This year the piece is titled 'Pinecones'. Below I'll show the step-by-step of creating the art.
The inspiration came from a photograph (actually a series of 4 photos) of some pinecones outside our vet's office the last time we had to take Coco in. I liked the shapes and negative spaces they formed, and thought when I took the photos 'these would be good for archer mice to stand atop as they scout and rain arrows down on their foes'.
I also looked at a few Illustrations by Russian artist Ivan Bilbin for textile & border patterns to use in my piece.
I also looked at a few Illustrations by Russian artist Ivan Bilbin for textile & border patterns to use in my piece.
I drew the mouse who was to be in the pinecone & needle terrain on copy paper. I wanted her to have a fur cloak and a tall fur hat blowing in the breeze. For her to feel somewhere between Russian and Norse. I drew the pattern on the dress once, and then in Photoshop repeated it and warped it to fit the contours of the fabric, and I did a similar thing to warp a pencil drawing for the flowing panel with the border pattern on it.
On yet another sheet of copy paper, I used my photo reference to draw the pinecones and needles behind her, but then I just gave up and slotted in more of the photos (masked out to show as much of her as possible) for the foreground she's standing on.
Then I print out the above composition. Because of it's size I have to print it in two parts and then tape them together. That whole printout is then taped to the backside of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my Huion lightpad I can ink the piece on the surface of the bristol while still seeing my 'pencil' lines on the printout below.
I inked this with my Copic Multiliner SP pens (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs). There was a LOT of repetitive forms in the needles, and seeing clearly what bits of white paper were the inside of needles and which were negative spaces was a real struggle.
When the inks were done, I scanned those back into photoshop to start the coloring. The first part of that is called 'flatting' where I establish what color everything is and where those areas end with flat un-textured colors. Like, professional coloring-in-the-lines. I also established some color-holds (areas where I want the ink work to be a color other than black) like the background cones and needles as well as all the patterning on her clothes.
I'd made most of my color choices when I was compositing the pencil drawings, so this step was rather procedural.

'Pinecones' will be released and made available for purchase in my online store at the start of my March ONLINECON event April 6-10
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