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

Hello everyone, I hope you're enjoying the holidays if you're celebrating them!

I finished my final illustration for this month's illustration club this afternoon and I want to share it with you!

As you know, the prompt for this month is 'Winter In The Woods' and I decided to draw a little bird going for a winter walk ❄️

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 'Winter In The Woods' - I actually drew them without the whistling beak first but when I looked back at it I felt like it needed a little extra story. 

Let me show you a quick breakdown of my illustration process and the basic palette that I used (which you can download below if you'd like to use it yourself):

My process went a little something like this:

First I drew a simple digital sketched based on the pencil sketch from the last activity

Then I made the sketch layer about 30% opacity and 'multiply' blend mode so that I'd be able to see through it easily

On new layers below the sketch I coloured in all of the elements in my illustration, keeping things on separate layers a lot of the time

Then I added lots of texture and shading layers to everything

I drew in some small line details like on the trees and the bird's scarf and feathers

For everything to feel a bit snowy I drew a few layers of 'snow' - some of those layers are just soft white texture for a snowy atmosphere, but I also added some actual snowflakes

And that's it!

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 ❤