How I Drew This Hedgehog Afternoon Tea 💖 A New Digital Art Project Pack (Patreon)

Hello Bluebells 🌷

I asked in a poll a couple of weeks ago for your help voting on what I should draw next, and the favourite choice was a drawing of hedgehogs having a blackberry themed afternoon tea - thanks for your help!

So this is the scene that I drew:

You can download all of the assets for this illustration below, and either use them as a tool to see how I construct my art, or use them as a kit to recreate this artwork on your own. Just keep in mind that any recreations can be for personal use only (or just credit me if you're posting a recreation on social media).

You'll find in this post:

A timelapse video of the art process (above)

A simple breakdown of the process in images (below)

My original digital file with named layers (attached)

A colour palette as a .jpg and .swatches file (attached)

The original sketch as a .png (attached)

I decided to draw this one in a vertical format rather than square because I knew I wanted to draw something with a little bit of depth and detail and vertical feels like a nice format for printing and framing.

Usually I spend an hour or two on a casual digital drawing, but this one probably took me double that. It was fun to sit on the couch and take my time with it while I had the TV on in the background!

So here are the main steps of my process (roughly in the right order) broken down into images.

First, I drew a sketch:

Then I coloured in all of the main elements, using the sketch as a reference:

Then I added some details:

I gave everything some texture and shading:

And finally added some lighting:

How I add lighting:

I add lighting to help add a bit of contrast to help my main elements stand out (like the table with the hedgehogs) and also to add some whimsy.

I simply add a new layer, make it 'screen' blend mode, choose a yellow colour, and with a soft brush draw on some highlighting.

If I do this between layers it helps add depth, so I added some lighting behind the first layer of leaves and behind the table.

These are the brushes I used (from my brush packs):

Soft Canvas Pencil - for colouring the base shapes and drawing the details

Textured Pencil (regular version and light version) - for adding texture to everything

And here is the colour palette (also attached below):

Enjoy!

💖 Mimi