How to Draw a Fantasy Hermit Crab

I’ll be straight with you and let you in on a little secret. I struggled a lot with this piece. It took me quite a lot of figuring out to understand how the perspective would work with the multiple layers of the crab’s shell. Sometimes I feel like my drawings are more of a puzzle than anything else.

Shelltown by Kailey Lauren Kay

When I tried to place my horizon line, the points of origin just seemed too close and the whole city looked a little too warped. So my hot tip of the day is…

When you’re working with perspective, the points of origin of your perspective lines don’t always have to be on the page. To run your horizon line off the page, use masking or painter’s tape and tape the line onto your desk. Don’t forget to tape down your drawing where you want it, to keep everything in line!

This piece was created using Prismacolor Brush Marker on 9” x 12” Bristol Smooth Paper.

If you’re down to go to Shelltown, check out this tank top!

Prints Available

Click “I want a print!” to grab a gallery-quality art print, canvas print, or acrylic print! Available in a variety of sizes.

How to Get Inspired to Create

Floating Away. Sometimes it’s something you wish you could do, and sometimes it happens on its own. Whether your floating away from a boring class, an unpleasant situation, or simply trying to steal the Kraken’s treasure, today’s hot tip is built into the title of this piece.

Floating Away Bomber Jacket by Kailey Lauren Kay

When people struggle with ideas, they’re missing the point. Sometimes the best ideas happen when you just let go and allow yourself to float away. This piece was born backstage at an infomercial shoot and scribbled on the back of a call sheet. Next time you can’t think of what to draw, try to zone out. Go for a walk. Get up and dance. See what comes to mind when you stop trying to force it. 

Float on in and check these out!

Floating Away Leggings by Kailey Lauren Kay

Prints Available

Click the image or “I want a print!” to grab a gallery-quality art print, canvas print, or acrylic print! Available in a variety of sizes.

How to Create A Galaxy with Alcohol Markers

I’ve found that one of the few things I don’t love about my Prismacolor Markers is that they always seem to be missing the bridge colors. For example, while there are dark, medium, and light purples they tend to be different shades of purple which makes for an ugly dark to light blend. Alternatively, I couldn’t find a blue light enough to represent a beautiful cloudy sky or help me make that blend from medium blue to white paper. So when I want to color something like a galaxy, the mission seemed quite impossible.

After another few hours of experimenting, practicing, and failing I came up with a solution! Instead of fighting the areas where the colors didn’t blend seamlessly, I chose to embrace them. I utilized texture to create a purposeful look that showcased the different colors of the markers, while still giving the general effect of the blend I was going for. 

If you love this piece as much as I do and want to rock it, take it to school!

Spun the Stars Backpack by Kailey Lauren Kay

Or grab a T-Shirt!

Spun the Stars T-Shirt by Kailey Lauren Kay

Prints Available

Click “I want a print!” to grab a gallery-quality art print, canvas print, or acrylic print! Available in a variety of sizes.

How to Choose a Color Scheme

Candy and fancy desserts are some of my favorite things to draw (and eat!) There are so many little details, colors, and textures to play with. The best part is that they’re so fluid and unique that every little detail doesn’t have to be perfect.

Body Positivity by Kailey Lauren Kay

One thing I love to do when drawing desserts, especially if I’m going to be drawing many, is to choose a color scheme. Since there are so many different ways to create beautiful desserts, sticking with the colors of each individual treat could lead to a completed work that looks disjointed. Choosing a group of colors, (even if it’s the whole rainbow,) and using the same ones in every treat, will create a cohesive drawing that pulls the piece together. 

That way there’s no limit to the number of treats you can include in your drawing!

Prints Available

Click “I want a print!” to grab a gallery-quality art print, canvas print, or acrylic print! Available in a variety of sizes.

Learning How to Draw in Perspective: Raccoon Space Battle

Can I tell you a secret? I can’t take credit for the idea of this piece. When I was working on “Galaxy Treatos for the Rainbow Raccoon,” my boyfriend was convinced I got it all wrong. He then proceeded to tell me an elaborate story, that I HAD to write down immediately. Thus “Raccoons vs Flowers” was born!

