How to Paint Alice in Wonderland & Cheshire Cat | Step-by-Step Tutorial | Fantasy Art

Hi everybody, welcome back to my channel. I'm Joni Young, if you're new here, thanks so much for joining. I'm going to be showing you step by step how I painted Alice in Wonderland looking up at the Cheshire Cat up in the tree with lots of fun mushrooms and colors. We're going to get started with turquoise, yellow and white on an 11 by 14 black primed canvas. So I'm going to take all three colors with a large blending brush and I'm just going to create sort of like an oval shape and just continuously go round and round with my brush blending all those colors out. I'm going to make it lighter in the center with some white and some yellow and then I'm going to take my cobalt blue and go around the outside kind of framing it in. I just want to have a really nice gradiation into the center so it'll be slightly darker on the outside but not too too dark. Now I'm going to take another blending brush and some sap green and I'm just going to start tapping in. It's kind of a mop oval brush. Any kind of stipple brush or mop brush will work for this guys just to create a little bit of foliage here in the foreground. So just tapping around and then I'm going to kind of twist my brush in some spots to create the tops of the mushrooms. I'm going to go over to filbert brush now and I'm going to take my neon yellow with my white. If you don't have neon yellow, you can use any other yellow and just mix it with some titanium white or the next brightest white that you have. I'm just going to brighten these mushrooms up on the underneath side. I'm going to create some light inside of the mushroom. I just think this looks really really neat and I've seen it in images of Alice in Wonderland and the movie. So I thought I would incorporate that in my version of Alice in Wonderland. So it's just going to look like they're lit inside and I'm going to be using a soft orange yellow and white for that and I'm just going to make it really bright on the top and then we're going to have a darker line kind of in between, separating the top of the mushroom from the underneath side. I'll then do some lines in there. You can use any brush that you want, a liner brush, a flat brush and I'll go back to that in just a minute and show you what brush I'm going to use. But in the meantime, I'm just going to create some soft sun rays here, some light rays with my flat brush, a bit of water and some white and yellow. So just very casually pulling diagonal lines and I'm not worried about how the ends of them look or even the center for that matter because I'm going to be going over here with some tree trunks and I'm using some cobalt blue and I'm going to use a little bit of black, maybe some sap green, just kind of mute and tone these colors a bit. I'll then be incorporating some light pastel purple. If you don't have pastel purple, just take any purple and mix a bit of white with it. And if you don't have purple, well, then you can just take a little bit of pink and blue or a cool red with blue. So I'm just putting these trees in different angles. They're not all going to be straight up and down. They're kind of leaning kind of towards the center. I really like this. It gives it more of a fantasy type of perspective and each tree is going to be a little bit different from the next with the blue and purple and the amount that I'm using. And then this one on the far right is going to be darker. I'm going to pick up a little bit of my sap green, a little bit of black, even a little bit of my magenta. It's luminous neon rose, but it's very similar to magenta or quinacridone violet. So you can use that if you don't have this brand of Holbein neon paint. And so I'm just making this a little bit darker, this tree here. It's going to be more in shadow, more in the foreground. I'll just kind of pull in some skinny branches, create a moss effect, kind of dripping and hanging down. And then I'll add another tree, a big tree over here where our Cheshire cat is going to be laying and kind of just nestled, perched up on this big branch coming out. Now I love to make my trees look like they're kind of twisted and braided looking, so I just line my brush up and then pull and kind of twist on an angle to give it that look. It's going to be in shadow on the outside of the canvas, the outside edge of the tree. And then towards the inside, it's going to have highlights on it, and I'm going to be using a combination of colors for that. I'll show you in just a few minutes. So I'm going to cut in. I'm still using my flat brush for this. I'm going to make some skinnier looking branches and continue creating my moss. And I'm going to be using some yellow, green, white, a little bit of black that's left over in my brush. I just don't want it to be completely black. I want to have some rich tones in there so you can tint your blacks with other colors to do that. Okay, I'm going to start adding some highlights now. I'm tapping in a bit of my neon yellow and white to give it that mossy look. And I'm going to do the same thing up here. Notice how my hand is over top of the brush. This way you can manipulate your brush to act like a palette knife. If you don't have a palette knife or you just would rather use a brush than a palette knife like me, this is how I approach it. And then I'll pick up a little bit of purple, white, add that into my yellow. Just get sort of a dirty, muddy tone in my brush going on to finish those highlights off. So I'm back to a clean filbert brush now, and it's a number six, I believe. Just use whatever size that you want. Taking my purple, blue and white again, sometimes a little bit more of my purple just to get some different tones and pastel colors in there. And I chose this blue and purple because it's very complementary with that light turquoisey green color that we have going on in the background. And I'm going to add a little bit of light here at the base of these trees just by using my neon yellow and white. I'm going to tap in for what's going to be some brighter leaves a little bit later on towards the end of the video. And I'm just using black and sap green here for this. Okay, the next few things I'm going to be doing are more mushrooms, more foliage, and just using my filbert brush to do some little taps with my yellow and my titanium white. This will kind of give the illusion