Marker Illustration

[thagandizzle]

I got a set of Ohuhu markers off of Amazon about a month ago. I've used them to add accents to watercolors, but coloring with markers isn't really something I ever did much, so I'm still not 100% comfortable with using them.

So, in the spirit of drawing the tree earlier today, I decided to do an illustration (which is a type of art I don't usually do!) in marker with flowers (gnk!!) and a paisley background (GRNNNK!) with white gel pen--another tool I've used to add occasional highlights in watercolors, but not for anything else.

And I'm not mad at it! I like how the marker coloring went, overall. I thought I'd ruined it completely about 500 different times, but I just colored over it with my base color until I blended everything pretty much to oblivion. I did a very basic gradient from a darker green to a lighter green on the background. Then, because I love punishing myself, I did a gel pen paisley. I have never done a paisley before. I am not good at, like, patterns and things. But, again, not mad at it! It's bright and colorful and looks pretty good! Since the self-flagellation wasn't complete, I also did flowers. I'm a little mad at the flowers? I don't know. They're ok. I didn't really want to be very detailed with them--I wanted to keep a pretty flat-colored illustrative quality to them to contrast with the comparatively more elaborate shading of her face. I don't know if it worked? Whatever. I did flowers and I only, like, 15% hate them so I'm counting it as a win.

Click to enlarge!


Print available via Deviantart

Comments

markers

[oldtoadwoman]

You've reminded me that I need to play with my alcohol markers again. (They got stacked at the bottom of my art supply stack when I was cleaning a few weeks ago. And then I was experimenting with the watercolor markers instead.) The thing I've enjoyed experimenting with is alcohol markers as the base color and then colored pencil on top for detail work. When someone else suggested it, I was dubious, but the two media play together nicely. Although you've done really well blending out that shading on the face with markers alone. My marker work still tends toward streaky (which is why I need to practice more).

Re: markers

[thagandizzle]

I definitely would like to play with them some more! I found on my swatch sheet that just layering the hell out of them tended to help both with blending and with avoiding streakiness. I colored the whole face with the lightest skin tone I was using and gradually added darker shades and the blush tone and, after each addition, I just colored the ever-living crap over everything with the lightest tone's chisel tip to blend. It worked ok, but every time I added anything I seriously thought I'd ruined the whole thing!

Even then, the blending isn't completely instantaneous? Like, it seems like it's only blending a little bit, but I guess the moisture in the marker works its magic and the edges soften over the next minute or so. I would definitely like to play with it some more!

Re: markers

[oldtoadwoman]

Oh, I hadn't even thought of that, but you're right, there's a delay that messes with your head. And sometimes the colors change a little bit as it dries too. The real world isn't supposed to have lag!

Re: markers

[thagandizzle]

The real world isn't supposed to have lag! PREACH.

[tjoel2]

Nice! Love the background, which looks like Zentangle to me. :)

[thagandizzle]

Haha! Thanks! :) Randomly drawing paisleys and filling in the gaps with little lines is probably not that dissimilar from zentangle when you really get right down to it!

[tjoel2]

Exactly! Nice work. :)