That Red Head from the Weekend

That Read Head from the Weekend - drawing by Graham Smith

That Girl with Spiky Hair - process video

Colored pencils, ink, and china marker on brown kraft paper. 18 x 24. by Graham Smith

Detail

Drawing Caruso - pen and ink tips

Caruso for Worth Magazine by Graham Smith

Drawing Caruso from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

I'm super lucky to illustrate the 20 Questions interview portrait for Worth Magazine, Art Directed by Valerie Sebring. 

Always trying to improve the illustration process, I've tried many different ways to ink these portraits.

I've inked directly over the blue pencil sketch in Drawing Petra Nemcova - a totally traditional approach, used a light box to draw the ink over a blue pencil sketch in Inking Duncan Quinn- adding a common studio technique, and inked on vellum in Beer for Data, trying to switch up the medium. 

This time, I try a new trick-of-the-trade, printing the pencil sketch on watercolor paper, and inking over that. It works really well, so I thought I'd share the technique with my inky friends on the interwebs. You can see a quick example in the video Drawing Caruso.

The funny thing is, all these techniques result in the same look, an inked portrait over a blue line sketch. There are so many ways to achieve the same effect.

Do you have any tricks-of-the-trade you'd like to share? Let me know in the comments below.

Ink detail - 140lb cold pressed watercolor paper

Pencil sketch on Strathmore paper

Pencil sketch detail

G.

Draw something everyday!