Summer Creative Workshop: Neon Heart

The sixth (and final) project I completed during Summer Creative Retreat was this neon heart. 

The instructor, Mako of Makoccino, taught an excellent class about how to use watercolors to paint a neon flamingo. 

I decided to simplify the project and switched my design from a flamingo to a heart. I tried using watercolor for the project, but I got really frustrated with not being able to control the pigment. Rather than give up on the class entirely, I switched from painting with watercolor to painting digitally. That allowed me to erase my mistakes with a single click - if only you could do that with watercolors!

How to Paint a Neon Heart (Digital Version)

Add a white heart to a rosy pink background. 

Select a darker shade of the same pink. Use a spray paint tool to color outside and inside the heart, leaving a visible band of the original pink.   

Select an even darker shade of the same pink and darken the outer edges of the canvas. 

Set the spray paint tool so that it is three times as wide as the white heart. Trace over the heart with white. This gives it the glow.  

Duplicate the white heart and change the color to a medium gray. Drop it down and slightly to the right to make a shadow. 

Add very faint horizontal lines to the canvas to mimic the wall where the neon sign is hanging. Move the white heart to the front. 

Use the airbrush tool to soften the entire design. 

This was so much fun to make! It's far from perfect, but I loved trying something completely new. I'd like to get more into digital art. You really can't beat that undo button.