 Hello everybody! Oh my gosh, I sounded like Mrs. Doubt for her then, right? Hello everyone and welcome back to The Average. Today we are gonna find out what watercolor dots are. You probably already know because I'm always really slow on the uptake. I ordered these from Illy-Ly Watercolors, you can see it there, and I will link her shop down below. She's a independent shop on Etsy so it's kind of cool. Let me show you what they are. Basically she makes her own watercolors. I'm assuming it's a woman. They make their own watercolors and they give you little tester things and you can order these and try them out before you buy them. So these are the amazing ones that I've ordered and they're these Pearl Color Shift watercolors and they look amazing. They look so cool. We're gonna try them today but I really wanted to try them out and I also wanted to find out what color dots are because I've never really tried these so I want to know if they're worth it. Let's get to it. Was that too enthusiastic or was it just the right amount of enthusiasm? Oh also guys, today we're going to be revealing the winners of the book cover competition. Let's find out who the winners are at the end of the video. Okay, let's get into doing this. I began by sketching out an image that I wanted to draw. This is kind of that basic Pinterest pretty girl drawing but I really thought that it would look really nice with these paints. I say basic girl drawing but I really like drawing these images of just pretty women. I don't know why so I'm not hitting on it. I'm just saying what it is and yeah with her like crying these colors I thought that would be really cool. I wanted to play around with her wearing lots of colorful imagery so maybe lots of like silk dress and robes and different things and then a crown on top. I wanted to play with doing flowers in the background but I think I don't go in that direction in the end. So when I first started out swatching these colors I was really excited because for some reason I thought they were going to be really opaque and then I realized not so much. They are more of a color to put on top of another watercolor I think. That's when they work really well. It took me a little bit of a moment to get used to the consistency with them and what worked best. As you can see I used this number 23 I think it is and oh no 22 and it comes out a little bit brown and then the shimmer of the blue comes through because it's like a purpley blue and you can see that where I've laid it down thicker on the eye shadow that's where the blue shine is coming through. I realized that to get this thicker consistency you have to really like work the brush over the little dot for a while to kind of build up the pigment on the brush and that really helped me out once I started to get the hang of the paints because I realized okay they just need a little bit of work to activate them so that helped me enormously. I do regret not putting down like a layer of different like normal colored watercolor to begin with because you can see as I go on I do dip into my actual watercolor pan. I think that these work really well to be something that goes over the top of normal watercolors because they shimmer really beautifully and they're very thin and very see-through but that was okay in the end because I felt like once I figured out the consistency I figured out that it would work with just using these colors by themselves and I really really like them. At first they don't look like much I mean when I first started doing this I realized I was like a little bit disappointed to be honest but then as I kept using them and getting the hang of them I realized that they are really beautiful and they work really nicely and you'll see as it goes on how beautiful the pigments actually look once I've actually layered them correctly and used them correctly they are stunning and I really like the fact that it was somebody you know it's somebody's independent business that has made this a small business and I think that's really cool to support small businesses especially at this time. So you can see now I've thickened up that number 28 the the kind of purpley orange sheen one it looks really nice and it is really shining under my lights at the moment all the blues and pinks I think it looks beautiful and radiant and I will definitely be using these dot carts in the future I never heard of them before honestly I think probably most people have heard of them and have used them in the past but I have never never seen these and I think they're a really good idea for testing out watercolors especially if you if you've never tried watercolors before maybe it's a cool idea to just get a few tester packs like this and then you can see if you like using watercolors or not before you commit to buying a big packet of them. For these watercolors I did really enjoy using them so I think I will be buying some more from this shop and shopping around more on Etsy for homemade watercolors because it just gives you a little bit of interest and a little bit of a little bit of difference from the normal stuff that you would go for like the generic brands that you find everywhere it gives you a little bit of variety and I think it's it's really exciting to come across something different so I really enjoyed using these I found them really exciting and expressive and I just I love the colour shifting dynamic of it the whole pearl colour shift is really interesting and I think it looks beautiful in the end you will see when I give you a little bit of a a chance to see it when I flip the page you will see how bright and beautiful these paints really are at first I was thinking oh no what have I done I think these don't really work that well then once I've got the hang of them beautiful really like them and about the image like I said there's not much to it other than just a beautiful girl and the chance to use these beautiful paints so there isn't much for process behind this other than just trying to find a reason to use shimmers and stuff like that because I don't I don't tend to use a lot of shimmers I guess in my artwork I mean I use a gold pen every now and again but I think I haven't used shimmers in ages and I think these are really good I think a good comparison would be you know those kanzai watercolours that are like the shimmer gold ones those are quite nice but I think these are actually better than those so if you're thinking about buying them and can't find them anywhere then I would give these ago because they're really pretty and they have that colour shifting effect which I've never seen in watercolours before which is really interesting because you layer down one colour and then as you lift the page or you turn slightly it shines a different colour and I think that's really nice it adds a totally different dimension to your art and I really enjoyed it I really liked playing around with these and I think they're such a cool concept everyone else who's seen these watercolour dot sheets before probably like a yeah duh stuff but I'm gonna buy more of these I think because they're just really fun to play around with and just have them here next to me and