Painting A *Lucky Clover* Themed Picture

A few months ago, I sketched up this cute clover themed painting idea in my sketchbook. So today, let's bring this painting to life in a more chilled out, slower style of video. As you can see from my original sketch, today's painting is going to feature a girl with long flowing hair and several clovers, all confined to the shape of this square canvas. And I've already transferred my sketch, so let's start by laying down a thin layer of bright green paint. I'm using James Lewis's Green Precise Paint for this underpainting layer, as it's super bright, making it the perfect foundation to peek through the rest of our colours. Also, if you're wondering what materials I'm using, this is a cheap 20x20 canvas board that has been primed with gesso, and this is an extremely cheap paintbrush. By the way, shoutout to James Lewis for sending me these paints, they are fantastic. Now that the green underpainting layer has fully dried, I can see that my original pencil sketch was nowhere near dark enough. So let's go over it using some dark green gouache paint. I'm not too worried about the accuracy of my lines here, as we'll be going over them later once we add the base colours. Okay, now that our character's head, eyes and hair are all in place, it's time to add our clovers. I want these to look natural and randomised, so I'm drawing them in various sizes, and then, to make this particular clover the star of the show, I'm giving it a fourth leaf. The theme of this painting is luck, after all, so putting a four-leaf clover into focus like this, and then having my character look at it, should help to emphasise that. Maybe she's a lucky person. Right, our sketch has now been reapplied, so let's lay down this painting's background using some white acrylic paint. And although I don't paint on canvases very often, I still find the process to be incredibly fun and satisfying. I especially enjoy steps like this, where I can use the paint to carve out shapes. Now, after using the same acrylic paint to fill in this character's eyes, we can move on to the base colours, starting with her blue hair. I did forget to hit record for a few minutes whilst I painted these initial sections in though, so there's quite a significant jump cut. Moving on to the skin tone, you can now begin to see why I chose to use a bright green underpainting layer at the beginning of this video. Because clovers are the focus of this painting, having a bright green poking through like this should nicely complement their colours once we put them in. Speaking of which, let's do just that, starting with a slightly darker shade of green to even out their shapes. This darker colour is temporary though, as I will go back over them with a brighter green in just a moment. Whilst these shapes are being refined, let's also lighten her eyes and the white background to even everything out a bit. Okay, our clovers are looking nice and bright now, but they look like they're stuck to her hair instead of floating slightly above it. So, I'm going to fix this by painting a slight shadow onto the underside of the lower leaves. This simple dark line should make our clovers pop and almost jump out compared to their previous sticker-like appearance. After using the same deep shade of blue to darken this girl's eyeliner and lashes, I've decided that these clovers are still not the correct shade of green. Now, I know that clovers technically are this colour, but in my opinion, this green is far too cold when it's layered against this blue hair. So, let's fix this using a warmer green shade of acrylic marker. This is also my first time using acrylic markers on canvas and they glide on surprisingly well. This video is not sponsored by the way, I just really like these pens. So much so, in fact, that I'm going to use a purple acrylic marker to add some colour variation and outlines. And I'm not striving for perfection in this painting, I'm just having fun and trying things out. Next up, let's give this girl some white pupils using more white acrylic paint and place down some extra strands of hair. After painting on some thick blue eyebrows, it's finally time to work on the best part, the hair highlights, which I'm going to add using, of course, another acrylic marker. As you can see within my original sketch, these hair highlights are extremely curved and interconnected, almost like tribal tattoos. So, let's sketch them out and fill them in. These highlights aren't highlighting as much as I'd like though, so I've decided to switch acrylic marker shades and go over the top. Perfect! These highlights look exactly how I wanted them to. Also, the overall colour scheme of this painting is kind of reminding me of lily pads in a pond. Maybe I should make a lily pad themed painting next. Today's lucky clover painting is looking great already, so all we need to do is touch up some areas here and there, use a light green acrylic marker to give these clovers some centre details, and add my signature to the bottom. And there we have it! Considering the fact that I don't paint onto canvases very often, I'm extremely happy with how this picture has turned out. From the colour scheme to the composition, creating this painting was extremely fun and relaxing. Also, prints of this painting are now available on my InPrint shop if you'd like to hang this on your wall. No pressure, it's just there for those who would like one. Thank you so much for watching this slower-paced style of video. This project was actually filmed a little while ago, but I've decided to use it now as I've been trying my best to vary my content and, in turn, avoid sculpture burnout. Also, the UK has been going through a crazy heatwave lately, making my studio way too hot to work in. I am currently dying recording this voiceover. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed today's painting project. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you'd like to see more content like this, and I will see you in my next video.