Ivy Lily Creative

What's the difference between pan and tube watercolors? Tube vs. pan watercolors - one artwork in two mediums! I'm comparing tube and pan watercolors by swatching them and painting roughly the same image with each of them on the same type of watercolor paper. You can watch the pans vs. tubes speed painting video or keep reading. I've always used pans, but I recently got these tube watercolors sent to me and tried them for the first time. I've been using them a little bit since in combination with my pan watercolors and I'll finally compare them by swatching the colors and painting roughly the same image with each of them on the same type of watercolor paper. I did this around Easter so thought I'd paint daffodils. Cotman pan watercolors and Home Hobby by 3L tube watercolors. Pan watercolors The pan watercolors are the * Pocket Plus Watercolor Set by Winsor & Newton Cotman . I've had this set for over nine years and I have yet to rep...

Is it possible to have all the supplies you need to start watercolor painting delivered to you in one kit? Let's see! I unboxed and reviewed the Home Hobby By 3L Watercolor Studio Kit and tried following one of their step-by-step guides on how to paint an ostrich in rainbow colors. Watch the watercolor kit review video or keep reading. What is Home Hobby By 3L? I got an email from 123-creative.com, which is an online store that sells Home Hobby By 3L art and crafts products, saying that they'd like to send me one of their new watercolor kits to review on my YouTube channel. So, they kindly sent me this kit for free. However, the video is not sponsored and they did not ask me to make this blog post. I just wanted to share this on the blog, too. They have multiple watercolor kits and reading through the product info, I noticed they all have the same supplies and the difference is in the instructions included in the kits. So, the basic kit has just the supplies and ...

A quick tip on how to save acrylic paint for later! If you mix too much acrylic paint or pour too much paint out of the tube, do you know what to do with the leftover paint? If you're planning to continue painting the next day, you can't just leave it, cause acrylic paint will dry by then. You can watch the  video on how to keep acrylic paint wet  overnight and longer or keep reading. Mixed too much acrylic paint? You know how you sometimes mix too much acrylic paint or pour too much paint out of the tube? What do you do with the leftover paint? If you're planning to continue painting the next day, you can't just leave it, 'cause acrylic paint will dry by then. How to save leftover paint for reuse Here's one tip! Instead of pouring and mixing paint on a palette, use little containers you can close. The paint won't dry out when the lid is closed. That way you don't have to waste the leftover paint. And if you've mixed a good color and...

Do you really need to prime cardboard with gesso before painting? I previously made a blog post about how I prepare cardboard for painting by priming it with gesso and why you might want to do that. This time I'm testing, if you really have to prime it by showing you a comparison of painting on primed and unprimed cardboard with acrylics. Let's see if the primed vs. unprimed cardboard painting results look different or not and whether I'll be contradicting what I wrote in that post. You can watch the video version of the primed vs. unprimed cardboard comparison or continue reading below. Cutting the cardboard I cut up the cardboard into two pieces, so you can get a fair comparison. It's the backing of a watercolor pad, so it's quite thick. So, I had to use a utility knife to cut it in half and then a nail file to smooth out the cut, because I couldn't get a clean cut. Then I used little nail scissors to clean off the rest. I've used up a ...

Want to paint an abstract splattered or smokey looking background with acrylics? I'll show you how to create it with sponge and splatter painting techniques I used on a Holi elephant watercolor and acrylic mixed media painting.

Have you ever wondered if you can mix charcoal and acrylic paint by painting acrylic over charcoal or drawing charcoal over acrylic? I tried it and here are the results. Read on to find out how to combine charcoal and acrylics into a mixed media painting without smudging the charcoal lines and the paint colors.

How can I make acrylic paints opaque, vibrant and bright? Let's go through a few problems with acrylic painting and how to fix them. If you have issues with acrylics not being opaque enough or the colors not being vibrant and bright, you might be making some of these mistakes. I don't really like calling them mistakes, though, but nevertheless, you might find these quick acrylic painting tips helpful to solve those issues.

Have you heard of the Animal Artists Collective on YouTube? If you haven't, here's a quick rundown: It's a group of YouTube artists who make animal art based on a chosen theme (voted by viewers) every two months and at least 50% of the proceeds of selling those artworks go towards animal conservation. They also make speed painting videos on YouTube about their animal art and publish the videos on the same day. It's usually on a Thursday on the second full week of the month, every two months. Read on to find out the past themes and how to take part in the upcoming themes yourself.

Have you seen the acronym YTAC in art videos on YouTube and wondered what it means? Read on, because I'll explain what YTAC or YouTube Artists Collective is, why and how to take part in it as an artist and how to vote for the next themes. And then I'll leave you with a list of the previous YouTube Artist Collective themes, so you can use as ideas for your artworks.

