Mushroom Art Print Tutorial: Fun with Fungi

Using a piece of 5.5 x 4.25-inch cardstock, start drawing the mushroom stem. Starting with the stem allows you to center the cap more easily. Sketch in the flower starting with the half circle middle part, and then draw the petals coming down from the flowers. Move on to sketching the leaves. Draw the leaves however you are comfortable. I feel we all have our own way of drawing leaves. Embrace your style and have fun.

Choose the medium you would like to use. I use Tombow Dual Brush Tip markers but feel free to use whatever you have. I slowly add colour, trying not to overlap the lines. The only reason for doing this is to go back in and add shadows with the same colour. Tombows layer quite nicely so it’s fun to experiment. I colour a circular pattern on the leaves which create a cool texture.

Using the bullet point of the pen, I add small details, like the veins of the leaves, and dots on the center of the flower.

Using a Copic marker or a Sharpie (I only used a Copic because I couldn’t find my Sharpie) outline the drawing. I chose an alcohol-based marker since I like the opacity of the marker over top of the water-based ink. My Copic marker has a brush tip which created different widths of lines. It ended up giving a cool affect and, since I cut the drawing out, I was able to reduce the too thick parts.

Using a black PaperMate Flair, add some lines throughout the drawing – adding some visual interest and texture to the drawing. So, adding veins to the leaves, and more dots to the middle of the flower. Drawing lines on the petals and a line shadow on the mushroom stem. Do the same with the paint pen, adding highlights throughout the drawing. Where you add the highlights and shadow lines depends on your light source. My light source always comes from the top right, so my highlights are on the top right of the drawing.

Using scissors, I cut around the outlined drawing, adjusting where I cut depending on the line thickness (only an issue because of the brush tip).

I cut the polka dot paper to be 3.75 x 5.25 inches. Taking the off-white paper, I scrunch it up repeatedly until the paper softens, and I tear the book page at a diagonal, preparing to use the bottom of the page.

Grab your alphabet stickers (or stamps in you prefer) and start gluing down the letters. I chose the word renew since mushrooms work to renew and nourish the forest floor. To center the word, I start gluing letters starting from the middle of the word and placing letters from there.

I decided to add a drop shadow line to the word using a thin mono line pen in size 01. I also add highlights to the stickers with the white Posca Paint Pen. Using the Flair, I draw a rough line on the top right-hand corner to balance the print.