Karroana's Lair

Human in love with all living things 📍Osaka 🇯🇵 (from Paris 🇨🇵) 🗣️ FR / ENG / 日本語 Wishing you a great day ☀️

[karroana]

Hey there ☀️

I'm Johanna (aka karroana), a french nature enthusiast living in Osaka. Thanks for stopping by my art blog ! :)

Here I mostly draw traditionally with gouache, but also dabble in digital art sometimes. The place I reblog everything I love is @kar-no-horidashimono.

On this blog, you'll find a variety of drawings of nature, animals, some sketchbook pages when I go on adventures, maybe a bit of daily life stuff too, and other miscellaneous things (archeology, paleo art, pokemon, the list goes on...)

I'm not a full time artist yet, but that's what I'm striving for 💪 You can support me on Ko-Fi or find me on Instagram !

If that's your thing, welcome, and I wish you a great day ! ☀️

More tags under the cut !

My art

Traditional art (gouache ; watercolour)

Digital art

Comics

Crafts (stamps ; clay art ; wood carving)

Stickers

Kar talks

Asks

Tools i use

My face

My partner

My daughter

Bonjiri

[karroana]

Hello hello everyone !

Like many people, Procreate got recently updated on my ipad with tons of new brushes ! i'd love to try them all, but got no inspiration about what to draw, so that's why i'm opening $3 Ko-Fi Requests !

⚠️ !! Important !! ⚠️ ONLY animals and creatures (pokémon, fantastic beasts, your OC, etc. You get the idea !) NO human-like characters please ;;w;;

Thanks for your attention !!

[fuzzbby]

From the Qing Palace Bestiary, jointly painted by Yu Sheng and Zhang Weibang.

[karroana]

thought it'd be nice to see them play together so here they are :)

[karroana]

more vaporeon x fish variations ! i finally got time to make some new ones traditionally (you can find the old digital vaporeons x fish here)

from top to bottom there is :

Coelacanth vaporeon : water x rock

Angelfish vaporeon : water x psychic

Koi vaporeon : water x fire

Dojo loach vaporeon : water x ground

If you want to get your own fishy vaporeon, you can commission me on Ko-Fi :)

[karroana]

still gouaching 🏇🏇🏇

[karroana]

Just popping by to say that I love your art! Just saw your vaporeon fish piece and the way you colored it was so incredibly evocative of real fish.

Thank you so much !! Those vaporeons were actually drawn back in 2023 🥲 So even tho I still like the idea and concept, I wish I could redraw them traditionally !

That's why I'm currently working on new vaporeon x fish designs that I'm planning on painting with gouache !

Here are some WIPs of them :

Btw, if you guys have any fish species you'd really like to see, you can commission me on Ko-Fi 🙏 I just don't have enough time to draw all the suggestions I got so far 🥲

[karroana]

Hello ! Déjà, félicitations pour le bébé ^ _ ^ Rien à voir but i wanted to ask where you bought the little palette you put your gouache in :) i'm currently looking for one, but all i can find in shops isn't suitable.... merci d'avance ! 🍀🍀

Merci beaucoup, c'est hyper gentil ! 🧡🕊️

Et oui, the palette I use for gouache is an air tight palette I bought online, from the brand Transon ! I think it comes from the US ? I couldn't find it in stores either when I was looking for it...

I highly recommend it though ! Been using it for around 6 months now and I've had zero problem 👌

Hope you enjoy painting !!

[karroana]

aaaaand that's it, I finally reached the end of the queue i set up in early August :)

I had been posting "older" art once a day since then, but from now on you guys will have to wait a bit before seeing new stuff ! I'm quite busy with my kid and the end of my maternity leave coming soon, but i have tons (seriously, tons) of WIPs i'm so excited to work on and show you ! and there's the Ko-Fi shop launch too !

Anyway, thanks for the support until now, i'm really glad i came back to tumblr :)

(bonus view from last week's road trip in Awaji Shima !)

