a christmassy behind the scenes

​Hello Friends!

Happy holidays and I hope you’re having a lovely December. This month I worked on a couple of pieces for my agent Jehane’s 12 Days of Christmas event on Instagram. I thought it would be fun to go behind the scenes and share a bit of my process for making this piece inspired by the prompt "Christmas Cocktails."
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As you might have already guessed, I love drawing people and so rather than focusing on just the cocktails I thought it would be more exciting to draw a cocktail party. After some time spent playing around with the layout this is the final sketch I ended up with.

My initial rough sketch

​I usually change my mind a lot when it comes to colour and so I like to plan those out in advance. This helps me get a general idea of how everything is going to look as a whole and then I don’t have to spend time fiddling and changing things after the fact. I usually create a colour rough by just blocking out various colours on separate layers in Procreate and then experimenting with various combinations and making small adjustments here and there. A few things I’m looking for here are an overall balance and harmony within the colour palette and whether there is enough contrast. Contrast will help make everything pop where you want it too. Squinting is a great trick to tell if there's enough contrast but because I’m working on the Ipad I'll sometimes just desaturate my image, then I can clearly see where I need to make adjustments. In this case you can see below that I could have added more contrast between the tree and the hair of the woman petting the cat which I ended up doing in my final piece. ​

Colour rough

Desaturated colour rough

​Once I had my colour figured out I started on my final image. If you’ve taken my Draw Simple Figures course you’ll know that I like to build up my sketches in layers, and I do the same with my final artwork as well. Usually I like to lay in all of my solid colours first and then add all of the little details last.  I just find that this helps me keep the whole piece balanced.

Final with just the solid colours laid down

​And here is the final image with all of those fun details brought in to make everything come alive!

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​I hope you’ve enjoyed this little behind the scenes. I can't wait to share more of what I've been working on lately with you in the new year!

All the best,
​Meghann