One of my favorite things to paint with acrylics are female portraits and I thought I'd share with you how I paint a face with acrylics including tips for the sketching stage, mixing skin tones, blending with acrylics, working in layers and painting eyes, eyebrows and lips. You can also watch my tutorial video on painting a face . My art style is maybe somewhere between realistic and semi-realistic and this is just my method for painting a face in acrylics. It also changes from painting to painting, but hopefully the tips in this tutorial will help you in painting a portrait with acrylics. How to Sketch for a Portrait Painting Portrait sketch on grid paper. When I'm painting a face I usually start by finding a reference photo. It might be from a stock photo site or a photo I've taken myself. A free stock photo site I like to use is pexels.com . Then I use the grid method to sketch the face and get the proportions right. Here's a blog post on the grid ...

I've steered away from doing fan art for a long time due to copyright reasons. But I gave in and decided to make some for myself this year. I can't sell fan art so I can use it to experiment without having to worry about the outcome. As PLL season 7b is starting I thought it was a good time to make some Pretty Little Liars fan art. I started watching Pretty Little Liars, when the first season aired in Finland, but lost interest as season 2 rolled around. Then at the end of 2015 I randomly watched a few episodes I had saved in my digibox and got hooked again. I got all seasons 1-6 DVD sets from the library and watched them in the wrong order. I also made a note of interesting episodes I'd like to use for painting references. And these are the ones I chose. I painted Alison DiLaurentis from season 4 episode 19 Shadow Play, Emily Fields and Spencer Hastings from season 6 prom episode 9 Last Dance and Hanna Marin from season 4 Ravenswood Halloween Special episode 13 G...

Almost everyone knows of the egg painting Easter tradition. But if you're not from Finland or Sweden, you might not know about Easter witches. In Finland children decorate willow twigs with colorful feathers and other decorations on Sunday, one week before Easter. Then they dress up as Easter witches and go door to door kind of like trick or treating for Halloween. The children say a little poem to wish good health and then they give away the decorated willows in exchange for Easter eggs or other candy. This Easter tradition is a mix of religious and non-religious Finnish customs and there's a similar tradition in Sweden as well. Watercolor Painting Process For my Easter artwork I painted a little girl dressed up as a witch and carrying the willow twigs decorated with feathers. You can watch the painting process video here . I started by drawing a small thumbnail sketch to figure out the arrangement and the color scheme. I narrowed down the colors to mostly blue and...

I've been wanting to try oil painting for a while and since I usually paint with watercolor and acrylics, I thought it would be easiest to start with water mixable oil paints.Water soluble oils allow you to clean the brushes with water and soap instead of using a toxic solvent like turpentine. You can also dilute water soluble oil paints with water (adding a little bit of paint at a time), but it's recommended to use linseed oil instead. Water soluble oil paints should dry faster than traditional oils, but when you add linseed oil, it will slow down the drying time. Read on or watch the video for my first impressions on water mixable oil painting.

My newest acrylic painting is a portrait of La Calavera Catrina or a sugar skull girl. Catrina, a skeleton woman dressed in nice clothes, is the icon for the Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos). José Guadalupe Posada's original La Calavera Catrina was a satire of indigenous upper class Mexican people who imitated European style and made their skin look white with makeup, denying their own cultural heritage. Read on to learn about the painting process or watch the time lapse video .

My newest painting was inspired by photography of Indian children in traditional costumes and this Indian girl drawing by Janina Brandão . I took the reference photo of my niece, who is not Indian, and gave the painting an Indian feel by adding jewelry, make-up, bright colors and gold details (all that also aged her quite a bit, she was actually 4 years old in the reference photo). I'd love to paint someone of Indian origin someday, too (free reference photos are welcome). Watch the video to see a sped up version of the painting process in under 4 minutes (the painting part is actually less than 3 minutes, I sped this one up more than my previous videos). 

Bengali Princess watercolor painting wall art inspired by Indian culture. Sketchbook art and filming your sketchbook has been popular for a while. Have you seen MyPetiteCake's Sketchbook Tour ? I wanted to make a similar video, but my own sketchbooks are not much to look at. I use sketchbooks for getting ideas down on paper. So there's some text and quick, ugly drawings. However, I do have a lot of finished artworks. And fair enough, there are "My Artwork Collection" videos around too, so I made one of those instead. Or two. I liked the idea of flipping through a sketchbook and tried to mimic that. I had the camera pointed down towards my desk (see blog post about my camera set-up ) and moved each artwork from the right side into the shot and out to the left. That was a bit tedious to edit, because there was a lot of white screen between artworks. The other thing I tried was having a pile of artwork in front of the camera and removing one piece from the top at ...