Connie's Ramblings

Almost done… I’ve moved things around a little bit… the beauty of drawing in Photoshop… get to completely erase your errors, work on various layers, tweak hue/sat, and move things around

After playing with this for a bit this afternoon…

I’ve left my “swatches” layer on which is just 100% opacity of the colors I’m using which makes it easier to pick up while working (hold ALT and click on the color)

Used “Pastel Light” brushes on the petals doing abit more shading on them… I lost quite a bit of the detail when I did this as they were all on one layer.. need to go back and use the Small Pastel on Charcoal brush to add in some white and pink thin detail lines. Alot of the detail on the branch and the bottom right butterfly was done using the Small Pastel on Charcoal Paper brush as well… And a “Dry Brush” was used to add the oranges and yellows on the lower right butterfly…

Some Other Notes… My actual artboard is 6in x 6in at 300dpi so what you are seeing here is about 25% of the actual size.

I did the background first using a large “charcoal” brush with a low Opacity and quick random strokes. It is mostly blue but there is also some yellow, pink, green and gray in there… then masked that and used a large “stipple” brush to bring some back…

The orginal sketch was then put on a layer above that using a 6pt “Waxy Crayon” brush – black with about 23% opacity… once I was happy with those, on a layer below the sketches I used a soft brush at 100% opacity to make a white drawing base for the images before adding color… umm actually I think I forgot to do this on the first butterflies and blossoms but went back and did it later… you can definitely see it on the new butterflies though…

Painting I’ve been using the Pastel, Dry and Charcoal brushes.. I typically always turn on “Shape Dynamics” so the pressure of the wacom changes diameter.. I also play around with the spacing a bit…

Each butterfly has its own layer.. some have two with the base color in a bottom layer and the detail strokes in an upper one.. the blossoms and stem are all on a single layer at this point.. with the exception of the center stamens which are on a separate layer

Here is what I have so far… added the two new butterflies on the bottom and worked some more on the blossoms

After catching the flu and then ending up pneumonia, it has been a rough two weeks… and at this point I just want to be well and for the cold/flu season to be over and for spring to be here… don’t have the energy to do much actual work around the house so yesterday I played around with the battle image and today I just wanted to playing around doodling and this is what came out of it…

Figured if I actually posted it on the NAPP forum boards and here as a project I might actually manage to follow through and finish it so here goes

Here is after spending some more time on the blossoms… I’m planning on putting two more butterflies on the lower half… Colors in the corner are swatches I’m using for the cherry blossoms…