This Simple Trick Makes Drawing Animals Easy!

When I started this channel I made it a point to never draw animals for you and now I actually have a formula paint then pencil that makes it easy and most of all fun so that's what I'm sharing today with these little spring cuties. Hey friends welcome back my name is Jada Campbell and around here we make art and it's fun not scary. So today I am working in my favorite hot press paper sketchbook great for watercolor and mixed media that's from Ardex and remember all of my supplies are always linked in the description. Now I've got a watercolor palette as well as a couple of round brushes number six and a number eight I believe and then I have my Jada Campbell watercolor palette and all of this is in my Amazon storefront which I have linked. I'm going to start by mixing up a light yellow so this is cadmium yellow with a whole lot of white in it if it looks too bright you could also add something like a yellow or raw sienna and that'll be for the duck we're gonna do a little duck and then for our bunny uh burnt umber with a little white if it looks too cold and chalky put a little yellow in there. I also mixed a slightly darker yellow so same like yellow with white but maybe a little bit of Naples yellow in there as well and then these animals start with really simple shapes so for the duck you're just doing the semicircle that's his tail and body and then a little circle up top for his head okay that's it a semicircle maybe a bit of a curve to the back and the head and then we'll do a little fellow so a little circle for the head and then basically just a half circle for the body and you can you know move it out slightly to give him that little flick of a tail but after that just leave it alone it should be simple shapes you don't need to overthink this. Rinse your brush pick up that light brown and sign up for my email list you may have heard my news I'm having a baby we are expecting a new sibling in the family in May so I'm pre-recording videos that will be dropping every Friday as usual but I'm not going to be putting as much content like on TikTok and Instagram to advertise those videos so make sure to sign up for my email list so that you never miss a video you never miss the weekly Patreon content whether there's a worksheet or a coloring page or maybe an ecourse sale if you want to hear about all that stuff email list. Okay the same thing is happening here for our bunny we started with an oval shape for the head and then we worked out his little his little arms and his big leg and then we're going to come up here and just do two bunny ears don't make them too big that's something I always do and then I'm going to mix a really really light gray and we are going to do our last animal which is going to be a little lamb so the lamb you want that gray really light that's what you see me doing just adding more water into it into my pigment so that in the end she looks white and not like dark gray so I've started with a sort of rounded rectangle for the body and then I'm pulling some of that pigment down towards the bottom of the page to create leg shapes and a little flick of a tail for the head we're doing a circle and then two ears two floppy ears that sort of curve down and then up it's a little bit like what are we doing but I do have a worksheet showing you how to illustrate two different lambs one sitting one standing so go check that out that's available on Patreon this week there's always weekly bonus content that goes with the video it's just three bucks a month to sign up and then my ducks are dry so I'm coming back up here with an orange this is Naples yellow with a little bit of light red and we're just doing the beak shapes and the little feet and for the little fella it could literally just be like two little brush marks so very very simple shapes in watercolor is the theme of the day and then we're going to add most of the detail and shading with our colored pencil before I switch to pencil however I just wanted to add the like light gray on the rabbit's tummy I'm going to use a light gray but slightly darker gray to add the lamb's ears and then for his face you're going to do a circle but it's kind of flattened across the top so almost a semi-circle or semi-oval that's very rounded here and you can use that same color for the hooves as well okay so then we let it dry completely let everything dry sharpen up those colored pencils and now we get to have the fun of adding all the detail and the shading with a medium that we can have a lot of control over the pencils so I started with a little black dot for our duck's eye and then I'm using a light brown kind of an orangey brown to add some shading to his beak and I'm also doing some lines on his feet to show that his feet are sort of webbed and we'll do the same thing on the little duckling for his wings we just want to take a slightly darker muted yellow and we'll draw in his wing there maybe put a few curving lines for his tail feathers and then we're going to do some light shading and you can add shading anywhere the light wouldn't hit as readily so under the beak below the wing along his tail but also just doing this kind of scribble shading with your pencil will give the duck a lot more depth and texture and you can see I switched to like a very light brown as well so I'm using a muted yellow and a light brown to do the shading to add the little tail feathers little feather lines on the wing and everything kind of comes together and you're just really playing around it's a very low stakes and I find this step very relaxing like you've kind of created this image that you get to color in so you know add a little pink on those bunny ears and then add some cute little fur texture to your bunny and you can do that just simply by shading there's something about pencil texture it lends itself really well to fur and so just scribble scribble scribble maybe give him some little detail on the paws you can do a fluffy tail I put a little bit of gray on his belly and if you feel like any color is too dark or just too pronounced erasing is a great way to kind of add to the shaded effect of the pencil I like the way erasing sort of blends the pencil together I'm also doing a bit of an outline in dark brown and then I thought this guy needs to be holding like a little carrot here so I am going to add an orange carrot between his paws so just a long triangle shape we'll add a little bit of darker orange like we're shading the carrot just like we shaded everything else and of course it'll need a leaf we'll finish our bunny by adding one eye and I put a little lash there a heart-shaped nose I'm doing all this in black and then you can add any shading or outlining that you feel he needs I wanted to outline his tail just a little bit more and then he's all done when it comes to adding detail to our lamb I want to start in pencil it's a y-shaped nose two little eyes and then we carefully go around and kind of create the leg shapes remember there is a worksheet that goes with this so all we did was do this lumpy watercolor body now we need to draw in the legs I'm also going to give her a cute little pink bow I meant to add a bow or a little kerchief on the ducks and I forgot maybe I'll add it in later but I used a light pink and then added some darker pink detail and the head is sort of sitting over part of it but here's where the lamb really starts to come together we're taking a light gray and we're adding shading in between the legs so now you can really see where each leg is we're also going to outline the legs further just like we did in pencil and then I'm also going to do some textural shading to give the lamb her little woolly look so very very light gray sort of scribble shading and then once we've done that we can kind of do some little dotting and curly Q lines so that it looks like wool and we'll come in with a darker gray once that is done and again outline the legs darken the hooves so the detail of this lamb comes together step by step you're not going to mess it up you can add some shading to the ears use black for the y-shaped little snout and the eyes and you can add lashes just like I've done and we'll do a little bit of shading on the one side of the face remember just step by step start with the light gray then go a little darker then maybe even a little black on some of those hooves or black to outline the woolly the woolly coat and she's starting to look so fluffy I did end up erasing a little bit just so that the top of her coat didn't look too heavy or too dark and then I added a little bit more dark pink to make that bow really pop and make it look a little more three-dimensional okay and that is the animals complete if has anyone been here since I was like so afraid to draw animals historically they were my most hated subject but this formula paint a simple shape and then add all the shading and detail with colored pencil has made me love illustrating these sweet little characters I am adding a few flowers and some grass and I think that looks cute these would be so nice on an Easter card or a spring calendar remember you can grab the worksheet if you think it would be helpful for the lamb and there's two versions of the lamb so grab that on patreon and sign up for my email list I will be with baby but you will still be getting Friday videos and I don't want you to miss them link is in the description hit that subscribe button and I will see you soon with a new tutorial