A Drawing a Day 2012: Draped Profile
Posted by trev | Filed under Moleskine, Sketchbook
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Tags: A Drawing a Day 2012, daily planner, Kuretake No. 13 Brush Pen, Moleskine, PITT Big Brush Pen, Sketchbook, woman
A Drawing a Day 2012: Sleepy
Posted by trev | Filed under Moleskine, Sketchbook
Tags: A Drawing a Day 2012, daily planner, Kuretake No. 13 Brush Pen, Moleskine, PITT Big Brush Pen, Sketchbook, woman
A Drawing a Day 2012: Chiaroscuro
Posted by trev | Filed under Moleskine, Sketchbook
Tags: A Drawing a Day 2012, daily planner, Moleskine, PITT Big Brush Pen, sharpie, Sketchbook, woman
A Drawing a Day 2011: Black Coat
Posted by trev | Filed under Moleskine, Sketchbook
Tags: A Drawing a Day 2011, daily planner, Moleskine, pentel brush pen, PITT Big Brush Pen, Sketchbook, woman
A Drawing a Day 2011: Woman in Black
Posted by trev | Filed under Moleskine, Sketchbook
Tags: A Drawing a Day 2011, black, daily planner, Moleskine, pentel brush pen, PITT Big Brush Pen, Sketchbook, woman
Rough Bookmarks
Posted by trev | Filed under Preliminary Drawings
The drawings above were the final rough drawings of the bookmarks I posted yesterday.
For each bookmark, I did dozens of rough drawings, playing around with different poses and compositions. The narrow dimensions of these drawings definitely provided some challenges, as it took some time to work out a layout that would work to my satisfaction.
During this stage the drawings generally start out really rough, sometimes amounting to no more than a bunch of scribbles. As I start getting comfortable with the the foundations of the drawing, the roughs get more and more refined until I have a drawing that is pretty close to what I want (see the drawings above).
Once I get the rough drawings where I want them, I use a lightbox to trace the drawings in pencil onto bristol board. This part of the process is a little more difficult than it would seem because it is not easy to get the same kind of energy that existed in the original sketch when you trace it. Often times, the trace can look lifeless and dull, so I try to re-sketch it rather than simply trace it. Fortunately, at this stage, I don’t need the pencil drawing to be perfect, it just need serve as a guide for when I ink it.
Despite my oft stated love for the Pentel Pocket Brush pen, I generally prefer to use the real thing when inking. The Pentel is great for mobility because it can be a hassle to carry ink and water everywhere when I want to draw with a brush. However. when I am at home, nothing beats a brush. I used a Winsor Newton Series 7 Number 2 brush to ink these drawings. It’s a great brush that can give you a nice variation of line and hold a decent amount of ink. The finished ink drawings are below.
I then scan the drawings into Photoshop where I adjust the levels to get a nice black and what image. I also touch up little bits of the linework and make any minor corrections that are needed. When the linework is where I want I begin to add color. I always start out with flat colors, but I did add some gradients in the backgrounds to give them a little something-something. For the finishing touch, I add a subtle texture overlay to give the illustrations more of a “lived in” kind of feel.
And that’s pretty much it! The bookmarks were then laid out in Illustrator and were ready to print. One final note, the astronaut is show here right side up, but was always intended to be upside down. It just turned out that it was easier to draw him this way and then flip him in the final file.
Tags: astronaut, bookmark, brush, drawings, free art, free art show 2011, Illustration, illustrator, ink, photoshop, pirate, process, rough drawings, winsor & newton series 7, woman
Read, Dammit. Read!
Posted by trev | Filed under Illustration
Last week, I posted my contributions to the 2011 Free Art Show (see here, here and here). Those brush and ink drawings represented one half of my contribution. The second half involved the bookmarks that you see above.
When coming up for ideas for the show, I thought it would be fun to come up with a series of bookmarks that promoted reading in a fun way. After playing around with headlines that were a bit less “family-friendly,” I finally settled on a unifying theme of “Read, Dammit. Read!”
The illustrations for the bookmarks were created in brush and ink and were colored in Photoshop. I made digital prints of the bookmarks. For the Free Art Show, I created five prints each of the three bookmarks.
This was definitely a fun little project to work on, and the early feedback I’ve been getting has been very gratifying. I have already started thinking about extending this series by adding some bookmarks in the future.
If you are around Newburyport or Portsmouth this month, keep an eye out for a Free Art box and some of my pieces!
Tags: astronaut, bookmark, brush, color, dammit. read!, free art, free art show 2011, Illustration, illustrator, ink, newburyport, photoshop, pirate, portsmouth, read, woman
Free Ink
Posted by trev | Filed under Sketchbook
As I mentioned in my last post, I am participating in Free Art 2009. The image above is one of a handful of original ink drawings that I submitted this year.
Tags: brush, coffee, free art, free art 2009, ink, wash, woman
