I really wish I had more time to follow these online classes with my favorite artists! One of my favorite is Juliette Crane. After more than a year I’m still following her year-long twice a week Serendipity I classes. Loving every lesson of course, and here is the next unit I began working on a few weeks ago: “Using Contrast and Shading”. And what have we here today? Something completely different from my style of creating characters. A little doll with a pretty dress with matching bear ears, dreamy eyes and magical arms! And how did this come about? Let’s find out!
Getting Started
What makes her lessons interesting is the intuitive nature of getting creative. Typically we start by randomly applying color blocks with paint, collage paper or in this case, rubber stamps, then layering on more to come up with interesting textures. We used watercolor this time on Bristol paper. A large space in the middle was deliberately left so we can fit in our character, starting with an oval shape scribbled with marking pencil. This time, I was somehow in the mood of adopting Juliette’s style and do something different for a change. Her face and hair, namely So far, doing fine!
Character Development
Here is another reason I decided to adopt Juliette’s style for the face. As this lesson calls for shading, I wanted to closely follow how it’s all done, firstly using blue and green as a base to give the face more definition. And the rosy cheeks and pout was something almost new to me. I’d definitely like to apply this method when painting my own characters like Little One and her friends! Then the teddy bear ears were introduced here for some added cuteness I then painted the background grey with Sennelier acrylic paint mixed with matte medium, creating negative space for the ears and outfit.
Finishing Up
Once the grey paint was dry, I worked on the character more by firstly adding the flesh-tone on the face with a combination of Titan Buff and Quinacridone Azo Nickel Gold acrylic, then dotted on some fluorescent pink on the cheeks. Cobalt Teal was used for the eyes. Then I added a wash of pearlescent pink and blue for the dress, along with some Green Gold which was also used for the top third of the background. But oh no, once I was all done, I realized that I had forgotten her arms! So what to do? Rather than paint them in which would look too obvious, I thought simply adding some white dots would give an illusion of magical arms! I think it’s rather cool.
So here we have a whimsical painting with a surreal edge, shall we say! And what fun it was to paint with Juliette Crane again. Her classes are always interesting as we never know what we come up with in the end as we have seen here. Experimenting with her style for faces was also a great way to challenge my comfort zone, and I’m glad it worked out well. Look forward to her next lesson and will try to make some time for it!
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My Kawaii Quarter 