I'm gonna add like some sparkly stuff to previous works that I've done now and just mess around with them in my sketchbook because I think they're just so much fun I go in with this Molotow acrylic marker pen because I felt like the blacks needed to pop out a little bit more than they did before I did the watercolours over them and I think this really adds something to the drawing it's not perfect but then again this is just an experiment to play with the watercolours I think I would have preferred to have a line-less sort of image here so I do regret even inking anything in the first place but this is the style that I went with and I just had to keep going with it because I've committed at this point so I kept going with this thick black line and I do like it I just if you look at the top bit with her crown and I just really like the textures of those so I wish I had just left that alone instead of messing with the black and I don't know it kind of flattens it a bit for me and yeah I think I think it still looks cool I add the white Molotow pen and that's the final thing that I do to this painting so I think I'm going to call it for this one because I can see that I'm getting into the realms of working too much on it or like overworking it it's fun for a little quick like sketchbook drawing I think I really like the paint look at that that's so cool I love the pearlescent shimmer to it it's really pretty I think I got the hang of it in the end as well slowly and yeah you can see which ones I like the most by I guess the swatches you can see that I've massively used those ones and I think these are really cool and I think I might get some you know now that I've tested them out I might get some big versions of them although I think this is quite a lot so I think a little goes a long way with these shimmers right so let's get down to the winners of the book competition and I'm super excited to announce these first of all I'd like to thank Artex for kindly giving all these prizes away there wouldn't be a competition without them so I would love to thank them again they've been awesome and I will put their website down below for anyone interested but don't forget anybody who entered this competition will get 10% off their Amazon store so be in contact with me so there's going to be five winners overall and what I'm going to do is say them and pop them up on the screen and the first winner for me is this book version of Coraline by Paula Borroccio and I just really like the the style of this I think it's really interesting I like the composition I like the way it looks just the depth of it but also the flatness I like that style of illustration I think it's really cool and it sends a direct message and it makes me want to pick up the book the next winner is Beautiful Lie by Maria Arts I really adore the way that she's used stitching in this I think that's a really clever idea I've never seen somebody do that before and I think the faces are really well painted and it just looks very beautiful and serene and I think that is a really cool thing the next winner is Page Bailey Art for this massive crowd scene with all these people and I really like the way that you've used colour here to highlight the main character obviously in Salt to the Sea and I just think that's really cool idea just drawing a crowd of people is very difficult especially at that perspective so kudos for you the fourth winner for me is going to be this Assassin's Quest by Lucy Arts and I just I really adore the way that you've drawn this little dragon I think that's really pretty and it's like a different style from the other winners so I wanted to mix them up a lot and I think this is a really nice beautiful picture I think you've done a really good composition and drawn a dragon which I think is really hard thing to draw so the fifth and final winner of the main prizes goes to the due lead art with Wilder Girls because I really like the idea of this paper art on top of a book and you even open it and it it does something as you open it I think that's a really clever mechanic and I think that's just a really nice example of exploring something and doing something completely different now of course there are also 10 runners up who will get surprise gifts so they are Raul Padu with this interesting paper art piece with lots of different stuff going on this one by Eliza Art she did a few different versions I think of these three books and I think this is a really cool example of another crowd of people and I think a lot of effort went into this and I really like it Emily K Art with this tree house face and castle I think that's really cool for Jane Eyre book cover this Sherlock Holmes cover by Marina Defranco I think that one's really pretty with the colors and the line work especially is pretty this little fires everywhere which is really expressive and beautiful with the lighting by Abulu this upside unrequited love by Sketchbook Musings I think is really nice I like the compositional layout and the idea this book cover of Carry On by Rats in Pants I like a username I really like the characters of this and the color usage and the like the geo what do I mean and the shapes used in the background I think that's really cool this Anna Fili art of into the deep into drowning deep sorry I really like the perspective of this and I really like the idea of being at the bottom of the ocean looking up at the light and all the fish swimming up by me strange the dreamer by a failed artist I think is really nice the really good portrait work and the butterflies I think it's a very beautiful take on the book cover and finally this version of how to train your dragon by Kelly Mccarville I think that's really cool character illustration and I like the way that the book looks with the teeth coming through over the top to show the writing I think is really cool and there's so many other amazing pieces I just it was so difficult to choose so I hope that you're not disappointed I really had a tough time picking and I really wanted to just express my gratitude for everyone who's taken part I hope that you enjoyed doing the competition and taking part anyway even if you didn't win everybody who's taken part will get a 10% discount from Artex on Amazon and what you have to do is just DM me and I will send you the link from them with the code and then you can have 10% off so everybody's sort of a winner and I hope you guys aren't disappointed and thank you so much to the winners I will be in contact with you soon and yeah I hope that you enjoyed the competition thanks so much everybody this is the end of the video thanks for watching guys please like and subscribe for more content and I will see you next time hopefully please come back okay bye guys I would also like to thank my patrons for their awesome support and if you guys want to join in on Patreon we're reading a new book this month and we're going to create art together and pick a book together to read and the patrons who are getting a shout out are Devin, Ace Tubulum, Jacqueline, Steph, Eva, Lucille, Erica, Miguel, Tim and Charlotte and Alex thanks so guys thanks so much for watching guys and see you next time