Super Cute & Easy Valentines Illustrations!

Hey friends, welcome back to another video. My name is Emma Lefebvre and during these dark and dreary cold months, I have been desperately trying to create things that make me excited and happy. And when I was thinking of what I wanted to paint for Valentine's Day, I thought I'm going to do what makes me happy and that is painting little cute illustrations. So I decided to do a really cute mixed media spread in my mixed media journal with you today. Now it is a bit of a video, but because there's so many little illustrations, you can definitely pick and choose which ones you want to follow. You don't have to do the whole spread. You could just do the vase of flowers. You could do the teddy bear, you know, break it up into multiple different sessions. You don't have to do it all in one sitting. And if you're a part of my Patreon, there is a tracing page for all of these simple illustrations. Otherwise I show you how to draw them. But today let's just have fun, get cutesy with it and paint some mixed media Valentine's illustrations. So let's jump in and get started. Okay, friends, today we're going to do a fun little illustration spread of some Valentine's Day items. I have been absolutely loving doing fun illustrations in my mixed media journal. I'll show you quickly some things I've been working on just for myself. So this is my journal. It is Strathmore 500 series mixed media paper, 100% cotton. I did my Santa in here. I did that fun mixed media piece. I think I showed you guys the tempera paint sticks that I was using. Just some fun stuff. And then for myself, I've been doing like fun florals. This with, sorry, the tempera paint sticks with some acrylic markers on top. One reason why I love those paint sticks is because you can paint so smoothly on top with any other medium. I did this little bear spread, which I haven't completely finished yet. I was also working on some illustrations of my kids, which I haven't finished yet. But today I want to do a little Valentine's Day spread, something easy and simple. I'm going to draw over these images to show you, but I wanted to have it all planned out before we started. If you are a member of my Patreon, you will get this as a tracing template. So that's always great to have if you're not so into drawing. I do like creating those and over on Patreon, we have tons of fun. Okay. So in the center, I just wrote, all you need is love just because it was fitting. And then we're going to do some fun little illustrations around. So I'm going to be using watercolor mostly, and then I'm probably going to be using some colored pencils on top. One of my favorite go-to combinations. So let's begin. So with a pencil, you're just going to create a vase shape. And you don't have to do the same kind of shape as me. You can just do like, honestly, any kind of shape. So mine are just two lines that are kind of slightly kind of coming out to the side. And then you have a curve at the bottom and then a more narrow curve at the top. Just make sure your curve is the same kind of depth and curve as the top as it is the bottom. Does that make sense? And then I actually do like to kind of just lighten it up a bit just so it's not so dark. With my watercolor, I should have my kneaded eraser, but I don't know where it is at the moment. And for the flowers, we're going to make them super, super loose. So the first thing I want to do is just do the vase, vase with a light pink color. So I have some permanent rose here like that. Then I'm going to take a little bit more and I'm going to mix it with a little bit of dark green so I get this darker pink kind of shadow color. And I'm just going to add it to one side of the vase. So we have a bit of a shadow. Now it's a little kind of, you know, defined, so I'm just washing off my brush, drying it a bit. And I'm just going to blend it out so it's not so harsh. Okay. And then we can do some fun flowers. Now for this, all you're going to do is just create shapes. I'm actually going to grab my smaller size two round brush. And the brushes I'm using are my travel brush set from Craftimo, which I absolutely love. I'm hoping they'll come back in stock soon. They're quite the hit. All right. So I'm going to just grab a bunch of fun colors. So I want some, let's do some red roses, I think. I'm going to just grab some red and I'm just going to do these kind of like blob shapes. Honestly, you can do like a mix of red and pink. And we're just doing these kind of circles that are lumpy. That's it. Honestly, you can do like a mix of pink and red, small ones, big ones. You could do, I'm going to do another one in the middle here. I want them all kind of tightly together. I'm going to do maybe some little hints of buds like that. Okay. Then I'm going to grab a green. So I have this olive green here and I'm just going to start creating stems kind of coming from each rose, but we're going to be doing some leaves over top. So don't worry too much about it being like super accurate or anything. I'm going to grab a little bit more and I'm just going to fill in the bottom here with some leaves. You can have some kind of coming over the vase if you'd like. We just want it nice and bushy. I'm going to have stems coming out the sides here, leaves coming off of that. If you want a more cooler blue, you could always add, it's not that blue, a little bit of phthalo blue to it. Just have different greens kind of popping in and out, different size leaves, different colored stems, some little stems coming to those little buds that we did. And I'm just using the shape of my brush to create these easy leaves. So I just do a little stem and then I go kind of tap the tip of my brush down to create the leaves like that. Super simple. And you can make it as big or as small of a bouquet as you'd like. Okay. And then we're going to go over the flowers