The Process

I really enjoy when artists post process, or in-progress, snapshots of their work, with descriptions of what motivated them; how they formed the image in their head; how they got that image onto the canvas.  Every once in a while I indulge myself in taking such snapshots of my own schtuff.  Like now!  In the hopes, of course, that it will be enjoyable for someone else, reading this blog. 

Last week I finished my most involved digital painting to date by far, the QUEEN OF WANDS card for the iATC tarot deck project, which took me just about an entire eight hour day to complete from start to finish. It was a super fun, super intense, super FRUSTRATING learning experience, and totally exhausting, and different from anything I'd ever done previously.  All of which was great, and growthful, and an awesome good time. 

I had a very specific idea in my head of what I wanted to create with this card, but I lacked a good model of the image in my head, or real-life people to pose for me.  And of course, ya know... tigers are awfully hard to come by here in Chico!  Even if I could get ahold of one, it's likely I'd have a hard time getting it to sit  still for the eight or more hours it took me to finish my painting anyway. :)~  So photo references are a good thing.

I've been so inspired in my portrait art by the proportions of ball jointed dolls lately, so I started by finding a picture of a ball jointed doll that appealed to me and based the Queen's face and body on that.   If I could remember where I found this image, or the ones that follow, I'd for sure credit the owner/photographer, but I can't.  No copyright infringement is intended!

Then, I found an image online of a woman holding a spear; I think I actually Googled "woman holding stick" and up popped just the right thing!  That image became my photo reference for the Queen's hand; in particular, for how the hand might wrap around a wand.

Last, I Googled "tiger" and "dogwood" and came up with some images for those subjects just as I had for the main figure, her hand, and the wand.  I found these:

Using the magic of Photoshop, I assembled these images into a pleasing arrangement.  Photoshop is really useful for this step of the process, because you can move things around easily without having "committed" to them like you would on paper.  After I achieved a nice balance in my piece in Photoshop, I used that composition as the basis for a hand-drawn pencil sketch.  This one, in fact,which I drew on Bristol board.  It measures 5x7 inches.

Last, I scanned my sketch into Photoshop and used it as the basis for my digital painting.  Most of what I did was hand-drawn using my pen and tablet, but I did use a filter or two, plus some brushes, to create the effects I achieved.  I tend to layer color over my original sketch and then reduce the opacity so that I retain a good amount of my hand-drawn work, rather than coloring OVER it and eradicating it completely. 

I'm really proud of the image overall, but I'm especially proud of the tiger, which felt like a real challenge at the outset, but ended up being one of the most fun things I've ever drawn, all of which was made possible by the very cool airbrush and eraser functions that Photoshop offers, and which wouldn't be available to me in "real life."

Comments

[sarah z]

I'm pretty amazed at this one; you really rocked it out of the park Shel. Great work.

(P.S. My first tiger surprized me too! That was almost 8 years ago, as a present for hubby)

[Shel]

:) Thank you, Sarah. :)

[Debora Hoffmann]

Ooo--neat, neat, neat, Shelli! I love seeing your process. I have Photoshop, but I don't know how to use it...and I don't have one of those nifty pen-and-tablet combos. And, I'm sorely lacking in the camera department (don't want to touch hubby's fancy one!). Sigh. You do beautiful work! Talent oozes from your little finger, my dear. :-)