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WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?
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| LOTS OF LEGAL PAPER is required for the rough notes I make about possible situations, island characters, catchy phrases, tropical drink recipes and a few items that need to be picked up at the grocery store. First step, go buy the legal paper. |
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At long last, discover the compelling secrets behind becoming a successful, jet-setting artist who paints tropical scenes of escape and inebriated parrots. You too can learn to be an artist by just following these simple steps. Here I demonstrate how I painted CARIBBEAN SOUL'S 20TH ANNIVERSARY illustration. Yes, it's been 20 years of creating artwork and it all had to be distilled down into a 2 sided shirt illustration. |
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THE MOST DIFFICULT PART of starting an illustration is getting the idea. Figuring out the visual story that's going to be told in the image requires lots of deep thought, wining and dining on the town, frequent beach excursions and a couple of naps to recuperate from all the thinking. |
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ALL THOSE NOTES are then distilled down into a series of rough pencil sketches. An early sketch is shown below left. Details such as composition, color notes, type are worked out until a final black & white comp that looks right is achieved. Leftover bits of ideas are saved to incorporate into possible future artwork. Reference material has to be gathered to accurately represent various items such as seaplanes, vintage typography of the era and any other items that require an authentic look. At lower right is the final sketch ready for color. |
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EARLY ROUGH SKETCH
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FINAL PENCIL CONCEPT
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THE SKETCH IS THEN ENLARGED and traced onto a full size art board where a final tight outline of the elements is lightly visible. A sticky film is applied to the art known as Frisket. Using a sharp knife, the frisket is cut away (below) exposing parts of the sketch. These exposed areas will be sprayed with an airbrush with the desired colors. |
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WITH SELECTED AREAS OF FRISKET REMOVED, the exposed area is sprayed with a light undercoat of yellow to "warm up" the tone of the piece. This is a technique similar to oil painting where the first step is applying an underpainting to the canvas. The artwork is completed sections at a time, preferably from top to bottom to avoid smearing the delicate sprayed areas. I use opaque watercolors so sweaty palms or sneezing fits can cause problems! |
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DETAILING BEGINS on the painted area. This is the "tightening up" stage with colored pencils or small brushes. To get the effect of feathers on the parrot, a red colored pencil is used to add sharp edges that give the look of layered feathers. As I move on to different sections of the painting, this same tightening process is used. |
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WITH SMALL AREAS DETAILED, sections of the painting are given a coat of overspray. In this case, more red is added to the feathers to enrich the colors and add contrast. The pencil detail shows through since the spray is semi-transparent. |
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FRISKET OVERLAY IS REMOVED to see just how bad a job was done. With so much frisket and overspray, it can be difficult to judge just exactly what happened here! With the frisket peeled away, the moment of truth has arrived and it doesn't look so bad after all. If needed, more brush and pencil work will be added to finish this section of the painting and I'll move on to begin another area. |
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AFTER A BRIEF NAP, I start working on other areas of the painting, working from top to bottom. More frisket is applied, areas sprayed, colors mixed and the next thing ya know, it's time for lunch. |
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AT THIS POINT IN TIME, it's about a week later and the painting is almost completed. Various areas of the art are touched up, edges sharpened, bits of color added here and there. I'm already thinking about the next project and how to begin on that one. New groups of illustration for Caribbean Soul are due for release 3 times a year so there is no down time between artwork! |
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THE ENTIRE PAINTING is now ready to go the separator where the art will be scanned to create films.Those films are used in the silkscreening process enabling the printer to transfer the image to a shirt.
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