Raccoons vs Flowers Leggings

This piece was a major challenge for me because it incorporates a lot of factors that are outside of my comfort zone. Perspective drawing & not having a solid reference photo really put me on edge. (I mean, how many photos are there of raccoons with space guns?) On top of the fact that I REALLY wanted to do his shenanigans the justice they deserved. 

I managed to get through it and create a work that I’m really proud of. This will be the beginning of many epic pieces, as I dive into learning perspective, background art, and character design. It’s never too late to add more tools to your toolkit!

If you were sitting there thinking, “Wow! I would really love to have space raccoons on my legs!” Then you’ve come to the right place. Make your next steps EPIC with a pair of Raccoons vs Flowers leggings or keep it cool with a bomber jacket!

Raccoons vs Flowers Bomber Jacket

This piece was created using Prismacolor Marker on 9” x 24” Bristol Smooth Paper.

Prints Available

Click “I want a print!” to grab a gallery-quality art print, canvas print, or acrylic print! Available in a variety of sizes.

How to Draw Unicorns: 3 Secret Tips

Wondering how to draw unicorns? First, you have to understand them. I’ve heard a fair share of stories about unicorns & their horns, the alicorn. In Renaissance times they were a symbol of purity and their horns were one of the most expensive and reputable remedies of the time. Since the discovery of the narwhal, unicorns have graced our fantastical tales and bring little girls (and adult me) all the rainbow, glittery joys a magical horse can bring. Unless you ask KR. He will tell you they’re murderous creatures just waiting to impale unsuspecting victims with their deadly, dangerous horns.

I have to say I disagree. What better use could one have of a long noggin horn, than to toast marshmallows with some great friends in a magical forest? The rest of us can only hope we’re special enough to make the grocery store run for supplies. 

The creation of this piece was quite an adventure for me as well. I have an affinity for drawing fun, random creatures and treats floating in space. Why? Because it saves me a lot of geometry and has a large potential to get weird. If anyone questions me I can respond with a simple “why not?” However, this time I really wanted to challenge myself. I bought an excellent ebook by Mitch Leeuwe that went into great detail about how to draw backgrounds with good composition (something I was told my other pieces lacked.)

As you might have guessed, I immediately ran into the inevitable wall that encourages me to stray from this path, but this time I stayed the course. I spent a lot of time debating creature size vs distance to get the perfect perspective. That’s the tricky part about drawing these types of scenes. You have to figure out how to size all the elements of your piece so they look realistic when you put them together. If you made your unicorns too big, they’ll look larger than the trees and throw off the effect of depth you’re trying to provide. On the other hand, if you make the dragon too small, she’ll look like a baby dragon and not a mama bear. If you’re looking for an in-depth tutorial on that process, I would highly suggest checking out Mitch’s work. For the purposes of this blog post, I’d like to touch on a few key elements that really helped me power through learning how to draw unicorns.

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a basic principle of composition I originally learned about in freshman year photography class. You simply split your frame into 9 equal sections, 3 up by 3 across, and try not to put anything important in the middle. Unless you’re going for that “look how cute we are on family vacation” type of vibe. Balancing important features of the image on the gridlines & intersections helps the piece gain balance and flow. According to Wikipedia “Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy, and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject.” 

In A Unicorn’s S’mores, I placed the campfire on the bottom right intersection. I also tried to direct all the other elements of the piece so they subtly guide your eye toward the campfire. This is a great starting point for anyone looking to explore composition. Heck, I’m pretty sure there’s a setting for the rule of thirds grid on every smartphone. Try playing with composition during your next selfie session!

Things Look Smaller When They’re Far Away (Unless They’re Huge, Then You Have a Problem)

This one is kind of obvious. Stand by your window and look out into the distance. You’ll probably notice things that are far away seem smaller, even if they’re truly the same size as what’s right in front of you. In order to capture that depth in a two-dimensional drawing, you have to draw the far away objects smaller to create the illusion. 

