Quiet: An Illustration In Progress

It’s been a few days since I’ve posted on the blog—I’ve been so busy! Along with client work, a few competitions I’m entering, and personal work, I am also taking an online Skillshare class called Digital Illustration: Communicate with Color, Pattern and Texture taught by Brad Woodard. I signed up for it on a whim (and because the price was discounted!) but it has turned out to be an amazing class, and I’ve already learned a tremendous amount! We are now in Unit 3, and the class ends April 1. I thought I would share some of my process work so far.

Sketches

The assignment is to create an illustration based on either the word “loud” or “quiet”. I chose quiet, and here is a sample spread of the sketches I made:

quiet-process-1

Pen + Ink

After posting the sketches on Skillshare and getting feedback, the fox in the sticks/leaves wreath was the overall favorite. Although there were a lot of votes for the French Press, so I will probably come back to that sketch as a personal project in the future. I then refined the sketch and inked on paper with pen, using varying line weights.

quiet-process-3

Color Palette Tests

I learned a lot from the class lectures about making color palette choices, including color theory, terms, and different tools to make color palettes. I also learned more about color schemes such as monochromatic, analogous, complementary, triadic, and split complimentary. All very fascinating! I used this new knowledge when creating color palette tests on a quick digital drawing of the illustration. At this point, I’m just focusing on choosing a palette, and not worrying about getting all the details of the illustration correct.

quiet-process-2

Refined Digital Illustration and Further Color Experimentation

At this stage, I have finalized the illustration composition and line work, and am refining color choices. I still haven’t completely decided on one option, but am leaning towards the first option. I like the idea of the blue outlines in the bottom two, but don’t think it communicates the “quiet” message quite as well—perhaps too much contrast.

quiet-process-4

Current Piece

So this is where the illustration is currently. Today we have more lectures about pattern and texture, so after that I will be playing around with adding in textures and patterns to the piece. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

quiet-process-5

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