Today was my first day since being back from Tokyo that I was able to sit down, kick back and get creative in my own space and time. It’s a great feeling! Surrounded by all your stuff to pick and choose from and the environment you feel comfortable with. So today, I decided to jump straight into a mixed media session. Nothing complicated. Just a cute and relatively simple piece to ease myself back to normality!
Waste Not, Want Not!
The background is actually from the previous work I had done before leaving Japan. Whenever I work with stencils, I like to wipe the excess ink or paint off on another paper using a tissue or a sheet of wet-wipes. You see the vaguely pink dots and spots? They are leftover Distress Ink. And what to draw on it? Well, I have been doing quite a bit of solo Little One drawings lately so wanted to do something different. And of course, I hadn’t seen my boyfriend for 10 days as he’d been skiing with his younger son whilst I was in Japan. Naturally, I was keen to do a kawaii “bunny and bear” role-playing, welcoming each other back! And here goes the light pencil sketch.
No Need to Be Perfect!
Once I was happy with the outline, I added a coat of white gesso so that when I paint over it, the underlying background patterns don’t show through. Then I traced the outline with acrylic markers. Silver for the bunny (me) since I had no grey marker at hand, and tan for the teddy (him). You may notice that the shapes are a bit crooked and asymmetrical. In my style of drawing, I’m not too fussed about imperfections and try not to stress about it. I’m quite an organised perfectionist in my daily life and line of work, believe it or not, even to the point of getting worked up. Art is my creative outlet in which I can release all tension and loosen up. To create, I speak my mind rather than emulate reality. Besides, imperfections do add to the cuteness!
Colour Us Beautiful
It’s been a while since I painted in acrylic so thought it an idea to go for it. Here, I combined Titanium White with a tad of Dylusion’s Slate Grey for the bunny. And then the same white with some Yellow Ochre for the teddy. Here, I mixed the paints with Gloss Medium for some effect, particularly as it’s also been a long time since I’ve used it. Very happy with the result and the sheen it gives. I then wanted to practice with shadows again to add some dimension to the subjects so combined the palette with some pink as reflection of the pink background. Although I still need to work on that aspect more, I like the effect it has on the colours. After painting, I went over the outlines again with the same acrylic markers to tidy them up a bit.
Making Them All Pretty
I had a few origami paper cut-outs of flowers and a heart left over from previous sessions and thought it would be a good idea to glue some on. With the painting still looking a bit disconnected, I added some stems and leaves on the flowers, firstly with green acrylic marker followed by filling in the colour with Ecoline ink pens for a light transparent look. Other details like the eyes and accessories were then added using a combination of acrylic markers and Ecoline ink pens. And here it is. So wonderful to be back!!
As said earlier, I could do with a bit more practice with the shadows, especially with the teddy’s face which looks a bit flushed. I didn’t want to dwell on it too much in case the effect worsened but oh well, it could also be seen as the colour of the face in the first place! In any case, not bad for the first time in a few weeks. I am pleased with the overall colour scheme of the piece, and now that Spring is coming soon, it’s good to prepare for some flowers and bright colours! And of course, the point of this piece was sweetly welcoming each other, and it certainly gives that message. Now looking forward to creating more kawaii stuff like this!
My Kawaii Quarter 