Here is my contribution to a book that my extended family is giving to my Nana on her 90th birthday. It also happens to be an appropriate illustration for the latest Illustration Friday topic: Wise. Who could be wiser than a woman about to turn 90?! She's certainly the wisest individual I know personally (and one of the kindest.)This started out as a very loose sketch done in marker. I like the loose quality of the line because it looks confident and helps to give the illustration "life." Sketches often look better than final artwork for this very reason (in my opinion at least.)
The illustration evolved quite a bit. I made several modifications to Nana's face, which while on the surface may seem subtle, gives her a more natural and friendly facial expression (which looks more life the Nana we all know and love.)
It probably took me less than an hour to sketch/clean up/tweak and close to 20 hours to color, but that is a complete guess. I'm probably way off. One of these days I'll accurately time myself to see how long it actually takes to create one of these things. I'm pretty happy with the results, especially since I'm using a new, digital painting technique (for me) and don't have the benefit of using one of those nifty (but expensive) tablets and pressure-sensitive pens. I think I effectively pulled off the look of a pen & ink drawing colored with watercolor paints in Photoshop.
Hope Nana enjoys being immortalized as a cartoony version of herself. I know she'll be pleased that I used Newfound Lake in Bristol, NH for the background. She and our whole family have many fond memories of that area.
8 comments:
John -
I think it looks great! Anyone who knows her, would know it's a caricature of Nana.
It always amazes me how different and exciting the look is between the original sketch and the finished colorized product. You did a great job giving it a water color and textured appearance. The color variation and shading on the face and clothing give it sculptured or 3D appearance and the water, mountains, sand and sky are really nice. I am sure Nana will love it and the memories it brings back.
Great job...
- BW
Thanks BW for all the praise! I'm mostly happy with it, which if often a rare sentiment I have about my work. It is true that most artists are their harshest critics.
I'm more excited than ever about this new coloring process. It's fun and relatively quick to build up shadows and highlights using Photoshop's Brush too.
I do a form of glazing; building up tones by varying the opacity of the digitial paint so that the other colors can show through. It's exciting that using this technique can produce results that come very close to simulating watercolor and acrylic paint effect/textures.
I'm looking forward to using a variation of this digital paiting technique on my next project: a new, program cover for the Portsmouth Recreation Dept. This time it's dinosaurs playing sports! I'm really excited about the subject matter. I start stetching thumbnails today to work out the composition and poses. There are too many cool dinos to choose from! I'll probably feature around 6 of the great lizards on the cover.
It was worth the wait! I like the sketchy ink line (though I see you wisely cleaned it up a bit for the final). The digital color is handled in a manner that compliments the line (it's not computery "slick"). The shading is effective (especially in the face and shirt).
My favorite bit is the rendering of the background. The reflection on the water is really convincing. There's also a neat 3D effect occurring, caused by the heavier outline used for the Nana caricature compared to the background.
Thanks for the kind words Robert. Glad it was worth the wait. I hadn't intended on spending as much time on it as I did, but I'm glad I became inspired. This was the most fun I've had in a while working on an illustration.
I enjoyed working looser and gained a lot of insight into how to make that digital painting technique work better. I think the line art and digital paint are more cohesive in this piece than in the one of my aunt's cat. Though I still like that piece better than some of my others.
Finally, I get to replace another ancient website illustration with a new one! I may tweak the Hulk-leg illustration and put it on my website as well. Goodbye old, Rec. cover!
She looks pretty hip for an old gal!
What a lovely story and portrait. How lucky to have a wise and kind woman in your life. Happy Bday Nana!
What a fun tribute...yeah, she's totally wise, you can tell!
Superb! What a lucky Nana...and lucky you, too. Fabulously assured work. Love it!
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