that there's maybe some giant ferns here kind of in between all these mushrooms. I'll add a little bit more highlight to my tree and then I'm going to build up my mushroom bringing more white to the top where it's going to be very bright. And I'll start adding all the colors that I want. So I'm going to be using a combination of so many colors. I've got my blue, I've got my light purple and then all of my neon colors that I'm going to show you guys in a few minutes. They're so much fun. And I've got a little liner brush right now with my black and I'm just going to continue building up this branch a little bit more making it a bit thicker so it's kind of big enough and stable enough to hold this big striped fat cat that's going to be up in the tree. And I'll just do a little bit more lines in here just using my black, maybe a little bit of purple mixed in. I want to have some foliage, some leaves on the tops of my tree. So I'm using one of my mop brushes and I'm taking my sap green and a little bit of yellow and even a little bit of black. I'm just going to tap lightly and just have a few areas. I'm not going to add way too much up here. I don't want this painting to feel too closed in and too dark. So I want to keep it more colorful, fun and whimsical. Back to a filbert brush with white. I'm going to go over some of the tops of these mushrooms. Like I said, get a nice base color, base coat to be able to add the bright colors and have them really show up once they're dry. So in order to keep your colors nice and bright, you need to make sure you have a light enough base color first. And it doesn't mean you have to have straight white. You can tint your white with other colors as long as you've got more white than a color, it'll work. And sometimes it's fun to play around with different base coats that play on one another, like you could choose a complementary color. So if you want your mushroom to be orange, you could choose whatever the complementary color is to that on the color wheel. So it would be something bluey, kind of purple, like this cobalt blue that we're using. Anyway, so I'm just going to keep building this up and the underside of these mushrooms are going to be light lit up, like I said before, and I'm going to add little lines. I've got a really neat brush that I'm going to be using. Oh, here are all my neon colors by Holbein. They're really, really fun. Now, you can find these online on Amazon. Make sure when you're searching them in the search bar, you type in Holbein Neon Luminous Heavy Bodied Acrylics. Otherwise, it might be tricky to find. So I'm coming in with my liner brush and more color for my trees, more purple, a little bit more blue, a little bit of white, kind of just dragging my brush around too to create a little bit of texture on these trees to get the illusion that there's some bark on there. I added a few little branches as well and I'll keep building up my mushrooms. I was explaining earlier before I showed you all my neon colors there that I'm going to be doing little lines over top. Oh, there's my Wisp Filbert brush. So this is what I'm going to be using to create some of these lines underneath the mushrooms. And it's a really fun brush because you can create so many lines all at once, so it saves you time and effort. And the brush is kind of cut in between some of the bristles, and it's even, so you don't have to worry about it being crooked. They're really, really even and it really comes in handy when you're painting fences, hair, patterns on tree trunks, and especially these mushrooms. I will be using a combination of this brush and a liner brush, Filbert brush, maybe even a flat brush to create all the patterns on my mushrooms. I'm going to do a skinny white bright line on some of them and then I'm going to start coming in with my fun colors. So here this one is my Luminous Rose. I'll also be using my Neon Red and at times mixing my Neon Red with my Luminous Rose. Here I've got my Luminous Yellow, my Neon Yellow. I've got both cool and warm Neon Yellows right now, a little bit of Neon Orange, some white. Just play around with all of your favorite colors. That's what I recommend, just choosing the colors that bring you joy and that really inspire you and excite you. That's what you should choose. If you don't have these colors that I'm using then just definitely go for the ones that you love and that you're drawn to. And then you can just create little patterns on your mushrooms like spots and dots and just make them polka dotted if you want. Adding highlights on the top where they're going to be the brightest and then have them a little bit darker, add a shadow right where that dark line is there and just go from there guys and have lots of fun because that's what it's all about. Don't get intimidated. If you feel intimidated at any time and frustrated just take a break and then come back to it. So that's what I'm going to be doing for the next few minutes here is just working on these mushrooms and then we'll start painting Alice. Okay, so after adding a few more mushrooms and filling them all in with the colors I'm going to start coming in with Alice's dress. It's going to just be like a basic triangle just approach it like that and I'm using cerulean blue, titanium white and I'll also be using a little bit of black to add shadows to my blue. Before I start working on that I'm just adding a little bit more light, little pockets and windows of light in between these trees with neon yellow and titanium white. Kind of a dry brush and little orbs or little stars anything that kind of just looks like it's glowing and extra magical back there. I'm going to take my cerulean blue with my white now and I'm going to start working on her dress and this is really really simple. Like I said just the shape of a triangle and it's going to be a little wiggly on the bottom that'll make it look like there's pleats in the dress and you can create some shadows in there just by adding some lines so you can do where you want the shadows you'll use the blue. If you really want more depth then you can take a little bit of black and tint your blue with that and then where you want it to be really bright and stand out and look really 3D then you'll take white and add that into the blue. And so she's got like a crinoline under her dress. We can just see a little hint of that with that white line right underneath