The Art of Cute Watercolor: Learn How to Make Cute Little Critters

1. introduction: Hi, Skillshare. Nice to meet you. My name is Al Laura. You might know me from a project that I have online where watercolor comics, and I use this little squishy, little animal characters. With this class, I'm hoping to offer you tools and techniques to make drawing feel easier and more accessible and a lot of fun because art is such a gift to have. But I'm going to break this lesson down into three parts. The first part, I'm going to show you exactly step by step how I draw my little cute characters, and they're really fun. You can, gift them to your friends and family or you can just give them to yourself. So that would be great. I'll hold no secrets back. And then, secondly, I'm going to give you a watercolor tutorial, something like quick and easy. I use watercolor primarily because I was a control freak, and watercolor kind of forces you to relax. A lot of people are intimidated by watercolor, and I understand and then thirdly, I'm going to show you some exercises that generate inspiration. These are a couple of tools and techniques I use to kind of pull ideas out of the air and bring them down to the page. So they're tried and true. I use them every day, and they're really fun. So I'm very excited. Thank you for clicking on my video. Thank you for taking a chance on me. So without further ado, let's get started into rest 2. materials and mindset: Hi. Hi again. I have a new off and on. We're gonna start. Make sure your workspace is clean. I personally get in a creative head space way easier. You just need a pencil, any kind of pencil and a pen. I like to use microns. This is a Micron 02, but any pen will work, I use microns because I don't think they bleed with watercolor. So if you want to use these drawings for your watercolor, I recommend a Micron and watercolor. Any kind of watercolor will work from the cheapest palette you can find to the nicest palette you can find. Personally, I use these keratake watercolors. I like the creaminess of them, and I like that they're not in it tube because they can just play and they're fun. The blank page can be really intimidating. So what I like to do before I start drawing is something that I'm borrowing from Mr. Rogers, where you just take a moment to think of someone who immediately makes you happy and fills you with love. We're just going to take a brief moment to send them some love. Nice. Nice. If you feel compelled, I would love to see your art if you put them in the project gallery that would make me so happy. Don't feel like you have to. I just really, really want to see them. But again, no pressure. No pressure. Alright, let's get into the first lesson. 3. how to cute: Alright, so let's start with, like, general shapes. So the heads, like all heads tend to be, are round. Like so. And instead of a perfect circle, they're kind of lumpy. I like to have a lot of fat in the cheeks, so it's almost like a deflated ball towards the bottom. Yeah. So you can draw a circle and then think of, like, fat around the cheeks, and it'll take some getting used to, almost like a pear shape. I'm sure you've seen these Ts that show where to put eyes in the mouth. So with my characters, I like to put the eyeline a little bit lower. So not quite dead in the center, but a little bit lower. 'cause it kind of emulates an infant. And infants have really huge foreheads, and all of their features are really smooshed down towards the bottom of their face. Like so. So you'd put the eyes on this eyeline. Like so. At the tips here and here, this is where ears typically go, and you can do a wide array. For the bodies, they're kind of like jelly beans. I like to kind of stick the booty out a little bit. I think it's cute. And then the legs instead of straight legs, which also work and are wonderful, I again, like to make them baby like and have a little bit of a bend. Everything is very squishy with these guys. And the arms start wide and end a bit narrower, if that makes sense. Then you kind of have any kind of tail. Awesome. Yeah. Just kind of like that. Let's do something even easier. Facing the front, we have our T shape. And then it's a bit of a pair tear drop. So have a really big neck, kind of an indistinguishable neck, and then I put the arms directly below it. Again, even facing the front, little bend in the knee, have a slight dent for the ankle, like so, and boom. For the face, this is the fun part. Oh, my God. So you have your basic sketch, and you would do this with a pencil. This is the pencil layer. Make that a little like it's a pencil. Then you come in with your pen, and I like to space the eyes out just so like that. This is my ideal ratio. You're equidistant from the middle pretty far. And the spacing of the eyes will really change the character. Same with the spacing of the nose. Let me show you an example. See how differently all these characters seem. Does that make sense? Even the size of the nose will really change the character. It's pretty pretty fun. Alright. That was a cute nose. The mouth is by