Learning the secret magic of painting

wonder | wander | women love filling their hands with work and their eyes with art. That's why we love the current era where no one has to pay a fortune to learn how to paint or draw. 

Wonder Woman captures Loki over Bryant Park in NYC 

There are free tutorials everywhere on the internet, or experienced teachers who set up their own training courses for a fraction of the price that art school would charge. There are many online "schools" where you can sign up for recorded videos, or live classes, taught by working professionals in the field. 

Sketch of a forest clearing

Last year we signed up to The Clockwork Heart, a mentoring course taught by Chris Oatley, a former Disney artist, who teaches full-time as well as taking on various animation and concept projects and has a long-running podcast called You're a Better Artist Than You Think. 

Chris has been helping us with personal projects as well as work for our portfolio and advice for seeking jobs. We have been learning about networking and digital illustration. And most of all we learn fundamentals: character design and concept creation, lighting and composition and the structure of an illustration.

First draft of an illustration for our Swan Planet story

There's a lot more work involved than most people think when it comes to art. We already knew that as lifelong artists, but now we are learning a brand new process and it's like learning to draw all over again.

Pure black and white version of the forest clearing

A large part of painting and drawing, much larger and more important than many realise, is reference. We knew it was important, but in fact it's essential. The best artists use it, and all artists get better when they do use it. And there are many more ways to use reference than spending a couple of hours on Google trying to find the perfect picture of our subject.

Body figure used for reference

The best reference to use is often yourself. Having a camera in our phones is more powerful than any Pinterest board or search engine because you can capture the exact textures, expressions, poses and lighting that you want. For fantastical elements, photobashing and building objects are most helpful.

Reference for Swan Planet illustration using body figure, swan wings from Google,
a castle prop I built, and selfies in various poses and expressions

Right now we're really enjoying the sculptural aspect of reference. Maquettes are a tool used by artists since the Baroque times and especially by today's animators, production design teams, and illustrators. Weta Workshop uses them, as does James Gurney, creator of Dinotopia.

This castle is made of paper bags and cardboard held together by masking tape. I tried to do the same thing to create a floating city, but it was time-consuming and unwieldy. I realised I could make a smaller model using plasticine and create a more realistic rocky asteroid. It was fun to use pen parts for the buildings!

The course is still ongoing but we are practicing every day and finding the work easier, like building new muscles with exercise. We're very excited to use these techniques and methods in our future projects and see the difference they make!

Final Swan Planet illustration