Hands and Face Illustration Process

This is my latest illustration: a hands and face piece. I pretty much knew right away what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. I do most of my artwork in Gouache, so that would be the medium. I had seen a photo months before that I really liked, so I decided to use that. The photo is of Jake Snider, singer and guitar player in Minus the Bear.

Since this was assigned as a monochromatic piece, I felt that Prussian Blue would suit the mood of the band and the figure quite well, and would also be able to capture the stark changes in value.

We were also told to add an outside element, something not in our reference material, to enhance the piece. Being that I was using a musician, I figured it made sense to use lyrics from a song as a background, splatter like element. The type would be done with water soluble pencil.

Originally, the picture was completely black with only the figure illuminated, I changed this of course, but left all the light patters more or less intact. I think the sense of light direction and the several sources are still believable.

-I started with some thumbnails to drum out my composition, and moved on to a rough color study (seen below.)

-then I moved on to final pencils on Strathmore Illustration Board, 8x10 live area























-from there, I could start to lay in my base tones and get a sense of how the darks and lights would compliment and contrast.




































-after some painting, the piece starts to come together (sorry for the weird color temperature, my apartment is not a suitable studio.)





































-and then the finish




































In total, about 5 hours was spent on the final painting. Thanks to the awesome instruction of my illustration teacher, Rich Kryczka, I feel this painting was pretty successful.

(I'm using Windsor Newton & Holbein Gouache and a Windsor Newton Series 7 #4 round brush)