The model is me, in a series of awkward mobile phone photos patched together in a pencil sketch. I used my light box and drew a small line drawing in india ink with a dip pen (which I love only a little bit more than the light box), and did the lettering with the dip pen as well.
I scanned the ink work in and also the cover of a book by A R Hope titled Mr Dalton’s Prescription and other stories – no publication date but awarded to Norman Dellar by the Toowoomba Congregational Sabbath School in 1907. It has a lovely floral pattern on the spine, which is my main criteria for Lifeline Booksale purchases. The flowers and the texture are from the cover of the book.
The floral border is also from Mr Dalton’s Prescription. Originally it was printed in green on blue cloth, but I painted up a separate layer in Photoshop and combined them as so. The lettering was also textured and coloured with the cloth of the book cover.
Here is the first illustration filtered in Photoshop then layered back under the original ink drawing.
Comments and critiques are, as always, welcome.
April 6, 2009 at 11:48 pm
This is lovely. Is she the talisman, or is the locket she’s holding the talisman?
April 7, 2009 at 1:00 am
Wow! This is brilliant! Very well done!
April 7, 2009 at 2:48 am
nicely done
April 7, 2009 at 3:28 am
I love the look on your face – a sort of peaceful concentration. Also the fingers are very graceful.
April 7, 2009 at 4:58 am
LOVE this style. Colors, composition, technique, all superb.
April 7, 2009 at 11:50 am
Wow! Now I wish I could do that! Amazing textures and color!
April 7, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I like this style: like an old book cover. You sure put a lot of work into it! Nice colours and contrasts, and I like the distressed finished which ages it. I also like the expression and hands.
:)
April 7, 2009 at 6:10 pm
So funny: I thought it looked like you before I read closer and discovered you were the model. Well done!
April 7, 2009 at 11:25 pm
This is really lovely. Thank you for talking about your process–my mouth kindof drops open (I have no idea how to do anything in photoshop)–the results are marvelous.
April 8, 2009 at 5:54 am
This is really lovely! It has such great style to it. She looks like she’s about to jump out at us. Really nice work.
April 9, 2009 at 2:11 am
This is truly one of the best you have done so far, I think.
April 17, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Thank you all very much for the comments!
May 12, 2009 at 8:20 am
[…] I had found a scan of some old paper online which had a nice effect, but I could not get in touch with the copyright holder to get permission to use it. Next time I went back to visit my parents I dug out some of my old books and found a page sufficiently aged and mottled to do what I wanted (I think it may have been from Mr Dalton’s Prescription, which I’ve used elsewhere since then). […]