Illustration inspired by Artful Box: lighthouse

This illustration was inspired by the Artful box theme: Lighthouse from Wednesday 6th January 2021. The photo I used as my source was an Unsplash photo I found via a Google search. It is Cape Nelson Lighthouse, Portland, Australia by Joshua Hibbert and you can see it among his collection of photos.

I was keen to use the fountain pen ink and bleach technique again and this night sky had lots of stars! The bleach is hard to control and often bleeds into the ink more than I would like. To achieve as small a point as I could, I cut off all but a couple of hairs from a fine paintbrush, but it’s still tricky. If anybody has found a more precise way of dotting the bleach on, I would be grateful if you could let me know in the comments below.

I enjoyed creating the gradient in the sky and using the Indian ink to create the black rocks in the foreground. I used a chinagraph pencil to create some light and shade on the rocks.

The light and shade on the main part of the lighthouse was really hard to achieve because the previous colour would dry down and then leave a hard line, so I had to make it really wet in order for the colours to blend a little.

I didn’t really want to use the fineliner, but it gave me a crisp line especially down the lighthouse and on the railings near the top.

Overall I’m pretty happy with it, but I need to work on my arcs, as they aren’t all in the same plane.

Here is a larger image:

Here’s the original photo I sourced.

You can see my unboxing of the December 2020 – February 2021 Artful Box here:

What do you think? Please comment below.

Louisa

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