Mermaid Illustration for a Birthday Present!

It’s not often I draw mermaids, actually, I’ve never drawn a mermaid before! My cousin Savina got in touch with me as she wanted an art print for her friends birthday. I really enjoyed making the illustration and I would love to do another illustration similar to this in the future!

I thought I would share with you the initial design processes until the final image as I don’t think I’ve ever written about it. There are no photos of how chaotic my work desk can get though! I like the chaotic mess though; I was never a super tidy person to begin with as I sort of thrive from it. By the way, I am a very neat and organised person in general and our house is tidy if you ever do come round!

1. Sketching Down My Ideas

I’ll always start with a rough sketch in my sketchbook so that I can visualise all the parts I need to draw out. I like to draw things in parts- don’t as me why- but I just do! It’s probably so that I can easily redraw a new part without having to sketch the whole thing out again. Savina had already told me what she wanted, which was obviously great, so all I had to do was plan it all out as well as decide what the colour scheme was going to be. I usually work with one sketch and I’ll send it to the client so that they can see where it’s going. It’ll be like a proper squiggly drawing- nothing polished as of yet.

The one thing that really helped me was that she sent me some photos of her friend, so from that I wanted to capture her personality through the print itself.

2. The Drawing Stages

I’ll spend quite a lot of time drawing it all out. It can take from 20 minutes to over an hour depending on the level of detailing that needs to go into the drawing. If it’s a collage, which I do as well, it could probably take longer.

With this illustration I drew out the borders separately so that I can spend more time focusing on each section. The bigger the scale of the drawing is the easier it is- does that make sense? So I rarely use an A5 sketchbook unless I’m going out to do some observational drawings. It’s always A4 and A4 forever it shall be!

Anyway, below are two separate drawings of the border and the banner:

Next, I drew out the mermaid but I wasn’t happy with it as she was slightly out of proportions. Also, Savina asked me to tweak it slightly. I drew the mermaid out again onto tracing paper.

3. Editing it on the Computer

Once I’m satisfied with all the elements I’ll then scan them all into Photoshop and then digitally edited it. I’ll spend time changing the layout and trying out different colour combinations. I knew I wanted different shades of pinks, blues and purples so I decided to go for a watercolour effect for a ‘sea’ effect.

Every part of the stages I’d email Savina back to get her feedback. I think it’s especially important to communicate with your client as you’re going and on both sides being clear with the expectations. The mermaid initially had blue hair but Savina asked me to change it to blonde instead which I think it looks a lot better as she looked slightly ‘lost’ with the background.

4. The Final Stage- One Finished Art Print!

And that’s it! Once Savina was happy it I printed it out for her and sent it off. It took over a couple of days to do, bearing in mind each of the stages weren’t done in one go. I made sure I made a note of the time and dates of how long I’d spent on each of the stages.

If you have any questions about anything do get in touch with me. I would love to hear about your creative processes and whether there are any differences or similarities in the way that we work.

I’m available for private commissions so please feel free to email me at [email protected] specifying the occasion, who is it for and any other requirements. Thanks for reading and take care!

ByJo Cheung

August 22, 2017

Illustration

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Sketchbook Work

Hello, hello! Sorry for the lack of updates as I’m currently on my summer holidays, so I’ve spent much of my time making new artwork and getting my Etsy shop sorted out as it was in need of a new update. It’s been absolutely brilliant having all this time off as it’s means I can concentrate on my art, which I don’t often get!

I thought I’d share with you some of my sketchbook work. If you’re following me over on Instagram you’ll have seen some ink sketches of Mario and more of Mario! I love drawing him; there’s something quite aesthetically pleasing about drawing him! He’s super easy to draw as he lies around all day. Plus, cats rule! I usually don’t work with ink but I gave it a go as I wanted my drawings to be a lot looser and fluid. Don’t get me wrong but I absolutely love drawing with my trusty old pens, however, it’s quite nice to be able to practice using a different medium. So the other day I bought some more Winsor & Newton drawing inks in Veridian and Liquid Indian Ink. I forget how easy they are to use, but not only that, the colours are so intense and vibrant (I don’t always water them down unless I’m layering different colours). I use a paint brush with the inks as I really like the smooth quality you get with it (do use and try out different methods as it depends on what you’re comfortable with using).

