Carla is a drawing that started off as a sketch a few montha ago. Inspired by a song by one of my favorite bands, Presidents of the United States of America.
Here, how about some mood music?
I was sitting at the airport, headed for San Diego but close enough to Los Angeles to get the song stuck in my head.
So, with pen and paper in hand, I drew this rough sketch. I wasn't sure what I was drawing, but I was pleased at how she came out.
Over the months I keep coming back to her and reworked color and style. Originally, I toyed with her having the orange hair, like in the song. However, I am not too sure I liked it.
Mayyyybe???
Shrug
I kinda dig the orange, I do... but ultimately, I decided that she was contemplating putting on the clothes and calling, she probably would color her hair for her new beginnings.
Of course, that is my story line for her.
I tend to use digital editing, for a number of reasons. The main one is that it is cheaper to color, the way I like.
With acrylic paints I tend to do layer over layer over layer without any real plan. This can sometimes end up with 30 layers or so and that doesn't always bode well for a professional piece. Too much paint, especially with acrylics, I have found to create a lumping or cracked appearance.
This piece was a lot of fun and I played around with it a lot more than I probably would normally. As you can tell, there were a few alterations.
I use a number of programs to make alterations. The reason this one is so colorful is that I used Pixlr and UltraPop Pro, which offer a wide variation of colored filters.
Once I got to the shading and lines done by hand, I used multiple filters. When I got to this next look, I liked it and finished the rest by hand using the doodle feature on Pixlr.
The edit caused some of the shading to be lost, so I highlighted by hand, again with Pixlr.
Theres this, which turned into...
I like them both. The first, I think us put together more. The second,she seems a little beat up.
I don't know. Maybe she's not done at all.
This, for me... becomes the biggest challenge with digital art. I never know when to stop...
That sounds like a bigger problem in life...
We can save that for another time!