later with some colored pencils for more detail. And also I'm going to go over the vase as well to do a little bit of detail. If you want to add like just a little bit more to it now with your pink, you can. Maybe outline it a bit. I don't know. Remember it's an illustration, so it doesn't have to be completely accurate or realistic looking. Maybe I'll add like a little shadow underneath this leaf. Okay. All right. I think want like blue stripes on it after with some colored pencils anyway. I'm going to add a little bit of shadow there. There. Okay. So there's our first one. We will come back. Okay. Let's do this cute little love letter. So again, you can choose whatever color you want for any of this stuff. You don't have to use the same colors as me. All you're going to do is create a rectangle. You're going to make a heart in the middle, a line coming down here. This is kind of like an X behind and that's it. And then it's all about the shading. So for this, I want to create kind of like a cream colored one. So I have like a really light wash of this brown here. It's like, yeah, just like burnt sienna, maybe a little bit of indigo. And I'm just going to go again, kind of lighting, lightening up the lines a bit. I'm going to go over top, creating this really light beige brown envelope. You can make it pink. You can make it purple, anything you want. I would start lighter though, because we are going to add some shadow, which is going to make it look a little bit more detailed. Okay. So just a flat wash over the whole thing of your color while waiting for that to dry. I might just take a little bit of pink, do a couple hearts kind of coming from it like that. And then we're just going to make sure it's completely dry first. Okay. Now that the letter is dry, I'm going to take that same brownish color, a little bit more indigo to it. So it's a little bit more of like a grayish brown. And all I'm going to do is darken under here, or like kind of like this triangle, I'm going to wash off my brush, dried a bit, and then just blend it out. So it's the darkest right under those lines might even go back in and just kind of tap there. Okay, not too dark. And if you need to lift a little bit, if you ever make a mistake, you need to lift it a bit, you can always do that. It's gonna go back, redo it and kind of blend it out. Okay. Same thing on the other side. Just kind of darken under there. So it looks like these flaps are underneath the bottom and the top there. Blend it in. We can always add a bit more shading to with our colored pencils. So I might actually add a little bit more darkness up here and then just kind of blend it out just a little bit. You really want to the tiniest amount of paint. So it's just subtle. Okay. And then you want to make sure that's completely dry before you add your heart in the middle. Now it's dry. I'm just going to take a little bit of my pink. I'm just going to create a little heart in the middle and it's a little love letter. Super simple illustrations. Okay, let's move on to this one, which is a cupcake. Okay. So I do want to do some other colors in here too. I'm going to have like a blue stripes on this one. I kind of want to incorporate some blue as well. Wondering if, hmm, I might do like a little bit of a bow. Okay. I just want it to kind of all go together. I'm going to do a really light blue paper for this, or maybe like a lavender-y blue. Let's do lavender, but also a little bit of blue and I'm just going to make it really light. So really watering it down. Oh, I did not draw it first with you, did I? Okay. So to draw this, you're going to do two lines kind of coming on a slight angle. You're going to round the bottom here. And then for the top of the paper, you're just going to do little zigzags coming across and you don't want it straight across, but like a slight dip. Okay. Now let me just, before this completely dries, let me just watercolor this in. Add a little bit more to the right side while it's still wet, just a tad bit. Then for the rest of the cupcake, you're going to do two little tiny curves to the side like that. That's going to be the actual cake part. And then you're just going to do the icing, which is just these rounded, think of like you're doing ovals, but you're just not finishing the top. Okay. So a big one, a medium one, and then a small one. And then we're just going to do a little heart on top and we're just going to kind of cut across the bottom. So it looks like the heart is sticking in it. Okay. Now we can't do the cake part until this is dry anyway. This is still drying. I might try and lift up some color. We're going to shade it too. I don't know. Okay. Let's do the icing. So the icing, I want to do a really light pink. So again, just watering it down and I'm just going to go over the whole thing like this, and we're going to add some shading. Once it's dry, you can add a little bit of shadow, maybe to the right side while it's still wet. We're mostly going to wait until it's dry and do a little bit more shading. So let's let it dry for a second. Now that it's dry, I'm going to grab a tiny amount, actually of like a yellow ochre, and I'm just going to do the cake part underneath here. Yellow ochre, a little bit of brown. We're just filling in this area. I might take a little bit more of the darker brown and just make it darker underneath the icing by the paper like that, like that. Okay. Now for the icing, I'm going to grab my pink, a little bit of it mixed with a small bit of green, just so it's a little bit more dull. And then I'm just going to go on the right side and add a little bit of shadow underneath these icing curves. So I'm just going to go light pressure and then heavier pressure as we get over to the side, so it gets thicker like this. Light pressure and then heavier pressure, so it's thicker on that side. See that? And then underneath