Monday, July 13, 2009

Wacky Days of Summer

Spent part of the day working on different techniques for my portfolio. I did this sketch in Photoshop using my Wacom Tablet. I printed out the sketch and using my light table, I inked it onto Arches 140 lb. hot-press watercolor paper with black india ink and a crow-quill pen. I then painted the characters, cast shadows and grass with watercolor and a little colored pencil for texture. I scanned the illustration back into Photoshop and knocked out the white background. Working in layers, I added flowers which is a pattern I pulled from one of my digital surface designs. Behind that I added a digital blue background and added the clouds.

I like being able to combine traditional illustration with digital. Saves time, for sure, but also gives you freedom to really play around without destroying any original artwork. I just noticed how many dogs I've posted on my blog lately. Can't help it....one of my favorite animals to draw!!

3 comments:

Tom Barrett said...

wow, that's quite a bit of work. Looks great!

One of the few I've read about that's made a complete circle from digital, to traditional, and back to digital!

Deb said...

Hey tom, thank for your comment... I never thought of it that way. A circuitous route for sure! I actually did a digital version for the color, but it ended up taking alot longer than just painting in watercolor. I tend to fuss too much with the digital, but with the watercolor, you have to work faster and just let the mistakes be part of the character of the illustration.

Vincent Juanes said...

Hi Deb, Beautiful blog, your animals (dogs!!!) are really pretty! Regards!