Majestic Elephant

Hey everybody, welcome back to my channel. I wanted to get a few more tutorials out for you, so here we go. I'm doing this one, and another one should be uploading either tomorrow or the next day, because I love you. So today I'm going to do a semi-realistic elephant stone. I used to do them when I first started painting stones, and I have not done them in years, so we'll see how this one goes. He might not be as majestic as I'd like him to be, but we shall see. So I'm just going to sketch on my stone with pencil first to kind of lay out where I want everything. It's not going to be easy for you guys to see yet, but you will be able to see everything eventually. Now he does have all of his body parts, even if you can't see them, so just pretend they are there in the shadows, because there will be a lot of shadows. I am not a realistic painter, so please do not come for me, and please do not harass me and tell me that I should go to school for art. I don't want to, because I can do this without going to school. Welcome back to my channel. This one isn't very Halloween-y. This one isn't a fall stone either, but I just wanted to get a couple of interesting ones out there so that you guys can play around. There's a lot of elephant lovers out there in the world, including myself, so I wanted to share my version of an elephant stone that isn't dotted. There won't be any glitter on this one. I'm sorry guys. There will be glitter on the next one, and there's a little tiny little bit of gold on this one, but only on the eye. So we're gonna stick to natural colors that an elephant is. Grayish brown, light gray, dark gray. I'm using a pewter color, but I'm also lightening it up a little bit with white. So certain areas will be shaded, certain areas will be lighter, and I am using Martha Stewart sponges to do all the blending with. So if you're not a fan of blending, you're gonna want to skip this video, because I do a whole lot of blending to try and get the right colors in the right places, the right shades of gray where I need it to be, and stuff like that. So I do use all of my Martha Stewart sponges, all different sizes, and you'll find the smaller ones, they end up falling off. The sponge will fall off of the little stick easily. If you paint pounce, or sponge, or blend as often as I do, expect the smaller ones to not last as long. I literally just glue them back on with crazy glue, and they seem to work for a lot longer for me. If you don't have sponges, you can also use a blending brush, which is what I'm using right here, and I've cut this brush just like I do with my fine lining brush. I kind of cut it to suit my needs, and I do have a tutorial on how I do that, and it is listed in the description, same as this fine lining brush that I'm using as well. Also, somebody mentioned that they were upset that I was pushing fake stones on people, and having to spend money on fake stones, and molds, and stuff like that. Why not use real stones? Because it's free. I wanted to offer people the chance to find out where they can make their own stones, because a lot of people around the world do not have beautiful stones to paint on. So for anyone who wants to complain about me talking about the fake stones, or art stones that I made with molds, I'm not pushing anything on anyone. I just don't want anyone to be left out if they want to enjoy rock painting as much as I do. So there, I am moving on to my elephant. So I do use paint brushes to kind of put on the color that I need, and then I use a sponge to blend it out the way I want it. So as I get closer to the top of the back of the elephant, I want it to be a little bit lighter, and then of course underneath where the belly is, and stuff like that, which you can't really see right now, it's kind of shaded and really dark, so you can't see all of the legs. You can't see all the body parts really, really well, but that's because I'm going with the shape of the stone. And you don't really have to find a stone that is exact shape of mine. You can just find, sorry I didn't realize my notifications were on, you can just put this onto any shape stone. You just have to envision the elephant there. That's what I do. Even when I'm looking for stones, I'll be like, oh this one could be an elephant. Mm-hmm. It doesn't have to have like special creases or cracks in the stone to make the ear or the shape of the trunk. You don't have to have a special stone for this. Just kind of work it onto a stone the best you can in the shape of an elephant, and any stone will probably work. Unless it's like really square, then it might not work as well. But just use your imagination and you can kind of throw it on the rock whichever way you want. If it looks better suited on the other side, where the trunk is on the other side and the face is at the other side of the rock, do it backwards. Do it any way you want. I'm not a So I'm just doing what I think is best for me and it turns out not so bad when I'm done. If you just keep going with it and don't expect it to be like someone else's or like a real elephant, you might not be ready for that yet. You gotta practice a lot in order to have it look just like a real elephant. So I'm not saying you can't do that one day, I'm just saying it takes time. So just keep working at it until you have what it looks like to you as a cute little elephant. Now this one is going to be fuzzy and blurry and not really the way I want it until we get closer to the end because I do keep adding details as we go along and I keep blending as well to get the color that I want. Now for the tusk I am using white mixed with a little bit of spun gold. It just gives it a nice kind of ivory shimmer to it and I made my tusk way too big so I am going to change the size of that using some magic gray and black paint to adjust the size of that tusk because that is just atrocious. He wouldn't even