For the class project we will be creating a quirky watercolor illustration of a dog or a cat as well as making a few sketches.

RESOURCE FILES

In the project resources you will be able to find reference pictures that you can work from, but if you prefer to paint your own dog or a cat then please do!

SKETCHING

Now it is time to make some quick sketches. This is the part where we have fun, and make our sketches look ugly in a good way!. This shouldn’t take longer than 5min per sketch. If you feel like you are stuck with that particular sketch don’t be afraid to just move on onto the next one. Again - don’t strive to make your drawing look anatomically correct, we want this to be a quirky illustration not a realistic painting. To make sketches stand out a little bit more we can add some textures as that often helps seeing what the end illustration might look like.

When we have 5-10 sketches, we select the one that we like the most and transfer that design onto our watercolor paper.

MIXING PAINTS

Now it is time to mix some paints. We need to decide what color our illustration is going to be in, and following the paint mixing lesson, make around 5 colors on your palette. This should include a couple of lighter tones, a couple of mid tones and 1 to 2 darker tones. Don’t be scared to select colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. My journey started with me being too scared to mix colors so I would like to make you feel more comfortable with it and it is actually a really fun part of the process.

TEXTURES

Once we are happy with the color of our illustration and the paint is dry we start adding some textures onto our illustration to make it pop. This also adds just a little bit of extra detail that makes our painting more quirky.

And Voila, we have a quirky watercolor illustration!

DELIVERABLES

Feel free to post your sketches and final artwork in the project gallery! I would love to see what you guys create and what color combintations you will be choosing for your project. You can also post them on INSTAGRAM but make sure to tag me @one_tooth_moose so I can see them and feature them on my page! I am very excited to see what you create!

Remember in the end is all about having fun. Don’t overthink too much.

Michelle Henderson-Topp

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