The curfew in the Netherlands is still continuing till 3 March despite the Court ruling submitted by some activists recently. That means we can’t go out between 21:00 and 04:30 with a few exceptions such as emergencies or going to work as a health carer. Oh and also when walking your dog! Of course dogs need to be walked a few times a day even at odd hours so perfectly makes sense. And here is Little One walking her neighbour’s doggy! Her neighbour is a health worker and when she has the evening shift, Little One is happy to help. As she walks, she occasionally comes across Ginger the naughty neighbourhood cat lurking in the corner. How cute is that! And now I thought a little painting about it would be an idea.
Pencil Sketch
I began following Lesson Two of Maurizio de Angelis’ Procreate classes. Here we are taught how to fill in colours with shading using masking techniques and shifting layers about. A sketch was drawn using the Procreate Pencil on my iPad. Quick and easy! Thanks to his lessons. I am starting to get the swing of moving shapes and making them bigger or smaller without having to erase them each time. Most important for creating the composition to your liking!
Getting to Grips with Layering
And now we can color in our sketch using the airbrush medium. These airbrushes vary according to softness and hardness. In addition, it is also possible to adjust the brush size and opacity as you find fit. Another handy thing to know is that as layers multiply one after another, they can also be renamed to make it easy to distinguish among them Before you color in, it is further IMPORTANT that you add a layer and then move it BELOW the Pencil Sketch layer. That way, you firstly avoid smudging the pencil and secondly the pencil marks are still clearly visible as the colors are underneath. First I colored the background before working on the subjects. When working on the subjects. it also helps to expand the screen so you get a close-up of what your coloring in; first trace the outline with the color and make sure the shape is “closed” before transferring the color from the palette to “color fill”. For each shape to color I added a layer which I could later merge, ie. Cat layer, Dog layer etc.
Shading Techniques
In the lesson, I learned that shading the subjects involves masking the area. That means adding a layer above what you want to shade in and then pressing the Clipping Mask on the layer menu. With a soft airbrush you can then add other colours to shade the area without it interfering with what is outside it. Now I didn’t add too much on it so the difference may not be visible, but I get the theory behind it now. And here is my finished work of kawaii Little One walking the doggy with Ginger behind her!
What fun it was practicing with Procreate again! This is just the first practice shot whilst following the second lesson. I will definitely be doing more and hope to see some progress. One thing I need to work on, though, is shading techniques; I even need to get better grips with on paper in the first place! Practice makes perfect of course so it’s good to keep continuing. Anyway, I love painting about Little One as usual and seeing her so happy walking the doggy and spotting a kitty! Let’s stay safe, everyone, and pray that this pandemic will end soon.
My Kawaii Quarter 