on this side too. Now if you want to blend it out a little bit, you can. Maybe bring the icing, the shadow down on the right side a little bit, and that's it. Okay, you don't need a lot of detail for that. And then the blue, I'm just going to, it's going to be darker on the side, so I'm going to go darker, these little stripes, and then I'm going to naturally start running out of pigment, and I'm just going to let it get lighter and lighter on this side. So it looks like it's just a shadow. See that? Like that. And then finally, that little red heart on top. You can make it whatever color you wanted, and there we go. Okay, next we're going to do our little bear guy here. Draw it first, Emma. Okay, so I am going to just do a circle for the head. We're making this nice and simple. Kind of like a rounded triangle for the snout here. See that? And then another upside down triangle for the nose. The eyes are just going to be two little dots. We'll do one ear here, one ear here. The body is going to be, it's more narrow towards the neck, and it's going to be kind of like a teardrop shape almost. And then the same thing with the arms. The legs kind of come out like two lines, and then a long oval for the foot. Two lines, long oval. And that's all there is to it. Now I am going to fill it all in with a brown. So I'm just going to grab a light wash. Always start with a light wash of brown, or a light wash of any color, or you can make it a different color. Honestly, whatever you'd like. I'm going to go over the whole thing except the snout. I actually want the snout to be lighter. So maybe like a medium brown, but still on the lighter side. Because you can always darken, but you can't always lighten a color. Okay, then you're going to let it quickly dry. And then when it's dry, I'm going to go in with an even lighter wash of brown. Okay, now this one I actually want to do more with colored pencils with detail, so we're going to leave that for now. All right, our next one is this kind of chocolate box. So I am going to do a pink chocolate box, starting off with a light wash of pink over the whole thing. Then you're going to let it dry. Once it's dry, you're going to grab a slightly darker value of our pink. And you have to draw it first, don't you? I didn't draw it first. Okay, so I'm on a roll today. So you're going to draw a heart. I didn't teach you how to draw first, so sorry. You're going to draw just a regular old heart. Then you're going to do a line just coming down from the little point here. And then it's going to kind of come up, same amount of thickness. And then as you get to the side here, it's going to taper off into a point. Same thing here, like a point to the other side of the line. Okay, and in that space is where you're going to create kind of like the shadow of the side of the box. I might even add a little bit of dark pink to this side. There we go. Okay, then we're going to let that one completely dry and do more detail on it with colored pencils after. Okay, our final illustration is going to be a cup with like some treats. So we're going to start off with an oval shape for the top. It's taken me many times to get it right, so if you have to go over it a couple times, erase as much as you need to, you can do it. Then from the edges, you're going to come down, slight kind of curve in. I'm going to do these little treats. I'm going to do a little macaroon first. I'm going to do a circle, kind of like a rectangle, and then the bottom. It's like a mini hamburger like that. And then I'm going to make a cookie here. It's kind of jagged, and I'm going to have like a bite taken out of it. Then I'm going to do a small bottom of the cup there. We're going to do a handle. It's like a C-shape, backward C. I was going to do a plate, but then I decided to do a napkin because I feel like it's going to be easier. And then the coffee or the tea or whatever in the cup. Try and make it the same curve as the cup, okay? All right, then you're just going to color it in however you'd like to. So I think I'm actually going to do this blue. Let's do, I just want hints of blue, so I'm going to do blue napkin because I want it all to go together like that. I'm going to do another area that's not touching a wet area, so I'm going to grab some of my brown to do the coffee or the hot chocolate. We're going to make sure it's dry before we continue, and then we're going to fill in the rest of the areas with whatever color you'd like. So I'm going to do this cookie brown. For the red cup, I'm going to try and leave a little bit of white space around the rim. Add a little bit of shadow on the side here. The macaron is just going to be pink on the top, and the bottom and the middle is going to be white. And then the inside of that coffee cup is just going to have a really light shade of indigo, just for a bit of shadow. Okay, and then we're going to let it all completely dry, and we're going to come back in with some colored pencils for all of the details. Okay, so I had a quick idea. I love these paint sticks, and one thing I love about them is that you can draw over top of them, and I was thinking it would be fun to do a really textured heart here with this blue, and then when I do the lettering over top with acrylic marker, it would just have this really cool textured heart behind it. So I'm just going to do that. If you haven't seen my video on these paint sticks, definitely go check it out, because I am so obsessed with them. Like, look at that fun texture you get, and this is like my absolute favorite color in a bunch, and it just completely dries, and you can draw right over top of it. I just think it looks really cool. Okay, and then for this, I actually wanted there to be kind of like a like steam or something coming out of it, so I'm going to just do like this pink steam like a heart with the paint stick as well, which I think