A drawing from the summer with all of its preliminary sketches

So I thought it would be interesting to do this, since I've seen it on other artists' blogs and I always enjoyed looking at it. These are all the preliminary sketches to one of the drawings I did over the summer. I'll put it in chronological order so you can see the development to the final product.




here is the very first sketch where I was trying to quickly log the idea in my sketchbook. Often ideas for drawings pop into my head as quick flashes of inspiration, so I try to capture the idea of what I saw in that quick instant by getting the basic idea on the page to the point where I can remember the details.


That's a rather phallic jellyfish but whatever.






















The next sketch was for the boat. I decided it should be a caravel, just because I liked the triangular form of the sails. I based my sketch from a drawing I found in a book called "The Book of Old Ships and Something of Their Evolution and Romance." It was lying around in my brother's room.


















Here is the pencil sketch.
























Next is the jellyfish. I looked at lots of pictures and videos of jellyfish. I wanted to combine elements from all different kinds into something that was grotesquely organic but also perhaps strangely beautiful. I may have just gotten down the grotesque part but I find to also be aesthetically pleasing. The sketch almost ended up being a complete drawing by itself.














After inking the boat and the jellyfish, I was stuck on how I was going to make this scene look like it was underwater. It is tricky to draw a void with something like a pen which only makes marks and lines. I wanted to capture the effect of shimmering light at the top and a denser darkness at the bottom where the deeper water began. I was being cautious so I printed several copies of what I had of the drawing and tested things like horizontal and vertical lines and stippling.














I ended up deciding on cross-hatching and tried to manipulate negative and positive space. I nearly cross-hatched myself crazy with this drawing. Here is the completed project and a link (if you copy an paste it) to see it larger. I have named the boat "The Albatross" in reference to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I'm thinking that I may eventually make some sort of comic out of this, and this would be a splash page.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/52063497@N04/5317769857/sizes/l/in/photostream/

-NB