I wanted the trees to look like they were spread out across a meadow, so I drew larger, more detailed trees upfront and some skinny, less detailed trees off in the distance. Theoretically, if you walked through that meadow you’d find those trees to be about the same size as the “larger” ones. You just can’t tell because they’re off in the distance.

On the other hand, if I had drawn a human behind the trees that were somehow taller than the trees, you could assume that they were bigger than Godzilla and you should probably commence running, right about…NOW!

Lighting Can Change Everything

Your light source has the potential to tell the viewer a lot about the composition and depth of your piece. My big, magic, unicorn moon is lighting up the clouds it’s closest to like the Fourth of July, but as the clouds get farther away, the moonlight isn’t affecting them as strongly or at all. This tells the viewer that while the light source is powerful, it isn’t as bright as the sun. It also tells the viewer how far away the outer clouds are. 

Now consider the smaller light source, the campfire. Campfire lights are a low, warm glow, so it makes sense that it would only affect the objects closest to them. While the unicorns and the trees around them are catching the glow of the fire, the mama dragon across the river is unaffected. This gives the viewer perspective on the distance between the campfire and the trees across the river. 

Playing with light sources in general is a fun way to add life to a piece and play with colors and shading. I think if you really hit the sweet spot you can amplify the magic and mysticism of the piece as a whole.

In Summary

These are only a few quick tips I picked up from my first intense foray into drawing a full background scene. There’s a ton more for me to learn about composition and perspective and I look forward to sharing the knowledge I gain with you! In the meantime, do yourself a favor and take a look at Mitch’s tutorials. I’m not sponsored by him & I don’t know him personally. I just found his books to be the most helpful and clear guides to background and perspective drawings I could find online. So in the spirit of questing for awesomeness, let us go forth, learn, and become more amazing every day!

Love yourself some unicorns? Don’t forget to grab a Unicorn’s S’mores print or Crop Top!

The Secret to Photo Realistic Art: 5 Ways to Practice Drawing Realism

As my friend, Brandon would say, “let’s face the facts here.” Creating photorealistic art is not easy. Whether you’re drawing, painting, or sculpting, I personally consider photorealism to be the ultimate art challenge and mastery of an artistic skill. 

Since we spend so much of our time taking the world in through our eyes, it seems like we should have an endless database of images to choose from. However, I find unless you’re one of the few people blessed with a true photographic memory, there’s quite a bit more involved. Sure we see a lot of things, but when was the last time you really put energy into looking at something? That’s what I thought.

The number one, extra special, top-secret about photorealistic drawing involves absolutely no drawing. If you want to draw realism or even semi-realism, the most important skill to practice, first, last, and above all is observation.

That’s right, I said it, observation! You can’t recreate something until you know what it looks like. Remember when I asked you about the last time you really looked at something? This is an activity you’re definitely going to want to take up & I promise it will completely change the game.

5 Tips for Practicing Observational Drawing

Shape

Our world is three-dimensional. Even very tiny, or very thin items have some dimension. The image you’re going to put down on paper will be two-dimensional, but in order to make it look real, you’ll have to adjust your drawing to simulate its form. 

Consider this. If you look at a chair in real life, it will look different from every angle. You probably haven’t thought much about this, after all, it’s still a chair. However, if you took 10 photos of that chair all from different angles and traced the outline, the two-dimensional shapes would be different in every image. Those shapes and the angle from which you chose to draw them will play a huge role in making your art look realistic.

Let’s do an exercise. Sit down and look around the room. Pick an item and write down every detail you can come up with about its shape. Now keep looking at that item but move around the room. Sit down somewhere else & repeat the last step. How does your new perspective change the shape or angle of that item? Try getting closer, then farther away. Get a step ladder and look down on it, then lay on the floor, and look up at it. Spending time deeply observing from a variety of perspectives will help you understand shapes and forms and make it easier for you to recreate them in your artwork.

Light

Light, or rather, the way light hits the items around us plays a huge role in making them look real. Often things may seem to have lines, but in reality, it’s just a place where the light hits a shadow on the item. A round item will react to light differently than a cube-shaped item. Something made out of a matte material will interact with light differently than something made out of chrome.

