Mail Me Maybe?

Happy Friday!

Apologies for not posting for a few weeks. No, Free Textures Friday hasn't been cancelled. I just had to pause it for a little while due to the need to focus on a few other projects first. It shall resume next Friday and the theme will be "diverse denim".

Kay, but today I'll show you a few process steps for my latest little illustration I call "Mail Me Maybe?"

One of my fellow illustrators - Patrick Wong {his site here}- told me about this show happening in New York at the A.I.R. Gallery which I couldn't help but want to submit something into. The show is called "Wish You Were Here 12" and here's a little bit about it from their website:

Artists & Friends of A.I.R. Gallery:
We invite you to participate in our yearly benefit postcard show:
Wish You Were Here 12: June 27 - July 21, 2013 Reception: Thursday, June 27th, 6 - 8:30 pm
Last year's exhibit featured work by over 400 artists from as far afield as Australia and Guyana. This year we hope you will join us in our mission to provide leadership and community to women in the arts by exhibiting your work in Wish You Were Here 12. Artists of all mediums including writers and musicians are encouraged to donate.
**All the proceeds of this exhibition help fund our programs, including our Fellowship Program for under-represented and emerging women artists.

I got to work as soon as I could, though not without technical difficulties which derailed me a little. I roughly knew what I wanted to do right away so I just threw down some quick compositional thumbs to help me decide whether I wanted to work horizontally or vertically:

thumbs

My plan was to illustrate the endangered Scissor-Tailed Hummingbird (Hylonympha macrocerca), since I wasn't able to incorporate him into my Mail Me Art 3 piece along with the other endagered little guys. And to go with the whole post card/wish you were here theme, I was going to incorporate some envelopes into the piece as well.
So I got some paper, penciled and inked him. But then I discovered that the paper didn't like the ink too well and that it would erase along with the pencil...

inks 1.0

Instead of starting over entirely - I scanned what I had in and printed it on some thicker bristol paper I normally use. I printed the inks at around 20% though, so that I could re-ink on top and change it up a little. Eventually it looked something like this:

inks 2.0

 And then I coloured it with my usual mix of coloured waterproof inks, watercolour, and gouache and it was done! 

finished

I'm sad to say that it all came together a bit last minute and I mailed it out yesterday, but hopefully it will arrive safely in time, before the due date of June 7th!
 
Bristol Smooth Paper
Size: 4 x 6"
Media: microns, waterproof inks, watercolour paints, and gouache

Have a good weekend! And send someone a postcard or a card! They'll be so surprised! It will be awesome:)