I actually drew the gloves from life rather than using a photo and as you can see, my line drawing is very basic and slightly different from the photo reference. I've not added any detail except the knobby material with the dots that help me to get a better grip on things. I haven't indicated any shadows.

If you're new to drawing and journaling, you would be fine if you stopped here and started to add color.

 If you're adventurous…you might want to add a little more detail. I used broken line to indicate the stretchy texture of the cuffs of the gloves.

A note on lines…as humans, we like to see variety. Variety holds our interest longer and makes what we're looking at more intriguing. By using broken line, I allow the viewer to complete the lines with their own eyes.

I've also used the line to indicate the direction of the soft waviness of the fabric rather than just drawing straight lines.

By the way, notice the hole in the tip of the finger? I added that because I smeared the ink line at the top of the finger.

To "camouflage" the smear, I created the long string and the small hole.







This next step is optional. I've used Carbazole Violet and Ultramarine Blue to create an underpainting of the shadow shapes. While this step is not a requirement, but it's lots of fun!

The purples and blues will disappear as I paint the greens of the glove over it.

The reason for painting this layer is to begin to build in the shapes that give the gloves their soft shapes and to show dimension.

It also gives me a "shadow map," much like a road map, to know where I need to put my darker colors when I start to add local color.

If you opt to add this underpainting, make sure the layer is dry before add the next layer of paint!







Using Sap Green as the base, I added Azo Yellow to get the "spring green" and Ultramarine Blue to get a darker green for the shadows.

In some places I added the colors and let them mix on the paper and in other places, I added color that was mixed on the palette.

Notice the thumb areas that looked quite blue in the image above after the underpainting layer.

Once I added the darker paint, it made the thumb areas appear much lighter in value.

Values are relative to what is around them. In the image above the blues and purples were the darkest value. In the image to the left, the greens are the darker value which makes the blues and purples much lighter.









Again, this next layer is optional. I like to play in the dirt! Therefore, it only makes sense that my gloves would have dirt on them from a morning spent out in the garden, but I don't want dirty gloves in the house where I did the line drawing. Instead, I used my imagination to create the dirt on the gloves!

Using Carbazole Violet, Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue, I daubed the colors together to give the appearance of dirt clumped on the fingers of the glove.

Next, I painted in a light cast shadow. You can see over near the thumb where I had a couple of bleeds because the paint wasn't totally dry.

If you decided to follow the tutorial, be sure to add your cast shadow before moving to the next step!















Once the dirt layer on the gloves was DRY, I added splotches of dirt around the gloves to give the impression that the dirt fell off when the gloves were dropped on the flat surface.

Note: If you try to add a cast shadow AFTER you put down the fallen sprinkles of dirt, it's quite possible you'll have a mess on your hands because the dirt color will lift and mix with your shadow color—we want dirt not mud!!

I've also gone back and added more splotches to the fingers of the glove as well as down into the cuffs and crevices of the gloves as the dirt would not be just on the fingers.








Next, I had to decide what, if anything, I wanted to say on the page. Once I had the words figured out, I looked the page over to decide how I wanted to arrange them on the page. I added pencil lines to give my guidelines for the lettering.

Since my right brain does not know how to spell, I wrote my letters out in pencil before coming back and inking them.

Final Page Watercolor and Ink

I echoed the pattern in the gloves in the large G to tie the two pieces together. After all the paint was totally dry, I went back into the gloves and strengthened some of the line work to give the gloves more dimension.

At the very end of the project, I noted that I had once again smeared the ink in the word "dirt." Rather than trying to get the ink up, I opted to add "sprinkles of dirt" around the word to help camouflage the smear.

It is always fun to take the plain and ordinary and elevate it to something extraordinary!

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and if you decide to paint garden gloves, please leave a link in the comments so that I can see. I also hope to see you on an "Imaginary Visit or Trip!"