My New Car!

Another awesome happening in my life. I just got a new car! A humble but lovely red Toyota Yaris Hybrid, fresh from the factory. My previous car was a blue Toyota Aygo which after 4 years coming to five, I ended up selling to my boyfriend’s son last September leaving me car-less for a few months. But I got by with cycling or getting a lift everywhere. It was love at first sight whilst I had this ordered which took weeks to get delivered. And now, I’ve decided to christen her “Aka-chan”. “Aka” is red in Japanese, and furthermore means “baby” when a “chan” suffix is added as babies are supposedly red faced when born. That’s right, she is my baby!!

The Pencil Sketch

And naturally, I wanted to share my happiness by drawing about it! My art journal consists of various creations depicting my everyday life or happenings, including this one. On the two-page spread of my Strathmore sketchbook, I then set about doodling away whatever came to mind about my new car. How cutely does my imagination flow! So my boyfriend and I are very happy, but whenever I drive he can be a tad critical and even panics when I supposedly might go off the lane or turn too abruptly. Then I also got creative and pretended I’m driving Hello Kitty and Miffy around too! How cute.

Start Painting!

First I got my markers out, starting with the lettering using Faber Castell’s Pitt Artist’s Pen in SC nib for a bit of calligraphy effect. Payne’s grey was then selected from the same set for the wheels and the car roof, followed by two shades of brown for my hair and Neocolor II in Salmon for our faces. Then I decided to experiment a bit with other marker brands such as Winsor & Newton’s Promarkers in neon shades. The Hello Kitty and Miffy were traced over with some gel pen. And the red car? I went for Holbein’s Opaque Cake, which is a pan of thick watercolors with a gouache effect.

Continue Painting!

At this point, I thought I’d work on the background. The captions came first which I filled in with yellow Ecoline ink, but realising I had picked the darker shade, I added the outside bit with the correct lighter color. That lighter color was also used for the caption on the right hand side. Then for the sky, I chose some pastel blue watercolor (Holbein). Grass was done with pastel green, and some pearlescent yellow-green acrylic ink. So far so cute!

Finishing Touches

And here comes the exciting part! First I introduced some flower stamps with Distress Oxide but didn’t like how it turned out after which I covered them up with some collages of paper napkins with flowers and butterflies. Now that’s better! Following that a variety of Sanrio and cute character stickers and washi tape were scattered around the page. Gel pens were then used for the fine details as well as the small writing. And now how about some bling with Ranger’s Stickler glitter gel and glue? After some play around, I was now happy!

Now that was a fun session again! As I get the knack of art journaling, I very much had to draw about my new car and share my happiness. It was also a great chance to play around with various mediums and enjoy my stickers to get creative. And now, I look forward to painting more about further adventures with my kawaii Aka-chan and sharing here. So where to next? Watch this space!