Full Illustration Process: Mixed media painting of a winter’s night for my Christmas art challenge

Описание: Hello! I’m Alex, a professional artist, and today I'm sharing my full illustration process for creating this winter/Christmas themed artwork with mixed media, including acrylics, watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, and collage.

Before I even start painting a do a bit of sketching and concept work, such as thumbnail sketches, detail sketches, and a color concept. This all helps me prepare for making the actual illustration and work with confidence and a clear vision.

First, I painted the night sky with acrylics, then the house, smoke, and the snowy hills with watercolors. The tree branches and foliage I painted with gouache, and the tree trunks themselves I made by doing a bit of collage work.

Finally, I reveal the artwork and what I ended up doing with it.

This illustration was part of my #penstoreadventcalendar art challenge of 2025, where every day until Christmas eve, I open a lid every morning to find a random art supply, which I challenge myself to create something with.

I created a playlist which includes all artworks I did for this challenge, and you can check it out right here:
   • Art Advent Calendar 2025  

I'm not sponsored by any of the companies whose art supplies I talk about in this video. These are art supplies I have paid for myself and I genuinely enjoy working with.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro
0:27 How I start a Project
1:20 Acrylic Background
1:42 Painting snowy hills
1:56 Painting house
2:23 Drawing smoke
2:51 Making the trees
3:22 Painting branches
3:43 Painting foliage
4:13 Attaching the trees
4:49 Moon and stars
5:15 Bark texture
5:48 Revealing the art
6:25 Final Reveal

Connect with me!
My website:
https://www.alexstormart.com/

Links to all of my socials here:
LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/alexstormart