Creative Insight - Joanne Hawker

Have you ever seen someones work and wondered 'how did they do that?' Well, I think that all the time when I'm discovering new work. I've always found other peoples working methods interesting too and so the idea for the Creative Insight feature was born! I know some people are a bit wary of giving away how they do things but its nice to share isn't it? You may even pick up a few new tips and tricks or even inspire some new work of your own. Here I have used some of my work as an example so you can see the sort of thing I want to demonstrate. So if you want to get involved and help me get this feature off of the ground please email me! I don't bite I promise :)

Tools of the trade:
* Mechanical Pencil
* Drawing Pens
* Photoshop

1. All of my work begins life as a sketch in my little doodle book and then when it comes to taking it one step further I draw up the same doodle on a single sheet of paper using my mechanical pencil.

2. Once I am happy with my pencil outlines I very carefully draw over them with my drawing pens being very careful not to smudge the ink. Once the ink is dry I rub out any pencil lines that are still visible. Once thats done it gets put on the scanner ready to be scanned and pulled into Photoshop.

3. Once the image has been scanned and pulled into Photoshop I play with the levels to erase the background texture and to make the lines more crisp. At this point I also erase any pencil lines that I missed or any areas that I am not happy with. Once the line work is sorted I start on the fun bit! Colouring in the different areas.

4. Once all the colour has been added I start to experiment with different textures/papers.

5. I keep layering up the textures and playing with background elements until I am happy. I add in a little moon beam and then I think I'm done! 

So there you are, a little peak into one of the ways that I like to work. I'll probably be popping it up on Society6 in the coming days so expect to see some more links! There is also the opportunity to place a little bit about you here as well as links to your shop and portfolio if you so wish. So have a little think about it yeah? Thank you! I hope you've enjoyed the small insight into my work :)