[karroana]

I think I mentioned it on this blog before, but my precious daughter was born this june - right at the beginning of the rainy season, when hydrangeas bloom and fireflies start to appear 🌧️🌧️🌧️

It’s really hard to describe how much happiness is flooding me thanks to this tiny human, but well, I hope your summer went as great as mine did :)

(additional daily life doodles under the cut !)

[karroana]

arowana fish made with air dry clay last spring !

[karroana]

small painting i made last spring to celebrate my first year of serious bird watching lol. i observed close to a 100 different species, mainly in the Osaka region :)

so here are a few favourites seen during those birding adventures ! do you guys recognize some of those species ?

(of course, I added Bonjiri too)

[karroana]

Salut ! J’aime beauuuucoup ton travail et j’avoue que regarder ce que tu fais m’a carrément donné envie de tester la peinture:)) du coup, désolé de te poser la question si tu as déjà posé quelque chose sur le sujet mais quel type de papier utilises-tu pour peindre ? C’est jamais évident de trouver le bon carnet pour, aloooors je me suis dit que c’était l’occasion de demander ! C’est toujours trop cool de découvrir des artistes comme toi, merci d’avance pour la réponse:)

🇨🇵 - Merci beaucoup pour ce gentil message !! Si tu permets je vais répondre en anglais, histoire que le + de monde possible puisse comprendre la réponse :)

🇬🇧 - I got a question about which type of paper I use for painting, so I'll answer right here !

Most of the time, if I'm not planning on a full piece but simply painting from observation or just doodling, I'll use my sketchbook (it's from Talens Art Creation. Quite cheap and easy to find sketchbook). The paper is on the thinner side, but sturdy enough to handle gouache if you don't use too much water !

For fully rendered pieces that I put more effort on though, I paint on this Canson watercolour paper. I usually cut it to A5 size ! Compared to other watercolour papers, it's on the cheaper side, but it's more than enough for the use I have of it.

Hope this helps !! Enjoy painting :)

[karroana]

Three "scary" (or rather dangerous) species found around where i live : the red headed centipede, the asian giant hornet and the mamushi (japanese pit viper), drawn for m_naturae 's DTIYS on instagram !

[karroana]

[karroana]

I love your art aaaaaaa

How is Bonjiri doing? I need more pictures of this little cutie...

Is your pigeon wearing clothing? Kinda looks like it in the pictures

Thanks for your asks ! :)

Bonjiri was rescued as a feral fledgling when his nest was destroyed by humans. That's how I got to live with him. He was then rehabbed and released to a neighbour flock when he got strong and old enough !

While he was living with me, he was free roaming in my apartment, so I got him pigeon pants (diapers, essentially) to prevent any mess lol.

I still visit him from time to time (gotta draw him and his flock mates one day... There's so much drama I swear) and even tho I know he is absolutely happier flying with his mates, I miss him a bit sometimes.

[karroana]

Nature observations of a january afternoon spent near the Yodogawa, the biggest river of Osaka

[karroana]

hi! sorry if you've posted stuff like this before that I've missed, but I was just gifted a gouache set and wondering if you have any tips or advice!

Hello anon ! Thanks for your ask ☀️

Honestly getting used to gouache is a real struggle at first lol. N°1 advice I would give is to trust the process. My gouache paintings always go through an ugly stage that looks nothing like the end result. You just have to push through and hope for the best 🥲

(I rarely take pics when I draw so bear with me, but here is some low quality behind the scenes of this horse study)

On this piece, I started painting with a lot of water and few pigments, kinda imitating watercolours, and then slowly built up the thicker layers. What's great with gouache is that you can paint light over dark and you can remove pigment with water, which means you can always correct mistakes. So don't be afraid to experiment ! Gouache is very forgiving, and insanely satisfying once you start to understand it.

However, light colours dry darker, while dark colours dry lighter, so your wet colours will look different once they're dry and settled. That's why trying your paints and mixes first on a piece of paper next to your painting is highly recommended !

One more thing to add is that gouache is a great medium to use indoors and outdoors, so it's perfect for observation paintings. Observation paintings are also a great way to learn and improve, so just keep painting away !

And I guess that's it :) Hope this helps anon ! Happy painting ✨