12 Days of Christmas: Instagram Holiday Fun

On Instagram this holiday season, I decided to do a fun special for the 12 day of Christmas. I will be sharing fun artsy and crafty posts for us to enjoy while we count down the days to Christmas! 

I hope you will join in on the fun by following me @riaartworld

1st Day of Christmas: A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Free Crochet Pear Pattern

I decided to showcase a pear instead of a partridge because I thought it was more fun for me😊

2nd Day of Christmas: Two Turtle Doves

Free Hand-sewn Dove Ornament Template

Ok, so I know turtle doves aren't really white, but the colors feel more Christmassy and it reminds me of the turtle dove ornaments from Home Alone 2😂

You can download this image and print it to use the templates for your own ornament!😉

3rd Day of Christmas: Three French Hens

4th Day of Christmas: Four Calling Birds

You can use the free dive pattern to make birds in all different colors!

5th Day of Christmas: Five Golden Rings (of light!)

I grew up observing both Christmas and Hanukkah because my dad is Jewish. The 5th day of Christmas was on the last night of Hanukkah so I had to paint an ode to the holiday😊

6th & 7th Day of Christmas: 

Six Geese a Layin'

Seven Swans a Swimming

I feel like Geese and Swans look a bit similar to me😅 so I have a crochet pattern for a wreath ornament instead and a handsewn goose/swan pattern!

8th Day of Christmas: Eight Maids a Milkin'

I'd like to think they are milking cows to make something delicious like hot cocoa! 😋

If not, here is another free pattern to make a kawaii how cocoa for the holidays. You can also sew a loop to the top to make the mug into an ornament if you like.

9th and 10th Day of Christmas:

9 Ladies Dancing

10 Lords a Leaping ...(On Ice!)

This holiday season, I really wanted to do an illustration based on the beautiful picture book called 'Once Upon a Wintertime' so this was my version with my very own characters:

Foxel and Bunny Rose, who you may have noticed in the Hanukkah piece above.

11th Day of Chistmas:

11 Pipers Pipping

Ok, this one is purely selfish and only because I tend to feel nostalgic around the holidays! When I was little and heard this part of the song, I didn't think of musical instruments, instead, my brain went straight to Mario Bros😂

My brothers played a lot of video games growing up so I was no strangers to the NES Mario and then the 64 version we got for Christmas one year.

So here they are, Mario Bros piping...and they appear 11 times!

12th Day of Christmas: 12 Drummers Drumming

For the last day of Christmas, another free pattern as my gift to you! A cute little drum, which may be the more challenging pattern of all the patterns shared during this special, but the final result is worth the effort!

Emerging Style

I've always been a bit resistant to change, so when I settled on what I wanted my illustration technique to be many moons ago now, I have stuck with it no matter what. 

Settling on my technique of doing a drawing on gessoed illustration board and coloring digitally allowed me to be comfortable in exploring how I like to stylize my characters and their worlds. 

Taking the thinking process (or in my case, the over-thinking process) of what materials I want to use when I draw made it so I could really focus on what my style is.

This soft controlled technique has served me well and truly does speak to my aesthetic; a sweet tenderness that warms the heart.

This style is what captured my agent's eye and I have illustrated several picture books this way too.

So you may be wondering: 'Well what's the problem?' Well, no problem really, just that it is quite a time consuming technique to undergo. There really is not much in between either. I go from the messiest, loosest sketch to this tightly rendered illustration.

This was great for progress shots, but when it came to sharing cute little sketches on social media, I wanted something faster. Something that still fit in with my aesthetic but shared my expressive sketches in a colorful, more 'finished' way.

As many of us have observed, it is important to look at your overall gallery on social media platforms like instagram. And as an artist, aesthetics are important to me! I wanted to remain true to the aesthetic identity of my brand while being able to express myself through my drawings more quickly.

Working digitally is one of the more faster methods, at least for me, so I took to my ipad and started experimenting.

I started out simply enough, mostly with some patterns.

I used the regular graphite pencil brush to sketch as I normally would when I'm in the brainstorming/thumbnail stage of creating an illustration.

Then I created another layer on multiply and started experimenting with the brushes in the 'artistic' category. I find that I like how the painterly brushes look in addition to my sketchy lines. It reminds me of when I pull out my watercolors to just experiment and clear creative blocks.

So I kept going, how would this style look with a character? How about within a narrative?

I decided that I liked the style more on white backgrounds, or hinting at a background with the paint in much lighter tones.

After many exercises, I was starting feel comfortable with this way of working and made these guys, which are among my favorites.

The technique was starting to take shape the more confident I became. It was fast too! Soon, I was thinking about the possible routes this technique could take and it lead me to experimenting with more of a comic style. 

It has been fun using this style to share some of the funny thoughts I have in my mind throughout the day when I'm putzing around in my studio. 

I'm thinking of revisiting some older illustrations and re-creating them in this style and possibly introducing this way of working to my current portfolio.

If anything, I have learned throughout this process that it is ok to continue growing and experimenting. I do not have to necessarily be married to any one technique, but with that being said, it is important to have some consistency. 

After all, having two clear artistic identities is better than having one confused one.