 You ever have one of those days where you just need extra coffee and there's maybe just not enough coffee on the planet for you? That's me today. Anyway, hi everybody. How are you today? Today we are here with a new video for my creative year and this month our topic is figures. Figures? I wrote down figures. So Hopefully that's the right one. Anyway, so I thought we would do something interesting I think I've shown on my YouTube channel before but it's been a long time ago. So I thought we would just give a refresher so when you want to use figures in your work human figures and you are in the early stages of your journey your process Like I myself was at one point like we all were at one point I wasn't confident to draw them So I used masks. I also didn't have a budget. So I bought them masks I'm sorry I made the masks rather than buy them because I didn't have the budget to go out buying a whole bunch of stuff and still don't And I prefer making my own supplies. So There's a lot of really great store-bought Figure stentals and masks faces full figures out there. Some of them are in my own design line But I'm going to show you today how to make your own and I still have a library of homemade ones that I use We're going to move the journal out of the way This is An easy way to do this so you're going to need a piece of carbon paper If you don't have that you can use A graphite from a pencil you could use a charcoal piece of charcoal You're going to need it to transfer the shape of your image to chipboard Which you're also going to need and then you're going to need an image from a magazine now. I Have a stack of magazines downstairs. I need to harvest some of them a lot of them I picked up at the airport during the move different airports and while we were house shopping this one included and It's just been sitting downstairs, and I was thinking I was going to actually have to go out and buy a fashion magazine Which is what I usually use and then I saw the cover of this one. I thought Nope, I Think I need that one. I think that's what the one we need to do So I don't know how it's going to turn out in basically what we're going to do is make a silhouette But we'll find out so the first thing you need to do is either rip out the page or in this case because this is a really thick cover stock I And I might want to save the image to use as inspiration For positioning and lighting for a painting later on I really do like the position of her on this cover I'm going to actually make a copy of it on my printer, and I'll be right back So what the cover this magazine is really big so when I made the copy of the cover? I really just wanted to get her so I made sure to position it on the printer So I just got her I'm going to set this aside because I do now Now that I see her on the cover and she may be the only good thing about the magazine, but it cost me nothing and I'm going to go through it and make sure there's no words or other images that I want to save for later So now I'm going to take my image of my figure My piece of chipboard which is from the back of a pot of paper and my carbon paper Carbon paper carbon side down onto the chipboard Then your image on top of it We're going to put a couple of little clips Hold it in place. Maybe a little or one so that looks kind of big. Let's use a little Okay, and then you're going to need a sharp pencil which I have around here somewhere Holy moly. All right. Hang on. I'm going to use my big pen. Oh I'm going to just use my big pen that'll work Okay, so now I'm going to take My figure and I'm going to trace around her shape I may highlight a few positions of things like her arm here. I'm going to Pretend like she's just looking up and this thing is not behind her. She's not resting her head on it So I'm not going to pull this in this way. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring it out as if she were just looking up at the stars So I'll show you what I mean So I'm going to just press kind of firmly. No, I don't know yet which Parts of the silhouette I want to save in which I don't so I usually trace extra ones and Then I'm going to lift it up and I think that works. So we're gonna take the clips off Set that aside I'm going to Make make a few changes. Let's see. Let's see what it looks like. Let's cut it out You can use scissors an exacto knife use what you have So I always turn it over to the back and double check What it looks like? Let's see Just wondering if I need all these fingers on here to a smaller pair of scissors So then I just continue refining my mask my shape until I get something that I really like Which I like that so we're gonna go with that Clean up my mess and I'll be right back. Okay, so now we have our mask made and I gotta say I'm not sure now which side I want her on this side or this side. I Usually do two-page spreads. I may put her here. I don't know. I don't know. No, I may put her here But we said today's figures right this month. So and you'll notice in The back of the image here There's figures on the chalkboard in the back behind her which I'm assuming has to do with some food because there's a Drawing of sugar. There's some lemons some strawberries, but anyway, so I'm gonna get out some of my sorry. There's glare Can you see that now? So I'm gonna get out some rubber stamps. I actually have a background rubber stamp I know I do because it just cleaned my rubber stamps out yesterday That is mathematical figures. So I'm gonna get that out I want to collage some of that onto the background before we put our figure down So let me do that and I'll be back plenty of other lights on so I've turned off the overhead light Cuz the glare is driving me crazy. All right, so I've got a ranger archival ink pad, which is waterproof I've got some Tim Holtz collage paper and I have this stamp. I've had it for a long time I have no idea if it's still available, but it is by Hero Arts. It's a cling mounted rubber stamp. I've actually never stuck it to the cling. It still has the paper on it It is called Coordinates with the Oxford collection. Oh Formula fun is what the name of it is. There is a barcode back here. If I can find a listing for it I'll put it in the description below But I've had this for a long time and that's what it looks like when it's stamped So I love this stamp actually So we're gonna take a piece of this collage paper Which is just tissue paper. Let's be real Use gift wrap tissue. That's what you have. I just happen to have this so I'm gonna use it Hang on. Let me turn the sound off on my computer. I'm getting notifications. Okay So now we're gonna I'm gonna put this this way just because it's very curly. I Am going to stamp with this black ink I'm not gonna worry about getting all of this stamp