Conceptualizing Stage

The art show I was creating for is one I've entered into several times previously: Gallery Nucleus' Power in Numbers show. They've had an open call for physical art pieces several times in the past, and they follow the same stipulations: 5" x 7" physical medium artworks, either landscape or portrait style, and up to 3 pieces. There's no specific theme, so the sky was the limit as far as ideas go. I ran through several concepts before landing on a theme I thought would be fun: flower-themed fairies.

Originally, I was going to create three full pieces featuring different fairies matching their respective flower, but when I sketched out this Sunflower Fairy I immediately grew attached! Summer's just around the corner, though when I started making this art it was already late March/early April... and yet the sun had started shining just as though the seasons already turned.

I'd drawn the sunflower on the left first, and thought hard about how to reflect the qualities of the flower itself in the fairy: this led to sunflower petal-like hair, a light and breezy outfit with a sunflower leaf bandana, seed-themed crop-top, petal skirt, and vine-like wristbands and sandals. The sun hat fit the Summer-y feel perfectly (plus I love wearing them myself), and the bow on top is somewhat fairy-wing shaped. This is the design I ended up going with in the end, but I conceptualized a couple other versions of the fairy to see if anything else would stick.

I think having unique-looking wings for the fairy would've been really cute! I thought about petal-wings and different Summer-time bugs - what sort of situations would a fairy like this get into? - but decided in the end to stray away from the bug look since I didn't want whoever saw the art pieces to go "eeughh" (and I *was* trying to get into an art show)... I don't typically like "playing it safe" but felt like doing a more universally appealing design would be the way to go.

I sketched a thumbnail for what I envisioned my first piece would look like, mimicking the pose of the initial sketch. I thought having a giant sunflower in the background behind the fairy might be cute, but ended up changing this in the end. Note that the "1" here meant this would be the first of my three pieces.

Here's the second piece's initial sketch, which ended up being pretty different!! I thought the dichotomy of having a Summer Day and Summer Night using the same fairy would be nice, and the first idea that came to mind with were Japanese-style Summer festivals. I researched different attire that's worn and referenced several adorable sunflower-themed yukata for the fairy to wear, as well as the paper lamps or "chochin" as they're actually called. In this fairy design I was thinking of using a Lightning Bug/Firefly look, which is still reflected in the final lamp design I went with, but the fairy lost their bug-like wings and antennae. I still think this design is very sweet!

Here's the sketch for what would have been my third entry into the PiN show - the fairy sprawled out, napping on a big sunflower with a brilliant blue sky in the background. The reason this was scrapped is a simple one: I haven't had much energy this year, and as a result, decided to just stick with making two art pieces instead of running on fumes to create another one. Considering I was conceptualizing these in April - one of the busiest months of the year for me - I wasn't sure if I'd even have time to make three art pieces. I'm glad I saved my strength, though maybe someday I'll revisit this idea and bring it to life - perhaps even digitally!

Here's the full sketch page, smudges and all!! My handwriting gets pretty sloppy when I'm in a rush to jot ideas down... The "no bippies, only boppis" is in reference to no antennae.

Bringing the Art to Life

I'll go through each piece one at a time so you can see how it progressed!

Here's my initial sketch for my Summer Day art. I always take a picture of my physical sketches before painting because I get worried I'll mess it up hahaha.... This is done with pencil on watercolor paper since the medium I like to make art in is watercolor with gel pen detailing. The fairy is holding a watering pail that has a cute Sunflower-shaped water spout. I tried to match my initial sketch I'd doodled in my sketchbook, but I remember being disappointed with how this came out when I first finished. I warmed up to it by the time I colored it.

Initial colors! You can't really tell here, but I use a shimmery watercolor for most of my works! I also have a simple watercolor pan set for when I need more vibrant/matte colors. I think the green and blue of the wings stands out a little bit better in this picture than the ones I took of the final art.

I used my picture of the colorful fairy and doodled a bg on my phone just to figure out how I'd want it to look in the end. I get super nervous about adding backgrounds to my paintings, so having a mock-up with color is super helpful for me!! When I showed my partner, Chris actually suggested adding those sunflowers to help frame the picture, and I'm so glad he did because I thought it looked nice!

The final art piece for the Summer Day Sunflower Fairy!! I used my favorite Gelly Roll and Pentel SparklePop pens to add pretty flourishes to the lineart (you can especially see the details on the second close-up picture!), and a thin black roller pen that was able to make the outlines (for some reason it was being VERY difficult with this paper??). The pen troubles were annoying, but I ultimately like how this one came out!

Here's the initial sketch for my Summer Night piece! This is based on the thumbnail/sketch that I made, minus the Firefly wings/antennae. I saw several beautiful yukata that I based the final design on and added an obi since that's how they're meant to be worn, plus put the sunflower on the opposite side of the fairy's head. There are little sunflowers on the paper lantern, too.

Colors for the nighttime festival fairy! Also extremely shimmery, though you can't tell in a static image.

I was having a surprisingly hard time figuring out what kind of background I wanted for this one... I wanted to keep it somewhat simple while still capturing the festival vibe, especially with the lanterns. Because these were both done on my phone using my colored pic they're pretty sloppy looking, but its purpose was mostly to figure out a color palette to use. I went with something like the second picture's palette, with warmer hues overall to contrast the blue sky of the daytime picture.

The final for the Summer Night piece! I love how shiny this piece came out in the end, despite the watercolor being surprisingly finicky for how I tried to use it. I had a fun time outlining the sunflower petals on the yukata to make it feel a little more special, and did what I could to make the lantern they're holding have a soft glow. All the lanterns have pretty nice, soft glows to them. I speckled the background with white flecks to emphasize the magical mood.

Finished!

And that's a brief look at my process when making physical pieces! The Summer Sunflower Fairies are now in the world, and waiting for a new home to be loved in. If you'd like them to fly your way I'm selling them for $100 each, though I'd really like to send them to the same place (and I'm offering a nice discount if you'd like to buy both of them)! Please reach out to me via social media if you'd like to claim them... I might even throw in some extra goodies with the fairies!

Thanks to anyone who reads this, and to those who appreciate my art at all - you're why I keep creating. May this Summer be kind to you.