Thursday, February 25, 2010

My process for the illustration Propagate

By popular demand here is my process for the Propagate Illustration posted earlier this week.
My process is not always exactly the same. But I think that this post will give you a good idea of the way my illustration are created.

At first, when I receive the topic, I do some research about the word and all his variations. I search the word in the dictionary, read quotes with it, and try to find themes that fit with the word. While I'm doing this research, I sketch some ideas in my sketchbook. I do a lot of thumbnails with different ideas and different compositions. Here is one of the pages of my sketchbook.




Then I select the final idea and the final composition of my illustration and blow it up. I use this sketch as a base for the rest of the illustration because I want to keep the movement and composition that the small thumbnail has.


Then I do a lot of image research. I look in different books and websites for vintage images of birds, of eyes, of profile, etc. I then select and place the images on my sketch.

Once I'm satisfied with the look of the collage, I print the images on a bristol and take my micron and inks. I ink the every element that needs to be drawn. In this case, I rework the eyes, the wings, the body, the clouds, the beaks and the border.


I then scan the image and clean up everything. This is my final sketch.

Then, I take a moment to think about the colors, texture and overall feeling I want to give to the piece. For this illustration, I wanted a textured background, with lots of blues and colored birds.
For the background, I did a texture with acrylics and scanned it.


Then I put all the elements together and filled every element with the right color.

And voilĂ  !
All done
I hope this post helps you have a better understanding of my illustration process.
Feel free to ask me any questions, you might have.

4 comments:

Christine Clemmensen said...

Thank you for sharing this :-) It was wonderful to see your process

Kelley said...

I agree! With so many different ways to "process" or work through your art it's always nice to see what others do too :)

Thanks for sharing.

BigEyes World said...

Love the result and to be able to see the process!

Kathy De Wit said...

Very nice how you want to show us your kind of illustrating! Want to give you something since shortly I'm a big fan of your work.
You are welcome on my blog to discover Carolina!
x Kathy

 
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