Completed the Ghibli-Inspired Border on My Art Wall (Creative Sunday)

I was supposed to have a full schedule in the morning, but one of my students asked me to reschedule our classes later in the afternoon. I suddenly have an additional 2-hour break, so I thought, why not use this time to update my art wall?!

I started making an art wall in my room last month. I decided to divide it into two: the upper wall for my mini paintings, and the lower wall would be an acrylic painting made directly on the wall.

The reason for this is that Max, our Golden Retriever, stays in my room every afternoon to escape the hot weather outside. If I placed my mini paintings on the lower part of my wall, he might get too curious and end up destroying them. XD

Here's how my art wall looked before I worked on it today. I was able to add five mini paintings since my last update. And as you can see below, I made a Ghibli-themed border. There are several Makkuro kurosuke or black soots when translated in English as well as a cute Totoro on the other side.

I wanted to add more Ghibli characters on the border, and decided to make chibi versions just like the Totoro I made.

The characters are inspired by multiple Ghibli Animations. So, let's get into it! :D

Since there are a lot of cute and lovely characters from Ghibli, I decided to draft some sketches. I chose the robot from Laputa, Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle, Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service, Kaonashi from Spirited Away, Kodama from Princess Mononoke and the gold fish version of Ponyo.

I used acrylic paint for this project. I only have five colors. I mostly just mix them, and yes, that's an egg tray. hahah I also used some detailer brushes and an empty cup noodle with water to clean up the brushes. :) In addition to these, I used a pencil to sketch the characters on the wall first. Let's start!

They're not that clear, but you can see them when you try to enlarge each photo. I actually painted them simultaneously to allow the previous one to dry, but I'll show the process for each character one by one.

The first one on the line is the robot from Laputa. I don't think it has a name, but although they're huge and rusty, I think chibi version would be so cute!

To make brown, you have to combine orange (yellow + red) and black, but if you want it to look rustic, add blue instead of black. :)

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I did two coats for each base color. I let them dry by working on the other characters, then did the detailing last. I made it into a cute chibi version with sparkly eyes! haha

Next on the list is one of my favorite characters, Calcifer. :) He's sitting on a piece of wood, so to save paint, I added a tiny drop of black on the rustic brown earlier to make it similar to an oak brown.

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I also double-coated it, let it dry before adding the finishing touches. I played a bit with his eyes and made it look like a heart. I guess he just saw some eggshells coming his way. XD

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It's Jiji with some sparkly eyes... maybe he saw his girlfriend approaching. I added his name in hiragana below because they look like legs. hahah I initially intended to make a body for Jiji just like in my first draft, but I only have more than two hours to finish this, so I decided against it.

While I was midway through painting the base colors before detailing, I asked my father to take a photo of me. :) My position and posture while painting this aren't that comfortable, so now I'm having a bit of a backache and leg pain. It was worth it, though... hahaha

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Next on the list is this cute little Kaonashi (no face). I didn't want to waste the lavender paint I mixed (blue, red and white) for his mask, so I decided to use it for the heart and a tiny dot on his mask's eyes.

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Kodama... ^^ I want to add more Kodama!!! haha Maybe I'll paint a forest full of kodama again someday. I had to add several coats on this since my wall is also white, but after detailing, it was able to pop up. I was already pretty tired by this time, and I was in a hurry for lunch, so the lining is messy. I'll definitely fix this soon.

I used the remaining orange I mixed in for calcifer for Ponyo's hair. However, it wasn't enough, so I had to mix a new batch for the second coating.

And while I'm at it, I also took the chance to mix a color for her face. I used the newly mixed orange and added a bit more red and lots of white until I got the shade that I wanted. Mixing colors is always a trial and error for me, but it's always fun and it feels good when I'm able to achieve the color I wanted. :) Now, let's continue.

I low-key liked the lavender paint I made, so I used it for her cheeks and added some small strokes of orange for a blush effect.

And with the completion of the Ponyo painting, my Ghibli-inspired art wall border is now complete!
Here's how it looks. :)

It's no longer empty, and I get to see some of the cutest Ghibli characters on my wall. The backache and leg pain from squatting are all worth it! :)

Of course, I had to take a photo with them, so I requested my father to snap some shots again!

Yay!!! I'm so happy with how it turned out. :)

I'll continue making small paintings to add to the upper portion of the art wall. I haven't really thought about what to do with the lower part, but I'm thinking of painting some doodles of my favorite anime characters. They'll mostly be chibi versions. I'll gradually work on it and enjoy the process.

One of my goals this year is to create more artworks and practice painting more, so having this art wall is a great encouragement for me to achieve that. :)

I'll end this post here. Thanks a lot for checking it out. I hope you like it as much as I do! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday! (^^,)/