Following another one of Ady Almanza’s video tutorials on FB the other day! This one was also on painting her famous dolls, this time a relatively simple one called Spring Girl which I of course adapted to the form my Liitle One.
Junk Journal
Much of Ady’s work is based on her art journal. It was through her that I discovered the concept of “junk journal” which is a self-made book composed of found and recycled materials for collecting ideas, inspiration or memories. It’s quite handy to have but unfortunately I haven’t gotten around to creating one!
In her junk journal, Ady makes her cute drawings and for the Spring Girl, she had as background a Hebrew-language newspaper column on one half and brown package envelope on the other. I liked the idea so much that I improvised by making a collage out of some Korean-language newspaper one the top half of a page from my Strathmore Mixed Media sketchbook. For the bottom half, I pulled out some paper from my Toned Tan sketchbook and glued it on,
Black Pen Outline
Through the tutorial, Ady talks through drawing the Spring Girl which she does in a thorough comprehensive way. Another thing that is great is that she keeps us engaged by chatting to us about her everyday life without being overbearing and annoying. First we draft the drawing with aquarelle pencil then go over it with a black permanent marker. It’s typical of Ady to draw her illustrations with a black outline, later to be coloured in. I added a line of flowers to balance the composition since my Little One was a bit too above the center. Faber-Castell’s Pitt Artists Pen was used for this.
Colouring Time!
Sometimes I won’t have the same art supplies as Ady does so I make do with what I already got. Some of the stuff though we have in common are aquarelle colour pencils and Ecoline markers.
- The face was firstly painted by blending brown aquarelle pencil with a pale shade of Jane Davenport’s portrait acrylic paint
- I do have Ecoline markers! But in limited colours. For the eyes, I used a charcoal grey shade instead of black marker as I find it too harsh for my liking. The flowers and leaves I coloured in with a variety of pinks, violets and greens. Molotow acrylic inks in a variety of pinks were used too to make the flowers pop out more.
- For the dress, I chose ARA’s White Metallic to obtain that pearly sheen. A matte white may make the dress look like a lab coat rather than a cute gown.
- Although I normally paint the background first, I followed Ady’s sequence as per her tutorial. Her aim for the background was to match it with the brown envelope on the bottom half. In my case, it was the Toned Tan paper. The best I could come up with was blending acrylic inks in Antelope Brown and Gold. I was also keen on the gold as it gives a celestial starry mood
Angelic Look
And here is the whole picture. How sweet and angelic does she look! Her hair is different from usual which I had to get used to. And normally, her arms are not as long and bent which was also another challenge. It was, once again, going beyond my comfort zone but I enjoyed it!
Following tutorials are so much fun! Here is Little One seen with a different but still kawaii light. Getting inspired and practicing with other artists certainly opens one’s horizons further and helps one grow. I certainly found that too and can’t wait to start my next piece based on what I had picked up so far!
My Kawaii Quarter 