in or getting a perfect impression because this is gonna be collage Paper and it's gonna be in the background I love this print. So just like that Doesn't have to be perfect. It's collage paper like I said, so it doesn't matter My table is getting full fast All right, so the next thing we're gonna do is take our mathematical formulas and collage them onto our page and I do think we're gonna do both pages. I don't know exactly yet where the figure is gonna go but Anyway, I'm gonna Tear off the straight edges of the tissue And I'm gonna use some matte medium fluid matte medium by Liquitex You can get this at Michael's use a coupon brand new bottles. Okay All right, so we are going to put this on I Do want some of this to be behind the figure so and since I'm not sure exactly where that's gonna go I'm gonna try to scatter this just like a little bit everywhere The only problem with working on this side of the page is this is burlap and Burlap is challenging This is the Dina Wakeley journal by the way somebody's wondering and it's a challenging journal because it's got lots of different kinds of Papers in it, but if you like that sort of thing then you probably like this journal and I like the way you Just get a hint of the tissue paper with the mathematical formulas on there I Could have stamped this right on the paper side, but I could never get it on the Burlap side, which is why we stamped it on tissue paper in case somebody's wondering because as I'm doing this I'm thinking they're gonna wonder why I didn't just stamp it directly in the journal. That would be why Okay, are you ready? All right, so this is mostly dry So I'm gonna take one of my big fluffy stencil brushes Be one that's not too big We're gonna position our Figure and want her to be right there And I'm gonna take a variety of different colors of paint now. These are Dina Wakeley paints I have night which is like a dark navy blue like a pain's gray I have lapis which is a blue blue and then I've got some turquoise So I'm literally just gonna put it down on The page this one in the tube is really old so I kind of want to use it up So we're gonna squeeze a whole bunch of that out and We're gonna just dip our brush over here I'm gonna firmly hold the figure with one hand While I go around it with the brush The table is gonna shake a little bit. Sorry about that I'm probably being a little too aggressive Because you know That's what I do Okay You really do want to do this when Your collage papers are dry because if you don't then they're gonna Get all messed up Now we're gonna dry this really quick and then we're gonna get out some gel pens I think the whole thing is dry, but hopefully it's dry enough So we can move on All right, I am going to First I want to make some marks in the dark background I want it to be sort of like she's looking up at the night sky So I have just a white paint pen. I Don't have a lot of paint pens. I have a few of them, but I need a scrap piece of paper Scrappa Some toned tan here. There we go. Oh, yeah, it's dry You know, I just don't always have patience for these to work. That one's brand new. Let's see. One of these must be juicy hopefully Not not any of them. These are all brand new Let's see how about this one. Yeah, there we go. Just different size Dot you if you don't have to have a paint pen for this I have it so I'm gonna try to use it I'm in fact. I'm trying to use them up Just get some white paint and a small paint brush Or a back end of a knitting needle, a top end of a pencil Any of those things will work Make it work with what you have. I hate to say it because it's probably some kind of mixed media artists sin But I'm not a huge fan of paint pens That being said I have owned quite a few over the years I've either just tried it hard to use them up or given them away. I also have a white gel pen Which isn't gonna want to write on the burlap really well because it's burlap But the places where I put the collage paper it should write the collage tissue. It should write pretty well Okay, I also am going to use the gel pen to go over the figure and just sort of do this with her Refining the shapes. Yeah Well, I like the way that looks it didn't come out perfect, but it's not about that if there's any parts of her that I think There's too much a dark paint. You can just go in Just go in sketchily. You don't have to be perfect about it. It's not about perfection Just go in sketchily with your white gel pen or white paint pen if you have one and Take some of the white the dark away Now in those some of those spots work because I messed her up completely and I didn't get any of the dark paint in This is just a big It's a regular big ballpoint pen people. It's nothing special So I'm going to just do that perfect So when I was looking for quotes or figuring out what I was going to write on here I came across two that I really like and as you can see I haven't washed my hands yet there that's where the magic truly lies and The earth has music for those who listen, so I think those work really well together This one is probably from a magazine. This one is from a calendar quote of quotes from 2015 That I've had in my stash for a while and this first quote the earth has music for those who listen is by George s a t a y a n a I'm not going to try and butcher his name, but I'm going to collage those both right here I'm going to use again some matte medium my paint's not completely dry So it's smearing a little bit, but I'm okay with that because it as long as it doesn't do it too much It blends the white paper in a little bit with the background which I would do anyway with a pen or something so There we go. I like the way that turned out And to be honest with you, I wasn't sure about this Prompt or this page of what I started I wasn't exactly sure where I was going to go with it, but I have to tell you I like the way that turned out So I hope it gave you some ideas of what you can do with the topic of figures I would love to see this month where you all take that the different directions that you take it in and Please share in the group my creative year if you don't know what that is the link is in the description below It's a free Facebook group all about creative inspiration daily word challenges and more and The link is in the description below There's a bunch of us that teach in the court in the in the group and we share most of our videos here on Facebook But not all of them so if you want to see what we're up to there go and join the group and use the link in the description below and That's it for right now Don't forget to like share and subscribe and above all go out and have a great day and do something nice for yourself Because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye guys