is cute. Okay, now let's get out our colored pencils and do all the fun details. Okay, so let's start with the roses. All you're going to do is you're going to grab a darker color of whatever paint you used, and you're just going to do these little kind of squiggles inside the roses, or like even like a spiral, just really jagged spirals, and they look like roses. As simple as that. You can kind of go back and forth with different colors. I'm going to use a pink and a red. I might do a little bit of shading with the pink underneath here on the side, but I do want to grab this blue and do some stripes like so. You can always grab a green as well and just do some darker details on some of the leaves, just like little bits of shadows if you want, but it really doesn't have to be too detailed. Just little hints of texture and lines really makes it pop like that. I might actually grab a darker blue just on the side where there's the shadow, just so it looks like it's kind of going along with the shadow of the pink vase. Oops. Like that. Okay, and then our letter here. I'm just going to darken a little bit and then kind of shade out just for a little extra shading. Nothing too crazy. Same thing here, and then I'm actually going to shade in this way like that, and if you ever wanted to add just like a little bit more depth, you can always take a tiny bit like more of a darker color and just like in the corners there, kind of add a little bit more darkness to it. Totally up to you though. Like that, and there you go. Same thing with the cupcake. I'm just grabbing the blue and I'm just going to add extra little lines, again, getting lighter as we get over to the side just to really deepen those shadows. You really don't have to do a whole lot to these. A little bit more shading on this side. You can even just do like just some textured marks on the other side, just really, really light. These pencils I'm using are Caran d'Ache or not Neocolors, Caran d'Ache Luminance, but any colored pencil will work. They're not watercolor pencils, they're just colored pencils, and I absolutely love them. I'm just gonna brighten up my red here a little bit, maybe just darken it, and that's it. Okay, our bear is what I feel like is gonna need a little bit more work. So the bear, I actually want to do a blue kind of ribbon around his neck with a bow like so, and then I'm gonna get a pink acrylic marker, I think, to do like some pink dots on it because the other colors won't work. The pencil crayons, they won't layer over top of that blue, but I wanted to kind of just put that down to start. Then I'm gonna grab a brown. Here it is. I was like, where did I put my brown? And I'm just gonna do this like fun little fuzzy texture on him, just kind of like little tiny, tiny scribbles going around, and then maybe just like a little bit of shading very, very lightly just to get that texture, but darker around the edges, maybe a little bit of shading underneath the bow and under the arms, and of course the legs. Basically where any of the limbs kind of meet is where I shade. I would also probably get a darker brown. Make sure your pencils are sharp, that's also helpful. I think I'm gonna do like a little seam kind of coming down, this little kind of line like that. Get a little bit of a darker brown and just add a little bit more shading into the ears. We gotta do the nose here, so I'm just gonna do this dark nose. You could always do a pink nose if you wanted to. I'm gonna do the eyes and then just kind of in any little areas where there might be a bit more shadows. Look how cute he is! And there we go. Okay, so our chocolate box, I realized I didn't do any like actual chocolates, so I might just do a couple chocolates like outside the box here. I'm gonna do a little dark heart and again the same kind of thing as the box, a little line at the bottom just to make it a little bit 3D. I'm gonna do a square, a rounded square, a line coming down here, line coming down here, line coming down here, and just kind of connect it and I'm just gonna shade them in. I'm gonna shade that bottom part a little bit more, maybe I'll do like an oval too, and then make a darker part like that. I'm gonna grab just a lighter warmer brown like that and then you can just decorate the box however you'd like. I kind of want to do like a red outline and then like scallops. Okay, well I just kind of messed up there so let's do another heart inside. Why not? And we could always just like fill it in if we wanted to. You can just do whatever little details you wanted to. You could write chocolates on it, anything, and I'm just gonna deepen the shadow on these sides a little bit like so. Okay, and then the last one over here I'm just gonna add a little bit more shadow to the right side, into the handle, underneath the lip here like that, just a little bit more shading to the macaroon here. I'm gonna do little tiny pink hearts all over this napkin like that. Our cookie, I'm just gonna outline it with a darker brown, add a little bit of shading, maybe some little red sprinkles on it like so. And then the blue napkin, I'm just gonna add a little bit more darkness around the edges and then underneath the cookie and the cup like that for a little bit of extra shading. Okay, and then the coffee. And if you wanted to add any more steam kind of coming up you could, maybe a little bit of white like that. And then I'm gonna go over the lettering with an acrylic marker. I'm going to get a little bit of acrylic marker, like white and stuff like that, just for a little bit of detail and then we're done. All right, and there we go. There is our fun Valentine's Day spread. Thank you all so much for watching. I really hope you enjoyed it and hope you learned something. Don't forget to subscribe to this channel and follow me on all my other platforms for tons more content. Have a great day guys. Bye!