at the base of the dress. Her legs are going to be white and they're a little bit wider right under the dress and they come into a point at the bottom where she's standing on this giant mushroom. All I did was add a little bit of black for the indication of her shoes. I'm adding the bow to the back of her dress now, and I'm just using a little round brush for this guys. Titanium white and I'm just going to work up from here building up the white on her legs. She's wearing like white stockings. And then for her arm here, she's got it bent a little bit. You can see her elbow close to her bow there and we just see a little bit of the profile of her face, but we're not going to be painting any features on her face. We won't see them. She's turned and looking up at that cat. I've got some yellow ochre that I'm going to be using in combination with my yellow and white for her hair. And I used the same colors for her skin, but I just tinted it with a little bit of my red or my luminous rose just to just to get a softer skin tone color a little bit warmer. So here you can see my luminous yellow and my yellow ochre and I'll just build up the color on her hair with this. So she's got some highlights on the top and then she's going to be wearing a black headband. So I'll take a little bit of black and I'll add that as well just to separate her bangs from the back of her head. I'll come in and add a little bit of shadow now and then brighten up her skin just a little bit. And to brighten up her skin, I just added a bit of white to the skin color that I originally used. Okay, so I think that she looks pretty good. I'm really having fun with this painting so far and I can't wait to see your guys's versions. I'm just adding a little bit more black and shadow and details here on her before I start adding more details and polka dots and more colors to my mushrooms. So I'll let you guys watch that for a few minutes and then we'll start working on our Cheshire cat. Okay, so I'm just gonna add the last little dots here on this mushroom up here and then I'm going to start coming in with the shape of our cat. So I'll start on the tail first. I'm just using a bit of white and yellow ochre. I'm going to come in with my luminous rose. It's more of a purpley pinky neon color. And like I said, if you don't have this color, then you can just make any purple, use any purple, tint it with pink if you want. Just get the the color as close to it as you can. So the tail is going to be kind of short and fat and then we're going to do stripes with the straight luminous rose or purple and the body is going to be lighter and then we'll start coming in with the highlights. So on the top of his body, we're going to add a little bit of white to our luminous rose. A little bit of black down here for shadow and just to have him perched on something a little bit sturdier. I just needed to make that branch come out a little bit wider and look a little bit thicker. I'm going to just outline now with my luminous rose. I'll take a little bit of black for some shadows on his striped pattern and I'll start working on his face. So he's known for his big big grin. So a big toothy grin. So I'm just going to start the shape of his mouth and his face. Light pink or luminous rose with white and I'm going to come in with two ovals, wider looking ovals, not perfect circles, just white for his eyes. I'll then come up and outline with my luminous rose, give him a little tuft of hair on top and add a bit of black, my shadow color, black with my luminous rose for little dots in his eyes, his pupils, and around his face outlining and then he's just kind of resting his chin on his little kitty paws here. So it's going to be darker for now. I'll come back in later and add some stripes and detail that a little bit more. I'm just going to take off that line. I accidentally brought it down all the way. Okay, so I've got straight white now for his mouth and his teeth. I'm going to come in and add a little bit of white to lighten up that luminous rose and also add the highlights on his stripes. Now I'll be using a really really really tiny liner brush for his toothy grin and if you don't have that then you can you know, you can just come in with the smallest round brush or liner brush you have. If you don't feel comfortable with that then you can always just use a sharpie or an art marker. Okay, so what I want to do next as I'm working on this cat, I feel like I want to have a little bit more blue cool type of foliage here on this tree. So I've taken my cerulean blue, my neon yellow and white and I'm just pushing and turning my brush to make these leaves go in all different directions so that they look a little bit more real and 3D. Of course, you've got that we've got that nice dark tree underneath. So that's really good for creating shadow and making our leaves pop out. Okay, I'm going to finish off this cat by adding his big toothy grin outlining that white with black and then I'll come in and just do lines straight up and down. Super simple. Painting the cat was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be and it was fun. The most fun I had with this painting though I think was the mushrooms just because they're so whimsical and I've always had a fascination with mushrooms. And where we live here on the island, there's so many neat mushrooms. I just think it's fun to paint mushrooms different patterns using different colors creating all those polka dots and what is the most fun about these that they have they're like little lanterns. They're lit underneath with those the warm luminous yellow and white and it's just such a magical magical painting to work on. Let me know what you guys think of this one. I'm just going to continue adding the last little bit of highlights and little stars and orbs back there and yeah, just adding the finishing details and touches to this painting, but if you would like to watch the longer real-time full tutorial of this then you can go join Patreon for five dollars a month. You get early access at commercial free videos and patrons get to request something they'd like to see me paint. So if there's something that you've been thinking about and you really want me to paint it become a patron today I'll leave a link below so you guys can join. I just want to thank you guys so much for watching today. Have a wonderful day, and I'll see you soon. Bye!