Today I followed along with Jazza on Skillshare in his Illustration course, which provides tips and techniques for creating traditional illustrations.

Overall I enjoyed the videos, though much of the information included things which I already do for my illustrations. However it is still useful for myself and many others, and it was nice to be able to follow along by creating my own artwork. It helped push me through the parts when I became uncertain or wasn't happy with what I was drawing.

The piece I created shows a girl sitting inside by a window. She's listening to music with her cat sleeping next to her, and relaxing on a quiet day indoors. There wasn't anything in particular which sparked this prompt, but I suppose the current situation of lock-down and  staying inside probably had some influence. Personally for myself, I'm more of an introvert and happy to stay inside or be by myself. I think this piece reflects that a bit.

I wanted to keep an overall warm tone as I feel it creates a homely/cozy feeling for this piece.I also tried to match most of the colours to something else in the piece. For example the girl wears green and blue, and has orange hair. You can find these colours elsewhere in the drawing (outside, the table cloth, and the cat). I also kept the girl and the beanbag as the more vibrant features in the artwork, as to drawn focus to them and contrast them from the more muted background.

I'm happy with the result and the feel/emotion of the piece. Some of the colours were a bit difficult to get right with my limited range of markers which are mostly low on ink... but I think I did well to get around any troubles I had. 

Below you can see my progress images including sketches and colour trials.

You can also view them on my Art Station account (as I'm unsure how the layout will work on SkillShare):

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kDNbZK

My initial sketched revolved around the idea of "a girl relaxing with her cat". I did a few sketches for the girl, attempted some sketches for her position, the cat, and briefly decided on the background featuring the window and the beanbag. 

 

 My thumbnail sketches were somewhat linear, as each drawing I figured out what I didnt like from the previous one. I wasnt satisfied with my first four, so continued onto two more refined sketches, deciding on the final pose and composition.

I sketched the drawing onto my marker paper, and inked the illustration with black fine liner pens. I was rather happy with it at this stage.

The colour trials were the most fun part for me, as I felt there was a lot i could do with it which would affect the atmosphere of the artwork. Overall there were elements from all four that I liked. Some of these main things were the girls orange hair with the cat matching, sticking to a smallish range of colours, and trying to keep the girl in contrast with the area behind her so that she stood out more.

 

The final artwork! I'm happy with how it turned out. I feel like maybe I could have kept going and kept pushing things further, but I would have risked muddying up elements that I wanted to keep neat and simple. Overall I think it went well though, and I enjoyed the process of making this illustration.

:)