I thought it would be interesting to document and show my art process with this recent art piece. The image on the right is my finished work, affectionately named Shrimp Fried Rice.
I started him while I was in Mexico, really only painting him at night while listening to some audiobooks. He took about a week or so for the whole process.
I plan for the final version with fried rice to be made as a sticker. I have made 2 stickers to date of my art, including a raspberry and ring pop. I think shrimp fried rice will be an exciting addition to this.
The process:
The first thing that I do is get a reference, from Pinterest in this case. I use a free grid app called Drawing Grid to put a grid of my liking on the reference photo.
Next, in my drawing app, HiPaint, I make an identical grid to sketch out the shapes. I usually add a colored background to help with the painting. Afterwards, I fill in basic colors and create a color palette.
After setting basic colors, I went section by section of the shrimp, adding detail. I saved the head and texture for last, as I thought they would be the hardest. I did however, test some texture on the first section I drew as a test.
The left is the fully rendered shrimp. I was very happy with this and sent it to some art friends. They made a joke about eating their fried rice, so I thought I would add the hat and pan. The fried rice and hat had a similar process to the rest of the shrimp, however, it was more from imagination than reference.