be able to lift that off the ground so I'm gonna make it a little bit smaller. But see you're watching me make my mistakes as I go along and you get to watch me fix them and like I said in the end it doesn't look too bad. So if you saw the image on on the video and you said hey that kind of looks like an elephant I'm doing something right. So if you guys are able to follow along with me and create something even close to this you are doing something right so be very proud. I am going to keep adjusting that little dark space there by the trunk because I do want part of his chest to show and part of the the leg coming down at the front. It's hard for me to explain and I really didn't know how to explain how to paint this so pretty much I'm just showing you what I'm doing and explaining it the best I can and then who knows who knows what's going to happen afterwards. If you guys find this too difficult please let me know. If there's something that I could have explained better please let me know but just be kind that's all I ask. You don't have to make me feel bad because that's not very nice. There will be another tutorial out tomorrow that you guys are going to like as well. It's not very uh Halloween-y either but you can add to it to make it Halloween-y and I'll give you some cool ideas tomorrow. I'm going to try and get a few more out this month for you guys. This is a big month. I'm going to be moving right after Christmas into the city that I used to live in. We actually relocated for my husband's job for the last two and a half years so we've been living in a very tiny little town where none of my friends or family are and it's been very lonely here and so I'm trying to get out as many tutorials as I can before I move. That way you guys forgive me if it takes me a little bit longer to get some out until I get settled in but I know you guys will forgive me and I know you'll still be here because you love me just as much as I love you. So there and that's it. That's all there is to it. So I'm just going to keep adding a little bit of light in certain spots here his trunk. Make sure your trunk is pointed upwards because it's bad luck if an elephant's trunk is pointed downwards. I'm not really superstitious. I just know from past little little elephant figurines and stuff that my mom used to have and little little elephants that I used to see in stores and trinkets and stuff like that. Always the trunk is facing up pointing upwards because that's good luck. So I'm trying to make sure that this elephant's trunk is upwards kind of nibbling on his own ear but he doesn't seem to be complaining at all. It might be because I haven't given him a mouth yet. Oh gosh you guys I am too tired so if I seem a little bit off a little bit strange it's lack of sleep. I promise you just had our Thanksgiving weekend this past weekend and I made an amazing dinner for my boys and I feel like I'm still kind of recuperating from the long weekend and then I have another short week next week because the kids have a pd day so they get to spend more time at home with me. So I'm just kind of shading underneath the belly there so all you can see is the back leg and then the belly and then there's another leg and then there's the trunk. So he does have all of his legs the other legs are on the other side somewhere in the nether regions. You can't see them because it's secret but I'm gonna keep adjusting that little space there underneath his mouth area and where the trunk is and I'm with some shadows to make it look as good as possible under the circumstances. You got to make the elephant fit the rock right so you can't always show all of its parts and that's just too bad. Now I will be adding some texture and some detail to it once we're finished getting it the way we want it to be because this is not a baby elephant who's nice and soft and smooth. There's the mouth going in there a little mouth and I've just kind of shaded in using my smaller sponge so that you can kind of see his his little chest there and then the front of his leg. I'll be shading underneath the ear a little bit too with the sponge and that's just using a little bit of black paint. Make sure when you're shading that you don't have like a sloppy amount of paint on on there. I'm just adding a little bit of that uh white and gold mix together right there. I'm gonna just kind of fix the the black part, clean it up a little bit once that white paint is dry. If you're starting to get frustrated with any of the blending or where you put your leg or or what have you, just let it dry a little bit and and then start working at it again. Don't ever give up, just keep going. It does get frustrating at times when things aren't looking the way you want them to but by no means does that mean give up. I promise you I if I gave up I wouldn't be here painting for you guys and helping you guys learn. So you're not allowed to give up either that's all there is to it. So I am adding some random wrinkles and cracks in our elephant's skin to make him just a little more textured, a little more realistic looking. You can add wrinkles wherever you want. I sometimes add a little bit of water to my paint to thin it out so that the wrinkles are really small and I'm just using like black and gray mixed together to make like a dark gray to do my wrinkles and lines on him. And I'm just putting them in random places where I think it's wrinkly. You can add more, you can add as many as you want. I'm going to add some more to the back and stuff afterwards. Make sure you put them on the trunk because the trunk is really wrinkly. It folds up in all different directions so there's wrinkles everywhere. I'm going to add a tail as well at the very end so you will see that too. For now I'm just making sure that my ear is nice and outlined, making sure it stands out off of the back of the elephant. Anywhere you see like around the eye where