Mimi's Illustration Club December - Third Activity! (Patreon)

Hello my lovelies!

I've finally finished moving house 🙌🎉✨ We moved interstate so we sold most of our things and packed the rest into our tiny car and drove it for three days across the country so it was suuuch a big job haha. Now we're home for Christmas and can relax!

It's time for the third activity of this month's illustration club and the prompt as you know is 'holiday traditions' and they can be any traditions for any holiday that you like to celebrate 😊

So far in the club this month we’ve filled a sketchbook page with ideas relating to the prompt, then we explored some composition sketches from those ideas, and now we can take one of those composition ideas and create a final illustration from it.

If you skipped the first activities and came straight to drawing a final illustration that's totally fine!

You can use any medium you like to create your final illustration! The aim of this activity (and the whole club) is to just explore the creative process and enjoy practising our art skills together, so if you can achieve those two things then whatever you create is a success!

So I’ll show you what I created for this activity based on a sketch from activity 2!

This is my final illustration for 'holiday traditions'! I wanted to illustrate something bold and simple and also I love eating and drinking at Christmas so I drew this cosy drink 😊

So here's a little breakdown of the process for this illustration, and I've also attached the basic colour palette that you're welcome to use for your own illustrations.

My process went a little something like this:

First I drew a simple digital sketch of my composition, using the pencil sketch as a guide.

Then I reduced that sketch layer to about 20% opacity and made it 'multiply' blend mode so that I could see through it onto layers below.

On new layers underneath my sketch layer, I started colouring in all of the main elements of my illustration. Most of the time elements in different colours will be drawn on different layers (I end up with quite a few layers!)

Then I added some finer details like the pattern on the cup and the lines on the leaves.

Finally I added shading and texture to pretty much every element in my illustration (always makes such a big difference!)

And that's about it!

I like how simple and festive this illustration is; it was nice and relaxing to illustrate 🎄✨

Now it's your turn (yay!) - take one of the composition sketches that you drew in activity 2 and create a final illustration from it (if you haven't already). Or if you feel like it you can do a completely new idea!

These activities pretty much replicate my normal art process when I'm faced with a new prompt - I brainstorm ideas, doodle down a few sketches to explore some compositions, and then illustrate my final piece.

If you do draw a final illustration with the prompt this month then feel free to share it with us over on Discord in the #final-illustrations channel. Everyone is welcome, and you can share what you've created for any of the activities at any time!

I'm really looking forward to seeing how your illustrations turn out ❤