PROCESS VIDEO // ivy leaves

I wanted to share the process of my ivy leaf painting, because it was a process that involved a lot of recalibrating and staying mindful of my creative decisions. More info below!

Here’s the reference image I used: 

Here’s some more information about this video: 

• The process has been sped up by 200% - so 2 times the original speed. 

• This painting took me about 1 hour and 15 minutes to make in total. 

• I used the Macalabs HB Pencil brush to sketch and the hard round brush from my own brush set to paint. 

LARGE VS SMALL DETAILS 

I love jumping into the details as soon as I have my sketch and colors down, but I’ve found time and time again that this doesn’t help my process. I really have to remind myself to start with the larger, rougher shapes and slowly, gradually build my detail. I often have to reel myself in and start over during my process when I find myself getting too detailed in an early stage. This is something that happens about 13:41 minutes in - you can see that the bottom leaf is really sharply rendered and detailed. In the navigator view in the top left, it almost looks like a photograph. But this wasn’t what I was going for - I wanted something that felt more unified and stylized. So I end up going over it with a larger brush about 14:30 minutes in and making the details a bit less dense and clustered. I also shift my focus to the other leaves and try to work a bit more loosely on those. No matter how often I paint, this is something I almost always run into - and a reminder that it’s always okay to re-assess and recalibrate during your process! 

SATURATED CONTOURS

For this study, I intentionally exaggerated the colors to give these leaves a little bit of a magical vibe. It’s always challenging to figure out where to exaggerate those colors: the highlights? The shadows? The details? In this case, I decided to focus on the contours, and add color by creating overlay layers. I add some deep blue colors to the outlines of the leaves at 8:21 minutes, and I add some cyan outlines to the lighter reflective shapes at 16:45 minutes in. Finally, I add some warmer tones to the outer edges of the leaves at 20:52 minutes in. I’m always a fan of brightening the colors near the contours because that helps emphasize the shapes, but I think exaggerating the colors is always a great way to establish a drawing as being stylized and let others know that it’s an interpretation of a reference image, not a perfect copy!

Hope you enjoy this one and as always, let me know if you have any questions!