This layout was a great demonstration for me to realize that if I don’t like how something turned out on my layout, I can just paint right over it and start again! Hooray for that. It’s the equivalent of an “Undo” command in Photoshop.
My prompt for this layout was “Storm.” As I have done with my other layouts, I’ve been wanting to do more than just put the word “storm” on the layout so I’ve been Googling quotes in relation to my prompts. The quote I found for this was:
“If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.” — Mahatma Gandhi.
I knew for this layout I wanted to do lightning but wasn’t quite sure how to approach it. I first painted the layout with acrylics in metallic silver, violet and blue to mimic a stormy sky. I stamped some tree branches using white acrylic paint and then started to paint my lightning bolts with acrylic paint. I really was not pleased with how they first came out – they looked very much like something an eight-year-old would do (and maybe some eight-year-olds can do a much better job than even what I had started!) This is why references are important, folks. And thanks to the wonders of the internet, I Googled “lightning” and looked at images and discovered my rudimentary lightning was way off and very sad indeed.
So, it was time to paint over the mistakes. Actually, I didn’t paint over them – I hit the layout with my spray inks instead with blues, blacks and violets. I wanted a little interest on the page so I used some goose feathers I’d found at the park as a sort of mask in places on the page so my original background would peek through a little bit. You really have to take a good second look at the layout to recognize the feather shapes, but they’re there, and they add a special touch, I think. If you look really close you can even see hints of my failed original lightning.
From there I learned my lesson about trying to paint the lightning and instead drew it on with a white Prismacolor Premiere colored pencil, using my referenced online images. I created the glowing appearance by shading around the shape of the lightning with pink and magenta colored pencils then went back over the white outline of the lightning with my Gelly Roll white pen to really make it pop. I used the pink and magenta colored pencils above the lightning, as well, to create hints of clouds.
I did the quote in my Gelly Roll pen and had to go over the letters in “STORM” multiple times with white acrylic paint because the spray inks kept bleeding through. I applied the same glow technique around the storm word to tie it in with the rest of the design.
Not my favorite layout by far but it was certainly fun seeing I was capable of creating realistic-looking lightning once I used a few references.
Hope you enjoyed the layout. I am open to comments and suggestions on how to better describe processes, etc.
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Odyssey Art 