Flowers and abstract shapes seems to be a repeating theme throughout my work and I intend to continue with it. I don’t draw from direct observation but instead the process of mark making is more like automatic drawing. So, it’s all from my head basically!

Then I had an obsession with drawing the cats (and it still continues!). I’m not sure with anyone else, but when I’m interested in a subject matter I will literally zone in on it for a couple of days. I like the simplicity of the line drawings as I tried using one colour as a block colour and then drawing the outline with it. But it didn’t look right so I stuck with the line drawings.

Besides the cats I wanted to practice drawing big cats. I was researching Tibetan tigers and Chinese tigers (they looked like they were woodblock prints) as I really love the decorative side to them.

As I said previously about drawing Mario and Toshka, here I decided to add the Indian ink to the drawing (even though I was doubtful at first incase I messed it up). I think it works really well as the black is still quite soft and not too dominant.

… and that’s about it. Now I need to go out and buy another sketchbook as I’ve finished it!

I’ll post some more progress photos as I’m going (when I buy a new sketchbook). I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post and feel free to comment below on your own experiences of using Winsor & Newton inks. Or if you have any other recommendations, painting/drawing techniques I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks again and have a super Monday!

Noel Park Jumble Trail

Last night I was busy making signages for my stall for Noel Park’s first Jumble Trail and I’m really happy with the way they turned out too- nice and simple. I don’t really do hand painted signs that often either so it was quite refreshing to be able to do something slightly new.

I was going to bake a cake for my stall too, but then I decided I was being way too ambitious with the idea so left it at that. Plus, the last time I baked was a distant memory and baking a cake which I’ve never tried out before was probably not a good idea as well.

Some quick ink doodles for my stall.

The finished sign!

I then spent about 30 minutes faffing around with some pom pom and bunting decorations for the outside of the house. When all that was done it started to rain! The weather was a bit rubbish for the first hour or so; I kept on bringing my prints in and out of the house due to the rain, fortunately though, my neighbour from across the road let me borrow her umbrella which was super sweet of her! You can never really trust Google with the weather…

What a lovely way to spend the day meeting my neighbours and generally having a right good old chit chat, as you do! The event for me was more about community spirit, getting to know people from the area, and knowing that your items are going to a good home rather ending up in the bin. The day also prompted some locals who hadn’t signed up for it had spontaneously got out whatever was in their house and made a day of it, which is what I loved about the Jumble Trail.

I’m hoping there’ll be another Jumble Trail in the near future as many of the locals have expressed their interest in another one. Here’s to the kind spirits of Noel Park folks and bring on the jumbley goodness! (Note: for the next one I will have perfected a carrot cake and a Victoria sponge cake).

New Illustrations: Self-Initiated Work

Hello all! I hope you’re all having a super weekend! Poor Mario has been pooing and vomiting for a few days, but it seems like he’s getting so fingers crossed that he recovers soon. I’m not sure why he’s been vomiting as normally it’s the odd hair ball here and there. This time though we think he’s eaten something rotten when he’s been out and now whenever he eats he throws it back up. Today he looks like his usual self although it’s hard to tell as 90% of the time he’s lying around sleeping!

This evening I’ve spent some time developing work from my sketches. I’m really pleased with how they’ve turned out as well as I normally don’t focus much on type and image together, so it’s been really refreshing to do work which is slightly out of my comfort zone.

I particularly like the one above; it just summarises how I’m feeling right now. I’m sure that everyone goes through it: that feeling of impending doom of what you’re going to do career-wise. And it’s pretty stressful as it makes you really freak out about who you are and your identity. Lately it’s been playing on my mind and the more I obsess over it the more I become so super focused about it everything else becomes oblivious. However, I also feel that we as individuals carve out our own paths and lives. In this vast and crazy universe we cross paths with people who will teach us how to be better human beings, guide us to gain more knowledge about an interest, share and exchange knowledge for our own benefits. Somehow we’re all connected to one another like the stars. I believe that I’m in control of my own life and what I want to do I should just do it. You make your own luck is my mantra at the moment.

I need to constantly remember to be kinder to myself and not be so harsh. I feel like this post was an explosion of thoughts that’s been running through my head over the past couple of months. It’s really good to use art as an outlet for this too: get my thoughts together, draw and write them down, come back and revisit it at a later date. Then make a final piece about it is what I’ve been doing lately and I’ll definitely continue to use this process as it’s working well for me.

Thanks so much for reading this and I’d love any feedback about my work!