Valentine promo

This is a detail of my illustration for our latest promo for Valentine's Day. I work in watercolour but I find that the computer can be helpful. I start out with a few pencil sketches and try to work out the content and composition. Sometimes this comes easily and sometimes (this time) I take ages trying to come up with something I like. It's nice to get the chance to do something creative though, something that I can make up myself.

At this point I don't worry too much about the exact size. Sometimes I find it easier to sketch things at a small scale so I don't have to get bogged down by all the details.Then I scan the sketch into the computer and use Photoshop to do some tweaking. At this point I can touch up things that don't quite look right and adjust the scale of the whole piece. Sometimes I add a bit of colour just to see how it will work generally. It's very rough, but I can imagine how the final art will look.

Then I transfer the sketch to watercolour paper. I use transfer paper to do this, it's paper covered with graphite. You place your sketch over it and when you trace your sketch with pencil faint lines are transferred to the watercolour paper.
The next step is inking the lines onto the paper. I use a pen with waterproof ink so that the paint won't smudge it. Sometimes I use a nib pen at this stage and bottle ink in black or sepia. I find the lines with a nib pen are more varied in thickness and this can be nice for some pieces. Then finally it's time to paint!