Yesterday, 27 April, was a special holiday in the Netherlands called “Koningsdag”. Dutch word for “King’s Day”, it is a day of annually celebrating, as you guessed it, the birthday of King Willlem Alexander! And what do people do to celebrate it? The cities tend to be more lively and rowdy with the younger crowd, whilst outside them it is more a family and community-oriented event. Apart from lively music, drinking, parades and street shows, it is also customary for people to set up market stalls and have a garage sale. And what a great opportunity for me to streamline my Hello Kitty collection! So what about a quick digital painting about it?
The Background
Seeing I have so much in my collection and many just no longer “spark joy” and merely take up space, it was time for a cull by selling some of my stash. Of course, I hung onto the rare collectors’ items and the precious kawaii ones that actually spark joy for me. Then there are those incidental duplicates from impulse buying not realizing I already had them. The selling went rather well considering the weather wasn’t that great outside. I did later regret letting a few of them go though, and have been trying to convince myself that they are too big in size anyway and that I already have the smaller versions of them to enjoy. And hey, I also made some kids happy, and now these Kitty’s have a new home, right?
And from this photograph I took of my “market stall” with some of my Kitty’s, it was time to get creative! I first imported that photo onto my Procreate app before prepping it as a background. First I applied Gessian Blur then slightly the Crystal Liquifying tool, going easy on them as I didn’t want to lose the definition of the Hello Kitty’s but still create a Bokeh effect.
Painting Us
And now, time to paint us! Worked in many layers for the subjects, assigning one for each part of our bodies (head, hair, torso, eyes, crown etc) Main brush used was Procreate’s own Medium Airbrush. It was only the crown which was painted in gold with Hot Foil Lettering along with my lashes in gold Glitter Calligraphy, both from the Gold Rush set of brushes (purchased in Creative Market). And why are we wearing orange might you ask? It has been the color symbolizing the Dutch royal family for many centuries and hence, orange is worn by everyone on this special occasion. I then merged the layers of my and my partner separately to resize and reposition before reducing opacity to 85% so the Hello Kitty background shows through. And now!
A quick and easy painting I made last night after the Kings Day celebrations. Just wanted to experiment with combining photographs and illustrations which turned out rather well. If I had the time, I would have done an analog version with mixed media art using collage paper and doodling Hello Kitty in the background then painting us on top. Perhaps an idea for next year?
My Kawaii Quarter 