Thanksgiving 2015: Explaining The Drawing Process

Happy Thanksgiving! Due to this important holiday, we are releasing the 2nd issue a bit earlier. And together with this comes a bit of information of the creative process behind every piece.

Manhattan Bridge

So how are these images done?

1. The first step is research and inspiration. I usually go on walks on the city armed with my cell phone. Take a lot of photos from different angles. Once I like a place, I revisit it at least once to try to find the best angle to draw it and take some photos. There is not such thing as too much. Research and get inspired by something as much as you can. Take note of details and things yu can add to your drawing.
2. Then comes a sketch. Draw with pencil the bridge. Don't fear to get it wrong. erase as many times as you want until the full picture start taking shape. To do this I recomend you to start painting the main feature. In this case is the bridge tower, and after you have it totally figured out, start drawing the background. It is very important to take the perspective into account. You can twitch the perspective to draw impossible angles, but the thing is that once you find a perspective, try to stick to it. As this is a drawing, you can move things around, nobody will judge you if you put the empire state a few blocks closer to the Manhattan bridge than it really is, as this is a composition, not a photo. The important thing is to do it consciously. As a final note, don't worry if our sketch is getting damaged for the constant erasing and the pencil.
3. Clean up. This step is to clean the sketch to the final form. To do this, I basically redraw the thing in a brand new piece of paper. This way all the errors and stains from the original sketch won't affect the final product and now we have a final opportunity to twitch it.
4. Line work. Some artists, like me, draw the main lines with a liner marker. This way the solid lines pop up from the page. This is delicate as there is no turning back, so do this carefully and take the time you need.
5. Start coloring. I used colored pencils, but you can use whatever media you want. 
6. Add details. The final product made with colored pencil usually looks flat, so to pop it out of the screen I usually use white ink and black pencil with the highlights and the shadows. This is a very good way to really pull attention to the points you want to. Include also other details, for example in this drawing, the falling leaves of the trees. Also, it is much easier to draw the original backgrounds and then the small details. Artists usually try to reduce this to a minimum because they feel they are just covering up their hard work, but this is totally worth it.

That's it! I hope you all find this useful on your drawings. remember, imagination is the key.

Now  bit video of the evolution of the featured piece using these steps..

and here is a gif for you...

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