Art Attack! #2: Shiba en Pasta! 🍝

taco.cat (67)in #art • 4 years ago (edited)

Hey Steemit!

I'm back with another Art Attack! Which if you didn't know, is a new series I started where I share the creative process behind my art pieces! I've really gotten into physical art and painting recently, and I thought I'd share my artworks here too, instead of just instagram @ duck.a.designs.

Anyway, in the last post, I showed you guys a piece I did for my brother and his wife as a housewarming gift!

She really likes dogs (just like me), and she likes the way pineapples look, so when I saw this really cute picture I decided to recreate it!

After colouring the last piece with colour pencils, I decided I needed another way to colour because it's just too tiring! My hand gets cramped so bad! I remember going to IKEA and I saw their watercolour set and bought it because I wanted to try it out.

It looked pretty good; with 14 colours, 2 water bowls and 2 brushes. It was a pretty good deal!

A short while after that, my sister-in-law's birthday came up and I tried my hand at painting something for the first time (since my childhood anyway)! My sister-in-law really likes spaghetti, so when I saw this picture online I just knew I had to try my best to paint it.

I had never painted before, so I wasn't sure about the consistency of the paint or how thick the colour would be and decided to do a test first.

Told you I wasn't good at first

It's also important to do colour tests when painting to ensure that you have the shade you want.

Since I painted a corgi for her last time, I decided to switch it up and paint a shiba for her this time instead! This was my sketch after outlining:

I wanted to make the lines light, especially with the pasta, since it's difficult to make it look "realistic". And I wanted to keep to the original style of the picture since it looked cute, and I knew she liked it.

Next came the hard part; painting! I know it doesn't look great, especially with the plate. I didn't look up any painting techniques because 1) I wanted to try it for myself first, just to get a feel for it. And 2) I know the internet will be full of tutorials and soo many techniques I wouldn't even know where to begin! I think I would've been too intimidated of screwing it up that I wouldn't even try. I think I made the right decision.

It looked really plain just like that, since I decided against the candy stripe background, so I decided to go look for some inspiration on what I could add, and I saw some quirky phrases! Ultimately I decided on:

I think it matched really well with the shiba and pasta. And I definitely could see it hanging in the dining/kitchen area in their house, making it a pretty good housewarming gift!

After outlining

Here's the completed piece!

I know the text isn't perfect, and the purple on the plate isn't smooth, but I was kinda happy with it. That was the first time I tried watercolouring and it wasn't too bad! My sister-in-law was so pleasantly surprised and she said she loved it! 😊 Aww.. She immediately put it in her kitchen area, and it's been there ever since.

Ever since that first time, I've loved painting! It's soo much easier and more relaxing than colouring pencils. And crayons are just a mess. And since I loved colour, I figured painting was the right choice for me. I'm so glad my sis-in-law likes this piece; she's definitely encouraged me to keep painting, and my paintings have gotten much better since this first one. So stay tuned!

Thanks so much for reading!