Say it with flowers
Today, I'm showing you the process of how I created an illustration for Chapter Four of Doug Karr's novel Dwelling. This drawing is about a pilfered bunch of flowers, stolen as a gift for a corpse.
Passing a corner bodega, Morris was drawn to a cellophane wrapped bouquet of purple daisies. He tried to stop his hand but couldn’t halt the inevitable. His fingers gripped crinkly plastic squishing the petals. They were weightless, and free, the stems dripping a line of telltale circles on the concrete. Shuffling faster, he weaved through pedestrians before the bodega clerk reemerged.
The Process of creating the drawing
I masked off areas I wanted to keep white, tearing the masking tape to suggest the crinkled edges of the cellophane wrapping of the flowers. I then applied layers of ink washes to build up tones, and dropped ink onto the damp paper to create areas of darker shadow.
Using drawing ink and dip pen I built up lines and details on the flowers, and lines up the cellophane cone to suggest the stalks of the flowers showing the the transparent wrapper.
Morris sped with his pilfered cone of discount blossoms.
Shame. Fear. Hope.
Hope that she wouldn’t be able to guess at how he’d gotten them… but mom always said never to arrive anywhere empty-handed.
You can read the 4th chapter of Doug Karr's novel Dwelling now!
