush. A very thin brush. For now, I think we're done with the base coats no we forgot the cat. Let's do the cat. The cat doesn't have to be completely black I will mix some of that dark green dark green that we have in making dark ears but not completely black. Black doesn't always have to mean that you paint it black. The color black itself has a load of nuances. It doesn't have the white mouth, but I think it looks good here. It's a reinterpretation of my own cat actually. I think we're done with the base colors in the next segment we're going to start doing the detailing, but please first let it rest and let it dry, and then we'll continue with it. We're so close to having a finished product, I hope you enjoyed this meditative way of painting. It was really nice, you just put some music on and then you just put the colors down. The pre-work is already done so you can just concentrate in creating a nice piece. See you in the next segment where we will be adding some mark-making and textured depth and details. 12. Add Dimension: Marks & Textures: Now that we have the bones of the painting, we can actually start adding a little bit of shallow, texture details with the other materials. In my case, it's the pencils and these wax pastels. As you can see, it's a little flat, a little lifeless, is quite striking because we have chosen very nice colors, but it could use a little bit more, I don't know, possess. Let's skip to it. I think using a bit of pattern and a bit of mark-making, lightly, light shadow somewhere, it can help us especially we also have to detail still the cat, because he's supposed to be the star of the show. and right now it's just like a black shadow. But let's start with something a little bit more manageable. For example, the leaves and the flowers, they are quite easy to make striking. I just want to add some lines like we did here with the gouache, but a little bit more controlled, because of course with the brush and the gouache, you lose a little bit control of what you're painting. With these materials, with the pencils and the wax pastel, you are more controlled, which is not always a good thing, but in this case we want to add some details. Let's see which colors we could use for that. Going to just test them here and look how they look in comparison, and I'm actually going to sharpen them to make the tip really sharp so we can really make nice details with them. For example, like this, let's put this over here. I'm just going to do some lines following the leaf, close together. Maybe on one half, maybe on both halves. I just stumbled upon a flower and I already made a little mark there, but it's okay. We will use that as an opportunity. Let's change color, maybe do something a little bit darker. This way we're adding a little dip to the leaves just by adding some lines. This mark-making technique is actually pretty great because you really do not have to actually shade anything, but by just adding lines, it actually looks like it has texture. I think this one looks nice as is, but the other ones could be profit from a little bit of something. Not all of them actually need some detailing. You should also just restrain yourself, which is really difficult for me to do, and just let some of them breathe [MUSIC] Doing a little bit of shadow where the base meets the cat [MUSIC] Just to add a little bit dimension and especially to separate his white patch from the vase [MUSIC] We had already added some big ones with the gouache, but some smaller ones can also just make a lot of nice texture [MUSIC] This vase actually went a little bit under with its very dull color, I'm just adding a little bit of something there. Here, actually, I want to make it look a little bit like this, and some mark-making for the strawberries. [NOISE] Maybe with a dark magenta [MUSIC] Now let's do this little garlic here. For that we're going to use dark purple actually, or indigo blue, and I'm going to just paint it very lightly with the pencil, just like that [MUSIC] I'm layering a lot of colors on top of each other just to give it a little bit of dimension. You see these wax pastels, you can actually lay it with pencils, you can layer with whatever you want, you can layer them with each other and they will actually create new colors, which I think is super cool, and actually super easy to blend them as you can see. Now we have our garlic done, then maybe we can do something with our fish so that he looks a little bit less sad [MUSIC] [NOISE] I think I wanted to do some pattern on the tablecloth. I think I'm going to do just stripes first to see how it looks like [MUSIC] This also acts as some dynamic line [MUSIC] I think it looks quite fun like this [MUSIC] Actually, I'm just playing around at this time. At this point, I think the painting is actually almost ready [MUSIC] Just doing some random patterns will make it look a little bit less realistic and more graphic [MUSIC] but I actually think you just need to detail the cat and we might be done. My cat Cassanido has actually a yellow eye. Let's give him a yellow eye and the whiskers go like this [MUSIC] We'll add some random textures here, and I like the white crayon against the black because it helps you actually make the shapes out of him. Cassanido's mom was white and his dad was actually black so he has a lot of random white hairs spread around. He definitely doesn't have this cute little mouth thing, but I just like how it looks. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do for the aesthetics. [NOISE] I think we're done, maybe his eye looks a little bit crazy right now just like this. Just think maybe you will see the other one like from here, or are we ******* it up? Let's see, or are we doing something wrong? I didn't want to swear. I'm sorry. I think this looks fun [LAUGHTER] That's pretty good. He looks like he really did something wrong [LAUGHTER] Very fun. Now with the black, we can add some other black details around because you remember, we didn't paint him completely black so that we could actually do this. Add some little small black details [NOISE] Let's look at it from the distance. I think that right now it looks like it has a little more dimension, and it's more lifely, it has all these details, it's very fun, I really love it. Let's just sign it because we are real artists and real artists sign their work , Claudia Inr 22. This is a fantastic piece of art, I think we're done. It looks like it has a lot more dimension, it has a lot more texture, details, it looks very fun. There's nothing actually that really bothers me, I just really love everything. Maybe this flower could have a little bit of adjustment. She looks a little sad, but that's basically it. Now I think I'm happy with it. It looks super striking, it looks very fun. It definitely looks like Cassanido did some mischief over here with this little toy and the vase falling down, the water, very geometric, zero perspective. We really did not have to think about depth or anything, just the overlapping of the elements, the color choice, and the position really made a difference. Congratulations, you've done it. Let's go to conclude this lesson [MUSIC] 13. Conclusion: [MUSIC] Congratulations you did it. I'm so proud of you, I'm so proud of myself. It looks really nice. Look at it. It's just so fun and it really tells a story. Your eye first get directed to the cat, then it goes to the flowers, and then you start to understand the scene and what's happening in here. I also love how geometric it is and that it's flat, that it still has a lot of movement. It's playful and definitely very fun. This is amazing. I hope you're super proud of yourself, and I hope your biggest takeaway from this lesson is that you really do not need to know everything about art and how to create art in order to create compelling and fun illustrations that really speak to you or that are really striking. In this case, we really waved goodbye to perspective and then we started playing and focusing with the composition rules and the color combinations. Apart from this, we have learned on how to simplify the octets with loose and confident lines. We have played with texture and mark making and in the end we have this fantastic piece of art that you can be very proud of yourself to have. Thank you very much again for joining. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to write them in the discussion board below and don't forget to post your progress and your final result in the project gallery. I really want to see it. Thank you very much again. If you want to know more about me and about my art practice, you're free to follow me on Instagram, @_claudiamelchor or on my website, www.claudiamelchor.com. Again, thank you very much for joining me and see you in the next class. Bye-bye. Keep still lifes alive. We did it, it's a beautiful, it's a beauty boy [MUSIC] Cassie, what the **** are you doing there? Cassie, where are you? [MUSIC] Oh, no. No, don't skip. This is the coloring tool [NOISE] flower is there. I think we're done with the base coat oh no. Difficult. [LAUGHTER] Again, eye-catching illustrations, no. [NOISE] During the lessons you will be able to let it all out and the results will [inaudible]. Again, I feel life in your own unique and playful style. That's how you say style. [MUSIC]