PROCESS VIDEO // iced coffee

As promised, here is the process video for my iced coffee illustration! I figured this was a good companion to this month’s tutorial on line weight - I apply a lot of the principles from that tutorial in the early stages of this painting while constructing the linework.

I also use a technique where I use a mask to turn the lines into a transparent layer. If you want to know more about how I do that, check out this little mini walkthrough that explains exactly how that works!

Some additional information about this process video:

• The process has been sped up by 300% - so 3 times the original speed. 

• This painting took me about 3 hours and 15 minutes to make in total, and the sketch took me about half an hour to make.

• I scanned the original sketch from my sketchbook.

• Check out the original post to learn more about the idea behind the drawing.

MODIFYING THE LINES

I usually paint over the lines quite a lot when I paint and add color, so I don’t bother with getting the lines perfect in the early stages. But for this one I really wanted to stick more closely to the linework. That’s why it was important for me to make sure that I had fixed any issues in the linework before adding color! The sketch in my sketchbook wasn’t really intended as finalized linework - just as a starting point for my idea, which meant that there were a lot of issues to fix before moving forward. When working digitally, I’m much better able to fix construction issues and get the details right. The first thing I focus on is fixing the construction and shape of the hands. I also make a lot of changes to the features of the face to emphasize that her head is tilted down. At the beginning of this video, you can see me adding a black rectangle to the image - that’s just temporary so that I can color pick black off of the canvas to draw the lines. When focusing on making things ‘correct,’ I like working digitally because I feel like it’s easier to try different things out and change anything that isn’t working. Things like being able to flip the canvas, use the undo button, and work on different layers are so helpful for that! I only really feel good about the linework about 13 minutes in, which is when I start adding color. 

COLOR STRUGGLES

I knew I wanted the image to be brown because it was inspired by iced coffee. I figured that wouldn’t be very difficult to pull off since I’ve created a lot of brown art in the past, but it was way harder than I thought it would be! I really struggled to find the right kind of brown. About 14 minutes in, I felt like the hues and freckles/dots on her face and hands made her look more like an anthropomorphic type character - I could picture her with antlers. It just didn’t have the coffee vibe. So I scrapped that and tried a more desaturated color scheme around 18 minutes in. But that didn’t give the coffee vibe I was looking for either. Eventually, around 19:17 minutes in, I copy/paste a picture of iced coffee to see how the colors compared to that. That’s when I decided to go for a warmer, richer kind of brown that seemed to be dripping down from the top, mimicking the look of coffee that was poured into a glass of milk. Once I did that, the drawing seemed to make more sense!

TEXTURES AND PHOTO OVERLAYS

Throughout the process of this one, I realized that colors alone weren’t enough to give the impression of iced coffee. So I started working with more textured surfaces and images. At 31 minutes in, I brought in an old paper texture for the background that reminded me of coffee filters. After that, I copy/pasted a picture of coffee mixing with milk and modified it so that it created dark brown color dripping in from the top. I liked the swirls and liquid-like movement it creates. At 32 minutes in, I add some lighter milky swirls to the bottom. As a finishing touch, at 59:49 minutes in, I add an icy texture to the ice cubes to give them that crisp icy feel. For all of these textures, I usually paint over them later on to blend them in and integrate them into the painting - an important step to make sure it doesn’t look too fake. I usually don’t add too much texture to my paintings, but for this one I felt like they elevated the painting and really pushed that association with iced coffee, so it added a lot to the concept! 

I hope you enjoyed this one - let me know if you have any questions after watching it! ❤