Summer Nights

This is a new one I've been working on for a little while in my free time. It's about all of the things to do on a summer night. look closely, there are a lot of things going on. This one started with inspiration I got from the original book cover to the novel Lord of the Flies from 1954, the original cover was done by the print maker Anthony Gross. I loved the restraint and simplicity of his line.  I had a notion I wanted to create a drawing about summer nights done only in white line.  I started with just pencil and paper, created a sprawling composition.  The pencil was originally going to be just the sketch, but I liked the looseness, so I scanned it, inverted the line work, and then bit by bit, the pieces I wanted to clarify more or accentuate, I started to redraw in ink or paint. From that point on the piece became an improvisation of mixed media, deviating quite a bit from my original plan. This is where it ended up.  The mediums I used include graphite, ink, gauche, and digital (the digital is mostly the collaging, but also includes a couple gradations, and some flat color.

Take a closer look at the detail Here

This is Anthony Gross's amazing cover for the original Lord of the Flies: