This piece, The Goblin Market, is a recent reworking of a piece that I made several years ago, when I was still developing my style with watercolour. It’s inspired by the poem of the same title by the 19th century English poet Christina Rossetti.
Because it’s a Victorian fairy tale, I wanted to make sure my character looked period-appropriate, but that the art itself evoked a nostalgic whimsical setting. I normally start my pieces with rough sketches, but I knew what I wanted to do for this one. I also had the benefit of having my older drawing to reference. So I began the figure sketch and arranged the goblins around her in a way that would encourage the viewer’s eye to move around the piece.
Once the drawing was finished, I began the ink drawing on a clean sheet of watercolour paper, and added a light watercolour wash over the page to add texture. Then I scanned it and added colour digitally in Photoshop. This stage is where I select elements of the piece and start the values of the piece in black and white, and then select areas to colour individually.
How I create…
A FIGURE IN A FOREST
1 Create a rough sketch
This story is from the July 2020 edition of ImagineFX.
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This story is from the July 2020 edition of ImagineFX.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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