Girl Fridays

This week I decided to keep a record of my process, as I figure some might be interested in this sort of thing. I usually really enjoy seeing how artists go about creating their work.

When I'm doing a drawing such as this I generally make a quick gestural sketch to block out the forms, either from my imagination or with the aid of a photograph. In this particular case I used a photograph that I found somewhere online. When sketching the form I keep the photograph very small on my monitor, not much bigger than thumbnail size - this keeps me focused on getting the rough shapes down and not being distracted by rendering detail. Looseness and vitality is more important than accuracy.



The next stage is one of the most important: PUT THE PHOTO AWAY. Once I have the rough gesture drawing complete I have little use for the photograph - I trust my own previous study and understanding of anatomy to fill in the details. I start to stylize the shapes, exaggerate and smooth out the curves. I change most of the superficial details, in this case her hair and style of bikini, and made the foreshortening on her legs more pronounced. I also add elements when necessary - while they were not visible in the original photograph, I added hands to the drawing to avoid the appearance of her being an amputee. Photographs can be an essential reference tool but my own personal belief is that it is rather artless to reproduce them exactly, and doing so can lead to stiff, lifeless drawings.



In the past, the above stages were drawn with marker on separate sheets of paper, however now I use a Wacom Cintiq graphics tablet and Photoshop to do the roughs. This allows me to use multiple digital layers to refine the drawing instead of wasting paper. Once the digital drawing is complete, I then print it out and use a lightbox to do a final inked version. I still prefer inking with pen on paper rather than going 100% digital as I have a greater control of the pen and I enjoy having the physical piece of artwork which I can keep or sell. I ink with Faber-Castell Pitt brush markers and Staedtler Pigment Liners on white bond paper. I almost never use pencil, as I like to keep the drawing as clean as possible.




Finally I scan the inked drawing and add digital colour in Photoshop. I'm the first to admit I'm not the best colour artist and this particular piece was dashed off rather quickly, so forgive me!




This entire process from start to finish took about an hour and a half. And that's that!