Finally after feeling unwell over the last three days I’m much better today and ready to share a post about process of creating my illustrations. When I thought about that process it reminded me a lot of cooking so I decided to represent this post as if I were writing a recipe.
So here it is: a recipe for an illustration, a one in particular called:

Just as in a real recipe first we need to start with the main ingredients for our dish, in this case the main ingredients for an illo are wolf, tree and candy. Here you can see a photo of original drawings:

After that we put our main ingredients into a nice big pot i.e. we scan them into computer, into a software of our choice and start cooking them (coloring and then composing into one big piece.)
First I colored tree and Wolf and composed them into a 4000x4000px canvas in Photoshop:

I colored candy separately…

… and then composed into a piece as well:

Just like any good meal needs some seasoning so do my illustrations need that extra something by which I mean some extra patterns, textures or backgrounds. Usually when I don’t feel inspired to draw I sketch abstract shapes or make textures that I later add to my illustrations. For example:

After adding some textures and extra layers and maybe tweaking colors and contrast a bit , illustration is pretty much done and all it needs a little story to accompany it.

Wolf finds a Candy Tree

On one of his relaxing walks through the woods Wolf came across a real, genuine Candy Tree! You can imagine his surprise and overwhelming feeling of bliss when he stumbled across such a rare treasure. He starred at it in awe thinking: “Oh, a real Candy Tree! What a precious find! So much candy to pick and all for me, I must be the luckiest beast in the entire forest!” After enjoying this magnificent sight Wolf hurried to get a huge basket and a ladder so he can pick the candy and eat them all by himself share them with his friends.

I hope you liked my recipe for an illustration!
Bon Appetit

“Lucky garden”, 70×50 cm, mixed media
This is a second collaboration with Arlen Dean (Alkaline Samurai on flickr), it was very fun making it. It was Arlen’s idea to get a big poster paper and first add some abstract colorful paper cut outs and then draw around them.

I’m not on my vacation anymore, so I’m looking forward to catching up with your blogs as soon as I can. Have a wonderful week everyone!

Cat is having an abstract thought and doesn’t know how to share it with his feline friend.
On the other hand, I had no abstract thoughts today just many specific ideas on how to spend beautiful weekend (and national holiday) that is ahead of us.
Have a great Friday!