it's all like shaded there, that takes practice. So just keep working at it and blending brushes as well as sponges do amazing things for for getting the shading in there. It's a lot easier than trying to work with wet paint and a paintbrush although that's how I used to do it so I'm used to that. I just found sponges make my life a lot easier when it comes to getting some some shadows in there, some shading. So I'm just going to clean up the eye a little bit more and I'm going to add a little bit of gold just along the bottom of that white and it just gives the eye a different effect, makes it look kind of glimmery. So I'm just kind of cleaning up the eye right now. I'm going to add a little bit of white to the top so that it looks shiny, brings him to life a little bit. Boom! It's looking right at me and it has a mouth now so it can be mouthy if it doesn't like what I'm doing. I think he's pretty cute, not not too bad for not doing this for a few years, not too bad. So I'm just adding a couple more little wrinkles here and there. There's no way for you to see every wrinkle that I've done probably and there's no way for you to follow every single detail that I've done but just do the best you can. I'd love to see your version of this elephant stone. Definitely share your photos with me on Facebook because I would love to see them. So come to Rachel's Rocks on Facebook and post your pictures there so that I can be so proud of you all like you're my little babies graduating college or something. So I have adjusted the size of the tusk and I've brought it around to a point around the front of the trunk so it's not really visible for you guys but I promise you it's there. I am doing little toesies. You can't see the whole foot but you can see two toes and I'm just kind of stopping that foot and and putting a black line there. So that is going to be all black afterwards. I'm going to sponge the back of my stone black. You can do a double-sided elephant so that no matter which way you look at it it looks like an elephant but I'm actually not going to. This one will lean nicely on a shelf or in someone's elephant collection or it can go on a little stand but I am just painting it black and I'm going to put my signature on the back as well. I don't like putting my signature on the front if it is like a full stone painting of an animal like this one because it kind of ruins it. So I'm just going to put my my signature on the back and the back will be black. So we do need to add a tail because elephants have tails that hang, well most of them hang almost down halfway to their their knees, so we got to make sure that there is a noticeable tail on this little ellie. You might not like the color I chose for my elephant. You might think that they need to be more of a brown but I did use a little bit of brown on this. The lighting doesn't show it very well but it is a brownish gray but you can definitely you can do a blue elephant if you wanted to. You can have it look more like Dumbo with bigger ears and and cute blue eyes. It's completely up to you what you do with it. I'm just giving you some inspiration once again and I have missed you all even though I was giving you some tutorials the first week of October. I still feel that I have missed you so much in a short length of time so I I love coming back to you and bringing you new ideas and there will be more lots more and keep giving me your ideas as well. I'm I'm making sure to write them all down so that hopefully one day I can get to all of them. That's not a promise but uh hopefully one day I can get to your suggestion and do it some justice. I would I would love to do that. So you can see the wrinkles. You can see the tails on there. I'm gonna fix this little area above the ear. Kind of looks a little bit odd. Take a look at pictures of elephants so that you can see what their ears look like. My ear isn't really satisfactory in my eyes um but but definitely take a look at some pictures of elephants to get some inspiration before you start this um and make sure you have sponges and make sure you have blending brushes or you can use eye makeup sponges as well instead of little blending brushes which I did recently get some that I haven't really tried yet but I'm using my blending brush to do some shading underneath the ear here um because we want to kind of lift it up off of the the body of the elephant. It's all about the shading people. He probably shouldn't have his belly hanging on the floor as far as he does but that's okay. He likes he likes tacos. He's a fan of tacos. Here I'm putting the gold in right underneath the white. Like I said it's just to give it a little glimmer. You don't have to do that but even uh with a more realistic animal a little bit of gold does a lot of neat things. So um I'm just showing you my fingernail polish for a moment and now uh you can't see anything that I'm doing. I apologize. Sometimes I really do struggle with paying attention to what's actually being shown on the camera. I've had to delete big portions of my rock painting tutorials and start them over because I've shown you nothing for 25 minutes straight. Sometimes I have like a piece of hair that's in front of the camera too and that's just kind of moving around and yeah if you guys knew how hard I work for you you'd love me more. I tell you that. So I'm just making sure that his eye is cleaned up, making sure that I don't have any gold where it shouldn't be or any white where it shouldn't be and uh there we go. What do you think? I'd love to hear what you think. I'm not going to resin this one um now the light is horrible so now you can't really see it very well um but I'm going to leave this one matte for now. I'm going to resin it after and then I'll post pictures of it resined on Rachel's Rocks on Facebook. I love you guys. Thank you so much for painting with me again. I hope you enjoyed it. Love you!