Another one of my practice with digital painting! Having learned quite a bit from the “Procreate Cutie” on-line class with Mindy Lacefield, I set about doing my own thing. One of the interesting stuff I picked up was adding texture to your work. Mindy introduced us some truly amazing stamps and brushes available as add-ons. So impressed I was that I purchased some from digital artists like Jason Heeley and Lisa Glanz. And here I was able to incorporate them into this kawaii painting featuring Little One again but set in a mysteriously stunning background.
Little One in Pink
Let’s first start with this cute and kawaii painting! Here I began with a 6B pencil sketch then filled it all in with various colors using the Oberon brush and Dry Square Inker as applicable. The blender came in handy as well. Today, I decided to make Little One’s eyes green just for fun, and filled in her eyelashes with the Fine Hair texture. The pink dress had added details using some floral patterns. It took some time getting Little One as I liked it, and once I was happy with how she looked, I was ready to work on the background!
Working on the Background
At this point, the background choice became a sort of intuitive painting. With a wide range of choices I now have, I just went crazy with all the texture brushes and stamps now made available to me that I just kept experimenting.
(1) I first started by making the background color a yellow green and added some green leaves and orange and yellow stamps.
(2) Then I thought there was too much green in the painting so I switched the background color to blue-violet. However, that played down the cute pink color of the dress and undermined the floral patterns in it. I added some white doodles, hoping that would improve it. Nope.
(3) I then went back to the layers of the dress and reinforced the pink by coloring over it again. Much better, as even the floral patterns popped out more. I then incorporated more texture in light blue and made the background a turquoise color. Some doodles in white were further introduced. Still not happy.
(4) Once again, the color of the background changed. I made it a more midnight-blue this time and removed some layers of some textures. And now we’re talking! All I wanted was a fancy background but without outshining the pretty dress and beautiful green eyes of Little One. Glad I was able to finally come up with a good balance!
And here is the final version if you like a close up of it. It is quite comparable to the mixed media abstract paintings I do in analog form, just randomly mixing and applying whatever comes to mind. I love how the various textures add character to the painting. And of course I love how adorable Little One still looks!
And it’s so much fun working with digital art, although I admit it’s never the same as the real stuff you get with analog paintings. That said, one of the wonderful things about digital art is that you can freely change things easier, ie. the background color as we have seen. Then the wide variety of textures and patterns you can incorporate for fun. I would definitely like to do more paintings like this, combining “cool” with “kawaii”. So watch this space!
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My Kawaii Quarter 