far, my favorite part. I want you to get really loose with it. I think if you're working traditionally, which I always do, just have so much fun. Relax with it, the tiniest little curves, and gestures will really change the expression. Oh, my gosh. It's so fun. The tiniest gestures will change the character. Oh. So fun. Awesome. I like to make my characters as cute as possible because there's something so disarming about a cute thing. Like, they're just universally charming, and right away, it just kind of lowers your guard a little bit, and they're just instantly likable. So it's a very powerful tool, especially if you want to talk about more difficult topics. What I also like about them is that they're very universal. They have no age, no gender, no race. They're just as close as you can get to the shape of a soul or, like, the spirit of a little baby, the characters can take on any vessel and any relationship, depending on the context. It's a versatile tool. I like it. Cuteness is a way to soften your work. It's very playful. It's very light. And if you're working on something heavy, lightness helps get it off the ground. You're bringing your character to life, it's really important to think about the form all the way through. You're an artist, but you're also sculptor. You're trying to have the illusion of a three D effect with just lines and shapes. It's a little tricky. Easier said than done. So think about how the weight is being distributed. Think about the movement of baby animals. For example, they're a little clumsy. They tend to tilt. Think about maybe like a sack full of flour, the way it can, flop around. Visualize it in your head, visualize how it would walk across the room, and then do your best to kind of emulate that in atatic drawing. The way your character's pose will also be very indicative of its personality. Is it playful? Is it shy? Is it silly? Is it more serious? Take your time with it and have fun. You don't need crazy costume designs to have a really fleshed out character. You can show a lot in a face and in a gesture. There's no right or wrong here. Just do what's fun and feels good. 4. dipping into watercolor: The next lesson we're gonna do is watercolor, which is my personal favorite. I started using watercolor because I was really obsessed with control when I was drawing. I focused on really tight intricate inkwork and I was predominantly black and white. And watercolor really forces you to relinquish control. You're not just painting alone. Water is a living thing, and it has massive amounts of creative intelligence. And if you allow it to kind of work with you, it will inform your artwork, and you, too, are like dance partners. A lot of people are really intimidated by watercolor. In the same way, I think people are intimidated to ride a horse. It's a little unpredictable, and it's a living thing that you need to work with. But once you get over that initial hurdle of fear, it will exponentially improve your work. You don't have to control it. You just have to kind of guide it along. Keep working with it, and it will reward your patience, always. Just like everything in life. Okay. So there are three classic techniques. What I'm going to do first is wet on wet. So you start by wetting the paper with clean water, and then you add pain. So the colors are really going to blend and flow and create this soft look and a lot of gradients. This is great for cloud, skies, background, anything that you want to have a subtle flowing effect. So you load up the paint and you dip it in, and don't be worried if it starts to bleed and spread around. That just means it's working. Just be ready that this is one of the most unpredictable elements of watercolor and just anticipate that. Don't worry too much if it takes time to, like, learn exactly how much water it takes. That's a learning curve. With this technique, the colors also blend beautifully together. If you want something to have a seamless blend from green to blue, for example, this is the way to do it. Next, I'm going to show you dry on wet. With this technique, a dry brush is loaded with paint and applied to a wet surface. So this results in slightly more defined lines and edges than wet on wet. But you'll still get some of that really nice soft bleeding. It's Oh, that sounds creepy, sorry. This is ideal for adding details to backgrounds that need a softer look, reflections, so on. Here I am adding some cinnamon to this toast. The next one is dry on dry. So this is mainly just a dry brush. You take a little bit of paint and apply it to dry paper. It's perfect for fine details like tree bark for creating textured surfaces. When you get a hang of these three techniques, you can mix them together to create some really beautiful effects. It's amazing what can be done with these tools. I'm still learning new things every day. Now we're going to give them space to live inside. 