Over the years, I have worked on several sketchbooks and completed sketches that I later transferred onto watercolor paper, where I created final paintings. That’s my way of practicing sketching. But my sketchbooks barely contain pages where I sketched and practiced the same subject over and over. I used to not be able to spend much time sketching in a sketchbook just repetitively sketching the same thing because it couldn’t keep my attention and I got bored. But now I’m a total practice pro after completing this first page.
The inspiration for this was crunchy autumn leaves from my hikes. I’ve also been very into silhouetted plants so a few tulips and grass to practice brush pen ink lines. The question is “What does it all mean?” These are a few sentences in plant language. It’s what the plants say right before you step on them. Excuse my accent.
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain” – Vivian Greene
This might be one of my favorite illustrations I’ve done because of the spontaneity behind it. Most of my “brainstorming” happened subconsciously! It was created for IllustrArticles “3 Easy Steps to Total Mind Control.” The idea for the illustration came from a mix of a million things, such as:
– A thunderstorm that unexpectedly drenched me as I was walking down the street one day
– An apocalyptic dream I had, in which it was very windy on a field near a beach (similar to the one I live next to) and the sky was changing colors every few seconds (probably prompted by walking into that thunderstorm the day before).
– The Stepford Wives movie I watched
– I’ve been noticing cloud formations for about 2 weeks straight.
– Stress I’ve been dealing with around that time
I pretty much saw the gist of it the image in my mind before I even started doodling it, and kept making small changes as I went along. See if you notice them. These are some of the thumbnails and sketches I did, first:
And then I scanned them and arranged them in Photoshop, and traced my computer screen on tracing paper. This is the tracing paper line art and the finished art:
I should have photographed this step, but I forgot! Basically, after that, I attached the tracing paper line art to the back of a blank watercolor paper sheet, and placed them on top of a lightbox. From there, I went straight to inking with a brush. Then, I used watercolor for color. Last, I scanned the finished illustration and corrected the colors in Photoshop so that it looked on screen just like the original.
Pencil lead glistens in the sunlight as I celebrate my Halloween morning by drawing skeletons. This is a study for an illustration still in development.