Consider this. If you look at a tree from far away, you will get an idea of how the light is interacting with it as a whole. But, the closer you get, you start to realize that the light hits every single leaf, branch, and bark shaving differently. Due to the organic nature of trees, no two will be the same. This light can also change minute by minute as the sun rises and sets, or clouds come in to block and filter the light. Taking note of every minute detail will help you formulate a clear image.

Try this exercise. Pick something in the room and stare at it for a while. Write down every detail about where there are highlights, where there are shadows, and where there are variations in between. Note which lines are part of the item and which are shadows meeting light. Now change the light in the room, close the blinds and turn on a lamp and do this exercise again to see how the new lighting changed the appearance. Repeat this exercise with different items made from different materials and note the results. 

Texture

Texture is a big part of what makes the things around us unique and identifiable. From the fur on your dog to the bark on the tree outside your window. When it comes time to render these items, the texture is very important. 

Consider some pups (as if you weren’t already doing that.) There’s a huge difference between the fur of a poodle (fluffy and curly,) a golden retriever (long & wavy,) and a pit bull (short, smooth, & shiny). The secret to drawing any and all fur is a million tiny lines. The trick to drawing any and all fur is taking the time to OBSERVE how each of those lines interacts with one another. The patterns they make, how they interact with light, how they bundle or change direction, even the subtle shadows created by other pieces of fur. If you can observe all of those details you’ll be on your way to drawing your favorite furry friends.

For this exercise, go out and take a walk. Focus on the textures you see on your way. I’m using a tree again because “let’s face the facts here” there’s a lot going on with trees. How does the bark on the tree look close up? What does it look like if you walk 10 ft away? If you pick up a leaf can you see all of the veins and spots on that leaf? If you look up at the tree it fell from, can you see the new texture the leaves create when together as a whole? Go ahead and walk across the street. How does that change the way the leaves and the tree look? What happens when you shine a light on it? Take note of all of these details.

Color

Color is something that seems obvious. Oh, the fire hydrant is red, the grass is green the sky is blue. But is that enough information to recreate that item accurately? What shade of blue is the sky? How many different colors are in the clouds? Is every blade of grass the same shade of green? Our brains love to simplify data, but this will not serve you when you’re attempting observational drawing. There are so many factors involved in the colors of three-dimensional items. To begin with, how many colors or shades are naturally a part of that object? For example, my bunny, The Reaper, is black. When I look really closely, it’s clear that her fur contains shades of grey, brown, and even coppers. Now that we’ve observed her natural colors, we have to roll back to tip 2 and consider how the light changes the way her natural colors appear. What color is the brightest highlight? What color is the darkest shadow? If you change the color of the light or bring her outside, what does that do?

For this exercise, go out and find a fire hydrant. Take a long, hard, look at that fire hydrant. At a glance, it’s just red. How does the red where the sun is hitting it differ from the red in the parts that are in shadow? Are there places where the paint is chipping? What color is happening there? Was part of the paint faded by the long-term wear from the sun? If you want to take on a bonus challenge, bring your materials with you and try to match the colors you see. If one color doesn’t work on its own, figure out what you need to mix it with to create the perfect shade. 

Puzzles

This is my final and favorite tip! Do jigsaw puzzles and USE THE BOX. Study every inch of the picture. Observe all of the things we were looking for before. Zero in on the shape of the piece, the color, and texture of the picture and use this information to find the right place. If you have a piece with pink flowers, search the picture for pink flowers and find the exact place in the picture that piece belongs. As much as this might seem like a waste of time, this is my favorite way to practice observation and it’s one of my all-time favorite activities. I know, I’m a nerd. Not sorry.

In Summary

Being able to truly see the world is a vital first step in being able to create your own. Even after all of this observational practice, I highly suggest using high-quality photos to draw from when creating photorealistic art. If you have to use the grid method to drill down into the details, do it. If you want to move on to something pulled out of your imagination, all of these details will help make your world believable. When it comes down to it, taking the time to focus and take a deeper look will bring your work to the next level so go forth and observe!

What’s your favorite way to practice observation?