Enjoying Langlauf

Last week, we were in Switzerland enjoying the snow. Beautiful scenery, fresh mountain air and getting fit and healthy too! The highlight of the trip I must say was discovering cross-country skiing, another hobby my partner and I can now both enjoy. As mentioned in my last post First Langlauf Experience, I illustrated in my sketchbook our first ever experience with cross-country skiing, otherwise known as Langlauf in parts of Europe. That first lesson went so well that we booked another one the following day. And what a strenuous workout it is! Although my partner and I are at different levels of fitness from each other and he is more accustomed to downhill skiing, we both love it and would definitely like to continue it next winter. In fact, we ended up actually buying the skis we had rented! Works out cheaper in the long term. So excited about our new adventure that I of course started a new painting on my iPad I had brought along with me on the trip!

Pencil Sketch

Started out with a sketch directly using Procreate Pencil. At this point, I wasn’t concerned about the layers yet as they will be hidden later once filled in with colors. So just a kawaii scene of me and him thoroughly enjoying this newly-discovered sport. It is a sunny day but we are surrounded by mountains and lots of snow.

Color Us Beautiful

A separate layer was assigned for each part of the subjects, ie. skis, face, hair and body. I went for my usual Medium Airbrush as a basis, but used a variety of brushes to introduce texture. The hair, for instance was retouched with Flowing Hair brush. For the poles, I selected Glitter Pen from the Gold Rush set available from Creative Market. Love that metallic effect! As you can see, I repositioned the skis by going over the with the color. So far, so cute!

The Background

Once again, Medium Airbrush was the basis for background too. When everything was colored in, I hid the Pencil Sketch layer so it is no longer visible in the painting. Texture brushes were then used to incorporate texture and effects. Firstly, clouds were added with Soft Light blending mode, followed by snow in the background. Sunrays were then lined with Light Pen from the Lights brushes available on Creative Market. See how much that brightens up the painting! A few finishing touches like the eyes (Fine Liner brush) and zippers (Glitter Calligraphy) and we are done!

Simple painting yet catchy. Lots of happy and positive vibes too! You see it is still winter and yet you feel the warmth because of all the vivid colors. And of course, I had a lot of fun with this painting. Now, we are really looking forward to another session with cross country skiing next winter! How exciting that will be. Looking forward to painting about it too again!