Whimsical Artwork

Tips for creating your own whimsical art

Doodle!! Doodling is a great way to loosen up your wrist, fingers, and your mind. It can relieve tension and get you ready for a fruitful art-making session. Try out this easy lesson for drawing doodle monsters!

Pay special attention to color to create mood. Bright colors are generally happy and uplifting. Darker colors are generally more somber or moody. Bold colors are jubilant and forceful. Soft colors are more calm and peaceful. Check out the joyous colors in this artwork:

Cute cats playing patty cake, art from Thaneeya McArdle's Power of Love Coloring Book — Whimsical artwork from Thaneeya McArdle’s **Power of Love Coloring Book**, colored in with Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils

You can add eyes or a face to anything to make it "anthropomorphic", or human-like. This is almost always endearing, as it gives human qualities and emotions to inanimate objects. It causes us to see those objects in a new way, and allows us to relate to them. Check out the happy faces on the cute flowers below, from my set of printable Happy Flowers Coloring Pages!

Happy Kawaii Flowers by Thaneeya McArdle — Cute flowers from Thaneeya McArdle’s set of printable **Happy Flowers Coloring Pages**

Big eyes are often used to create a great "cute" effect, whether its big-eyed girls or big-eyed bunnies.

Illustrate a scene from your favorite fairy tale. If illustrating a whole scene is too daunting at first, start by illustrating one of the characters. Use the written description as a starting point, and add your own changes or embellishments to make the character more your own.

Pick one of the following words and create a character that illustrates that word: wacky, kooky, silly, spooky, goofy, cutesy. If you want more words to chew on, use a thesaurus, where you will find a slew of new and usable words!

Check out some visual examples of other people's whimsical artwork:

Do a search on Pinterest or Google Images for "whimsical art", "whimsical painting", "whimsical drawing", etc.

If you get stuck, remember these two important points:

Let your imagination go wild. There's nothing holding you back - you can draw or paint whatever you can dream up!
Have fun! Whimsical art is all about fun! 😊

Color in this whimsical scene!

If you like the whimsical owl artwork below, imagine how fun it would be to color it along with me! 😍

In my Ultimate Guide to Using Alcohol Markers, you can download the line art, print it out, and follow along as I show you step-by-step how to color in this cute owl scene. This course is designed to take you from a complete beginner level to an advanced level, so there’s no pressure, and you can learn at your own pace!

Click the image below to watch the course trailer and see everything that you’ll get in this fun online course!