PROCESS VIDEO // breeze - part 1

I got a request to upload the process for this painting a little while ago, and I couldn’t believe I’d never edited the full process of this painting before! It’s one of my personal favorites: Breeze, a painting that I made back in 2022. I really like how the sense of scale turned out, and I really enjoyed creating all of the cauliflower-like shapes within the clouds. I used a lot of techniques to make this process more efficient and intuitive, so I’ll be telling you more about that in this description! I split the full process into three parts, so check out each individual video in the feed to learn more about the techniques used at that specific stage. 

Here’s some information about this process video: 

• It has been sped up by 250%, so 2.5 times the original speed. 

• This painting session took me about  6 and a half hours, split up into multiple sessions.

• I split the full process into three parts. This is part one of three!

• I mostly used the hard round brush from my own brush set to paint this, as well as the lasso tool & gradient combination. To learn more about that, check out my step-by-step resource on painting with the lasso tool. 

• This is painted in Adobe Photoshop. If you want to replicate a similar workflow in Procreate, use a soft/blendy brush instead of the gradient. There’s more about how to do that in my tutorial video on creating soft and hard edges with the lasso tool!

Here are some helpful resources that can help understand this process in more detail: 

• Painting clouds: This video talks you through how I paint clouds, and especially how important is is to vary the shapes that you’re using to create more visual appeal.

• Creating interesting & flowy shapes: This tutorial talks about how you can approach shapes in a way that is expressive and dynamic. Shape language plays a huge role in this study, so this tutorial can give some insight into the ideas behind them!

• Soft & hard edges with the lasso tool: This is a technique I use a lot for this process, and this tutorial runs you through it and also provides a short demo for how you can mimic the same effect in Procreate.

THUMBNAILING

The process for this painting began with a thumbnail - just a really quick sketch / proof of concept that I put together to see if the idea I have in my mind has any potential. This idea was inspired by images I’d seen of the salt flats in Bolivia after rain, which makes the ground look like a mirror. When thumbnailing, the first thing I do is sketch out my idea, and then I use the lasso tool and some simple coloring tools to lay down the basic composition. At this point, I’m not trying to work out the final painting - I’m just trying to put together a version of the image that looks decent from afar. The key is to stay zoomed out! 

A lot of my thumbnails get abandoned because I feel like I can’t get my idea to come to life the way I want, but this one makes the cut - I very quickly feel like the painting has a lot of potential. I especially feel this way when I create the reflection of the clouds at 2:53 - just by duplicating it and blurring it a little, I instantly feel like the environment becomes immersive and inviting. The thumbnail is done at 4:52 minutes in. For more information about how I handle the thumbnailing stage, check out my tutorial on creating original art!

ADDING COMPLEXITY TO SIMPLE SHAPES

A lot of the painting process for this piece involved gradually building in more complexity. I start with three main cloud layers: the bigger white cloud at the back, a more medium-gray one in the middle, and a lighter one in the foreground. Three shapes are quite manageable to figure out, but as soon as I start adding details, it gets more complicated. I want to make sure the image stays readable and appealing, without getting bogged down by the detail. So I start by layering on the detail slowly, each time on a separate layer so I can scale back if needed. The main challenge is making sure the shapes don’t get too repetitive, otherwise it loses the readability of the fun tilted shapes of the thumbnail. You see me layering on detail and then scaling it back quite a lot, which is me searching for that level of complexity that feels “just right.” Trial and error is a huge part of that! 

SHARP VS SOFT EDGES

My usual workflow involves painting the details, but for this painting, I found that this didn’t work well. It resulted in either an over-blended mess, or for the painting to become too contour-based - meaning that I was drawing in outlines, which took away from the sense of volume. You can see me try to paint the details at 36 minutes in, but repeatedly delete it and start over. Soon after that, I start focusing on using the lasso tool instead, which ends up being the perfect workflow for this process. It allows me to create a sharp, defined edge on one side, and a softer edge on the other - a perfect combination for painting clouds!

I hope you like it - the next parts are coming right up!