Puppy Love – the romantic or platonic love felt during childhood and adolescence
Young love, a very pure concept.
For some of you, you have probably experienced your first love during your adolescence, and most of you would describe it as innocent, bitter-sweet, a pretty dumb move, or probably a pretty fun time. When you fall in love during your younger years you fall hard and you believe that this person must be the one. You put your all into that relationship. Which makes sense you???ve probably never experienced love yet and you have no idea how relationships work, all you know is that you have strong feelings for that person and being around them makes you happy. Falling in love during your childhood is much more simpler during those times, you can just focus on yourself and your relationship with that special someone. Falling in love as an adult, you???re pretty jaded at that point and there are a lot more things to consider and take in account for. So for those young ones in love right now, take the time really treasure it.
For these sets of illustrations I was originally planning on make set of puppies snuggling up to each other and calling it a day, but that felt like a cop-out and a little too obvious. Thinking about it now, depicting young adults falling in love can be considered a cop-out as well, but I???m definitely a lot more satisfied with this concept.
Another thing about puppy love is how intense your emotions can be so your actions and words can end up being a little cheesy when you think back on it as an adult, but hey, if you???re still dropping those cheesy lines just own it. But as over the top they may sound, they definitely come from a pure place, you love that special someone and you want to make sure that they know.
For the imagery I decided to have different couples standing next to each other and confessing in different ways. We have a more modern way through text, we have the ???I can???t hold it in anymore??? surprise/spill out kind of confession, and the classic flowers with a simple ???I love you???. I brainstormed a couple more but three seemed like a good number to end here, plus they were the most fun to draw.
I Went with a simple line art, really putting a lot of attention to body language and the details of their clothes. Bless Pinterest for all those references.
After completing the line art it felt a little plain so I used black and red to colour in some hot spots and turned down the opacity of the brush to get that layered affect. I used black to keep to that black and white style, but I added red since they are illustrations about love after all, plus a pop of colour never hurt anyone.
All the drawing and colouring it still felt a little plain so I added some cute ways to say ???i love you??? to ground the image a little more, and I must say they are quite adorable. They even have that Valentine???s Day card feel to it.
Any who, that???s all for now. Enjoy you???re Valentine???s Day and make sure to say I love you to that special someone, and don???t forget show yourself a little love as well.
Happy Valentine???s Day and until next time!