5. inspiration exercise: We're going to take a memory, a feeling, maybe something you want to happen in the future, and we're going to meditate hard on it and then put it into a comic. So I want you to think about something very specific for just your. Take something that really sparks your excitement and get as specific as possible with the details. What does the room smell like? What does the carpet feel like? What do you see? What do you hear around you? Really, really think on it. Use all five senses and senses beyond those. Put yourself there. L. Get as precise with those details as you can. And then we're going to try to bring it forward. So here's my example. What I was thinking was a really crisp, beautiful autumn day where you smell on the breeze, this sensation of fall break in first grade. You just have this, like, scholastic books fair smell in the air. I don't know how to explain it. And you're walking around the woods and the leaves are crunching under your feet, and it's starting to finally get cool so you can let go of the summer sadness and really just embrace the quiet restfulness of autumn. So for this, I wanted to make it really bright and vibrant and beautiful and have all the colors really exploding outwards because it's this feeling of just, like, joy to be in the space. And I remember seeing these birch trees, and it really caught my eye because they looked so thin and papery and just really stunning. And yeah, that's my memory, and it made me feel like I have come home again, and cold weather will do that. Another example that's really specific. When I was little, I would lay on the carpet in my mom's bedroom and I would watch the dust in the sunbeams. And I always used to think they looked kind of like little fairies. And I just remember spending so long doing that. And I know that's a really specific memory, and I'm wondering if any of you did something similar. The more specific you get, the more universal it becomes. I remember this day, and it's nice to draw it again. Another example is going to the public pool with my sisters in the summer. That was a highlight of my childhood. Everyone's lives are full of these strange magic experiences, and it's really a gift if you come forth and share them with other people. I remember these mushrooms in the public pool and the water would be down on your head, and it felt really mystical, almost spiritual, and I loved it. There were other examples like the grocery store had rainforest sounds when the sprinklers went off on the produce, that was magical and just any car wash. And it sparks other people to look at things differently. When you're trying to figure out mood, color is crucial. It is so evocative of emotions right away, and it's even evocative of memory. I like to use a color palette reminiscent children's books I think there's something very powerful about that nostalgic quality. And I found that it softens people's resolve around any ideas that I'm trying to share because they're going to think it's something familiar to them. 6. closing thoughts: You feel compelled to make art at all, that means that you need to make art. The same way that when you're hungry, you need to eat food. Your soul knows what's going to nourish you. If you feel like you have nothing interesting to say, I promise that is a delusion and a lie that was fed to us by this really weird system that we've set up for ourselves. Society. Don't worry so much about how it looks. That's not as important as how it feels. The mark of really good art, in my opinion, is how sincere you're being while you're making it you can really feel when someone cares about what they're doing. A I hope you got anything out of this video is that art is actually really easy and accessible, and you should just come towards it like it's a meditation, like it's a journal. Like it's taking a walk through the woods. There's no end objective. The actual act of doing it is the craft. So I'm really proud of you for taking the time to do this today. It's rare that we, like, treat ourselves to something so nice. Please keep making art. It will give you a richer, fuller, brighter life, and you can use your art pieces as like, souvenirs for your timeline. There are zero negative side effects. Once again, I would love to see anything dev. Please drop in the project gallery that will make me so happy. I will print it out and put it on my wall. Creating art, it builds a bridge between you and the rest of the world. The only part of the bridge you can build is from your side. So don't ever feel depression like you need to save the world, or you need to make something radical that will save people. Just focus on saving yourself. Better you get at comforting yourself, reminding yourself you're worthy of love, reminding yourself how special and wonderful you are, the easier it will be for other people to recognize the same. The stronger and steady your foundation, stronger steady bridge will be. It will be much easier for the world to meet you halfway. Thank you to Skillshare for giving me the time and space to talk about my favorite thing to do. And thank you again for taking the time to be here. I'm so, so grateful. Until next time, remember, you are the creator of your own world. Happy painting. I love you.