Hello ! These are several illustrations I did this week in my travel to Valencia, Spain.
The sketches this time are done faster than usually, i like to change my method ,to not be boring with the same style or ways to do things. Sometimes change is good, Im happy of how they turn out. When you sketch fast, you have a more fluent line, and more expressive also. You try to synthesize the scene you see at the moment, with minimal details, just the big shapes ,and focus on the overall composiition of the image. This is the total opposite of what i usually do, in my sketches I always add lots of little details, trying to capture all the things I see and my sketches take a lot of time to finish, an also to paint.
These, are simple, minimal, more graphic, less detailed and less colors.
My process is doing the sketches in my sketchbook, directly with ink, I draw espressivly and with minimum of marks, sometimes its good even doing one continuos line . I also like to abstract things, but keeping in mind the shape of the building. And when the line is done, I fill with black or writea little “x” if I dont have a lot of time in the areas I want to be black.
Later at home, I take pictures with the ipad to the sketches, I open the app Procreate and I do value studies. I think in 3 values. Black, grey and white. I fill the main areas with only these values, later I edit and convert to color, maybe add more shadows, and I erase the line, then polished a bit more to try to get these graphic style.
This image was done in front of the City of Arts and Science, the famous building originally design by Santiago Calatrava.
I followed the process mentioned above. I put some blue colors, the original building is surrounded by clean waters, and above you can se the blue sky, so I wanted to give this feeling of light blue.
This Virgin square, there are several bars and terraces, so I did a fast line art sketch of 2 girls having some wine in the bar in front of the cathedral. It was a hot day, so i put red as the main color.
I also added the Valencia letters below the image, just to know how it looked in case I want to create postcards.
The other image is in one of the streets that cross the cathedral. I like the arch and the composition . I used to take lots of photos before , so I know from far how can would like as a design. Also smartphone photography its very useful to capture compositions like this very fast, in a vertical format.
This one was done near the Quart towers, it catched my attention, the street was dark and at the end of it, there were the big and bright towers that you can see it from a distance.
This sketch was drawn in the lake at the end of the Turia Gardens. I drew this thinking in circles and round shapes, to give a nice and innocent mood to the place. I added green because it was just green and water.
I did this sketch starting with the figure in the foreground, and then I continued with the background . Its the Cathedral and some buildings in the Virgin Square.
Mestalla its the name of the football stadium in Valencia. Its a big stadium, with the colors of the team. Black and white, and orange.
The rector building, with very vertical lines, in contrast with curves, this is very usual in valencia, the round buldings with straight lines. It remind me a little to some masons buildings in America.
So thats all for now! Hope you like the sketches of these days,, i always sketching new stuff, in different styles and techniques. I try to share as much as I can here in the blog. Also trying to share with all of you my process and thinking methods,
I am open to any comments or ideas you want to leave me, and grateful for the upvotes and follows .
Thanks for reading this post, and I wish you a great day.
Carlos Castro
Web: Carloscastroilustracion.com
Blog. https://steemit.com/@carloscastro