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

Hello my lovely flowers!

I've been having a nice time in France this week (I've been watching the Tour de France in person!) but sat down earlier to draw my final illustration for this month's illustration club.

As you know, the prompt for this month is 'Beach Day!' and I chose to draw some starfish sunbathing ⛱️☀️

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 'Beach Day!' and I really enjoyed drawing it! I like the colour palette that I used and had fun drawing all of the little shells and beachy bits 😊

So here's a little breakdown of my illustration process as well as the basic colour palette that I used in case you'd like to use that for your own art (you can download it below).

My process for this illustration went a little something like this:

First I drew out a digital sketch based on the pencil sketch that I drew in activity 2.

Then I added a circle background and made sure that all of my elements fit nicely inside it.

I made my sketch layer about 30% opacity and 'multiply' blend mode so that I would always be able to see through it and can now use it as a reference for my full colour illustration.

On new layers below my sketch layer (which is now see-through), I started colouring in all of the elements of my illustration. I usually draw separate elements on their own layers to make it easier to shade them later.

Once everything has a basic shape, I go through and add some details like drawing their faces, adding details to the book and stripes to the towels.

Then I give everything some shading and texture. I do this with my texture brushes so that I add texture at the same time as shading.

I usually do one final pass of stronger shading and any final details or highlights.

And then it's finished!

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 ❤