Illustration Friday: "Peace"

This piece is graphite on Bristol and in a slightly different style than I usually use.  But I loved drawing this.  Working on the details and shading while listening to my current music favorites was very relaxing!

New Work

Every week I hope that some of the work I've been doing for fun and creativity will fit with the Illustration Friday weekly theme, but lately nothing fits!  And I just keep doing whatever I want, so I haven't had anything to post for IF.  But I want to share what I've been doing!  So here's a collection of ACEOs and sketches that have come off my drawing table in the last few weeks.

"Little Red Heart", ACEO, ink and watercolor

"Blueberry Pie", ACEO, ink and watercolor

"Hello, Rabbit!", ACEO, ink and watercolor

"Marianne Dashwood", ACEO, colored ink

"After the Ball", a romantic sketch

"Moon and Sun", ballpoint drawing

More Fan Art

I admit I'm having way to much fun with this.  Sketching faces is so relaxing to me, I love historical stories, and "The Borgias" (Showtime) has given me never-ending reference!  This is Cesare Borgia, from my own screenshot from the pilot episode.  Graphite.

"Marielle"

"Marielle"

I named her after I drew her.  I don't know why but the name just seemed to fit.  She's a pencil sketch I did from my imagination last night while watching television.  I really like sketching while watching TV;  the TV keeps me from over-thinking!

Another 1920s girl sketch

Actually it could be argued that the title of this post is wrong since there are two girls in the sketch.  But the one on the right was the first attempt and didn't look right so....she doesn't count in the title.  I could have Photoshopped her out but I think she's kind of interesting lurking there! 

1920s Girl, WIP

Lately I've been sketching lots of girls from the 1920s.  I think maybe
it's because of the dramatic eyes and lips, and the cute, wavy hairstyles!
This is from my sketchbook.

Romeo and Juliet (and process)

Hi everyone!  I wanted to share a new illustration.  And I'm happy to say I can actually post my process for this piece since I remembered to save the steps as I worked! 

I was dying to do some sort of interpretation of Romeo and Juliet.  You all know I'm hooked on romance!  So I grabbed my sketchbook to do some thumbnails and idea sketches.  One of the ideas kind of "stuck" with me so I scanned it, adjusted it and started working with and revising it.  I included a border design because I've been enjoying using decorative and graphic elements in my art lately.

Scan from my sketchbook

Rough redrawing

Final sketch

The final sketch doesn't have all the details drawn into it because I always get impatient doing too much with a final sketch.  I like deciding what the details will be and then just going for it in the final drawing!

I used a light table to trace the final sketch onto a piece of paper from my sketchbook.  I like the feel of the paper and the graphite drawing wasn't going to be final art anyway, so it didn't matter to me if the paper wasn't of great quality.

Graphite drawing

Then I scanned the graphite drawing into Photoshop, adjusted the lines for lightness/darkness and cleaned up the result.  But I didn't clean it up completely!  I wanted some of the qualities of sketchiness and graphite to remain.  I also transformed the angles and sizes of the heads and faces.

Digitally adjusted pencil drawing

From there I researched colorizing black and white photos in Photoshop.  I've never digitally colored a pencil drawing before and I figured the instructions for colorizing photos would translate as well as anything!  I played around with colors, which I think is the absolute best part of coloring digitally.  You can try whatever you want and not ruin your base art.

Color trials in Photoshop

One thing I tried that worked well for this piece was duplicating the line art layer in Photoshop and pasting it on top of the original one, set to "multiply" and at an opacity of 100%.  It really punched up the line art, which I thought was good since the colored graphite lines didn't look strong enough to me with only one line art layer.  The punched-up line drawing supported the color well too without losing any of the details I liked about the drawing. 

Final colors and details were worked out and rosy cheeks were added.  I also created and added a signature, something I hadn't bothered with earlier.

Final art

I'm really happy with how my "Romeo and Juliet" turned out.  It's about time I did a process post, eh?  I hope you enjoyed it.  As always, thanks for visiting!

Added June 6, 2013:  "Romeo and Juliet" is now available as an art print in my Society6 shop here.

Illustration Friday: "Heights"

"Rapunzel, let down your golden hair!"

My idea for this week's prompt was to illustrate Rapunzel looking down at the prince from the heights of her tower.  Unfortunately I didn't get time to go any farther than this sketch!  I'll finish it though, and add it to the blog when it's done.  The weird circle at the top of the drawing was on the sketchbook page in ink so I couldn't get rid of it.  I figured nobody would ever see this sketch so it wouldn't matter! Anyway, please imagine that circle isn't there and I hope you like the drawing so far.  

First sketch of the prince

Darn naggy art pencil.

Illustration Friday: "Brigade"

Illustration Friday: "Disguise"

Who might this hero be?

Fast sketchbook pencil drawing, scanned

and scribbled on in Photoshop.