Parrot Paradise Illustration

Photo-Illustration Mixed Media, combination between painting & photography. 

Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter were used in the creation of this image. 

Here is a parrot illustration that I've been working on and some notes below on my artistic creative process for completing this image.  (More on the process below)

This started with a really rough colored pencil sketch just to put an idea down on paper. 

work_on_progress

I wanted a waterfall, mountains in the distance and a tropical landscape. From my rough sketch for blocking, I start filling in the details, using Corel Painter and a Microsoft SurfaceBook Pro. This digital tool and wacom stylus pen, feels the most natural to me. I painted it for a long time to reach the point where it reads "underpainting" up above. I have to say, that I did all the initial drawing from my minds eye, meaning I did not use any reference photographs for proportions or anything. I enjoy working on drawings from my mind's eye, however sooner or later the art piece reaches a point wher eI can look at it more critically. Once I'm done playing with "paint" - Its digital acrylic paint. This is a relatively new process because I literally have a storage shed full of old canvas and paper drawings, at this point i my life if I don't need to store "stuff" its good. This is why I really appreciate working in digital media. 

Next, I bring the painted image into Photoshop. Here is where it turns into more of a hybrid process. Sometimes, I simply cut up photographs and use them instead of a drawing, or overlay portions of photographic imagery in order to get proper texture and depth onto an illustrative block of color. For the birds, I hand-painted a few feathers and then was able to duplicate and transform each of the feathers into position. It was at this point that I pulled up a reference photograph of real birds so I could make my parrots look more realistic. The bird began to take on a new appearance, despite that I had spent hours making the underpainting bird, its proportions were not entirely accurate. 

At some point, I decided that the small bird in the middle was too distracting to keep in the final image, but then realized I still visually wanted something there, so I settled on some bright pink stargazer florals to draw the eye.

I'm still playing around with this image, but it has come much closer to completion than it was with my initial pencil sketch. 

It's been raining & raining in the Pacific Northwest, which means I have been working on creating a happy, tropical paradise image involving flying parrots. You can see the progression on this piece, from the initial-colored pencil sketch to the color blocking and the final much closer to finished image at the top. This one is a combo of watercolor pencil, digital stylus pen on a Microsoft SurfaceBook using Corel Painter & then all the finishing and texturizing done in Adobe Photoshop. In the end, its a mix of digital paint, drawing & photographs blended together.. #adobephotoshop #painter #sketching #sketchbook #illustrationartists