Whether or not you know yet about Emmanuel the emu….this might be a fun little thing to watch! He’s a social media star – and I included a little clip of one time when he was being good and not knocking over the camera. LOL

Tutorial: Emmanuel Todd Lopez

Emmanuel is getting over a bout of bird flu that took out all the rest of his bird friends on the farm! He’d been unable to walk for a while, but he’s back to tearing around the farmyard again, fortunately.

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

Update

I was hoping the new Drawing on Nature classes ready today but….alas, the week got ahead of me. Finding 7 hours to do voiceovers (and more hours because I often do them 2-3 times) just didn’t happen with jury duty and the rest of life. I’m hoping this weekend is going to be SUPER productive though. I’m determined to get this movin’!

Are you following Knucklebump Farms?

Go check them out on Instagram! 

Supplies

1. Copic Markers 
2. Copic Hex Chart 
3. Stonehenge sketchbook
4. Prismacolor pencils 
5. Prismacolor Hex Chart

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Tutorial: Alternate paper for Copics? Bear cub drawing

This won’t be a solution for everything, by any means; and switching to this paper for ALL your alcohol marker work might get cost prohibitive. But for fur? For fur it’s pretty amazing!

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

A few more tips

A few things I learned along the way:

• if your markers are dry, they’ll feel a little dryer on this paper. The soft surface has a little drag naturally, and a dry marker responds. But it’s nothing that more layers can’t fix.
• Colors are not as cartoony-bright as on some other papers like marker paper or Neenah. But since I love making things look realistic, the slight dulling down is perfect for me. IF you like brighter, just step up the saturation in your color choices.
• Alcohol can serve as a light blending solution – so how about a Copic? BINGO. You do have to clean off marker nibs on scratch paper, and it can stain them but it won’t have a permanent effect other than nib discoloring.
• The technique I use with a lot of textures is washing over the area with a glaze of color to soften it and pull it together–and it works even BETTER on Stonehenge than Neenah! 

Perfect for fur

I enjoyed a couple drawings SO much so that I started immediately prepping a class series that a lot of students have asked me for, because this paper, marker, and pencil combo are perrrrrfect for it: ANIMALS! This lil bear will be a lesson in the “big” class (read on.)

Drawing on Nature

I’m calling it the “Drawing on Nature” series of classes; don’t worry, I’m not headed exclusively in this direction, but I’ve been needing to find a way to create more advanced courses without pricing myself compeltely out of the market! I’m so used to making 5-10 lessons out of a topic that I couldn’t figure out what to do when each lesson triples in length from what I normally do!

So instead, classes will be for invididual drawings, not a huge set. Choose your adventure!

I’m hoping to have everything ready in maybe a week or so – join the art-classes email list if you haven’t already, I’ll be shouting from the rooftops as soon as it’s all ready to roll! 

There will be discounts if you sign up for a few of the single classes at a time, so be sure to read to get the coupon code you’ll need; I can’t figure out how to automate it, since the plugin I bought for bulk purchase discounts won’t work on classes, so coupon code it is.

There’ll also be a get-em-all class with each of the 10 drawings in it PLUS the narrated bear drawing. The bear’s the only one with much of a scene – that log was way too much fun to play with! And he won’t be a separate class, he’ll be in the big class only.

On jury duty

I’m starting jury duty today – and I’m one of those weirdos who relishes the chance to perform civic duty! I’d be altogether too happy to serve my community if they choose me. I was on a case a few decades ago and it was a fascinating process – and gave me so much confidence in our judicial system. Crossing my fingers I get selected. 🙂

I may or may not have some creativity for you the rest of the week depending on that –  but as Arnold says…. I’ll be back!

Supplies

1. Copic Markers 
2. Copic Hex Chart 
3. Neenah Cardstock, Solar White 250pk
4. Stonehenge sketchbook
5. Prismacolor pencils 
6. Prismacolor Hex Chart

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Hey it’s HERMEY! If you’re a fan of the Rankin/Bass productions of holiday tv shows like I am, Hermey will be familiar to you. If not – go watch Rudolph!

There are three reasons I chose this subject today:

1. Jules Bass just passed away in October….so I thought a tribute to thank him for years of holiday cheer would be appropriate.
2. A stop-motion image has simpler shapes and shadows for those who struggle with “seeing” shadows and highlights. These are well lit even if from a couple angles.
3. I resonate with Hermey’s desire to be a dentist! Sometimes other people want us to do things that benefit them, like Hermey’s boss the grumpy elf.  I get that a lot – folks who want to tell me what medium or project they think I should do more of.

Tutorial: Art lessons from drawing Hermey the Elf

This video is speedy – but I hope that helps you see the changes happen faster. Sometimes if I work on the same area for 10 minutes it’s hard to notice changes in real time.

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

Benefits of simpler images

A simpler figure like Hermey has a deliberately round head – it has some variations, for instance the eyes are inset a little, the nose protrudes…but it’s not like looking at a human figure with softly gradated cheek bones, or an animal with fur on a curved plane.

Beware that you’re not always replicating someone ELSE’s shading. Even mine. You’re getting one step removed from the original…it’s like a photocopy of a photocopy, and it loses something in the translation.

So if you’re looking for a reference so you can color a bird stamp – find a photo of a bird to work from, not someone’s coloring of a bird.

Layer, layer, layer

Don’t be afraid to add a lot of layers to slowly change the color. If working on tiny images that requires more rest time in between layers at times, because if the paper gets completely saturated you’ll find it bleeding. But the smaller you make each color shift – like in the hair where I added purples after the yellows, then more yellows – the easier it’ll be to get to where you’re headed without overdoing it too fast.

No sabbatical this year, but….

The last few years I’ve taken a YT sabbatical in December. It was from the exhaustion of the runup to the holidays, keeping up with new releases, and throwing videos out as fast as I could! 

Now that I’m off the affiliate train (I still post affiliate links, it’s just no longer a focus since I lost so many thousands of dollars in payments due)…….I don’t feel nearly the exhaustion!

However – December is a low month in general for viewing YouTube videos, that’s always been the case. Instead of working hard on tutorials, I may create more pieces like today’s, as well as some DIY decorations, or other fun things. I may put out more Shorts instead. I’m not really sure but I’ll give myself permission to spend December playing. And that will hopefully help in not having to totally start the engines up all over again in January!

Supplies

• Main product
• Medium
• Paper
• Other
• Brushes