portfolio pieces

Its a little quiet on the work front at the moment. When its quiet its a good idea/opportunity to create self-initiated portfolio pieces. Most artists, beeing creative minds tend to have a lot of ongoing ideas, so subject matter is usually to hand. I Personally, like to work on 2 or 3 pieces simultainiously. So I have 2 drawings that I want to work up into illustrations, both of will be produced digitally. The first is an idea thats been around for along time in my sketch book, The subject is alcohol, and the levels of dangerous intake, how some people become very dependant on it to dangerous levels for their health. Ive used the idea of the more dependant they become, or otherwise, they become trapped inside the bottle, others are able to break the habit(breaking out of the oppression of drink). Its quite a basic composition. I work up my drawings/ ideas on a large piece of paper perhaps A3 size I like the fluidity while realising an idea. If the piece was for a client I would add another stage, after the initial rough, where I would reduce the size considerably and produce a much more refined copy to send to them. So,when thesketch is done I scan it into photoshop.
The second piece will be an illustration of a band at a gig, its far less conceptual than the other. Its a subject ive wanted to include in my portfolio, for a few reasons, it gives clients another view of my style and how it would work with this kind of subject. Its one step closer to finishing than the other piece as ive already layed in the first layer after scanning in the drawing.

So there you have it, keep in touch to see how they progress to the final artwork I
will include in my portfolio.
Well here is the first one done(Alcohol dependancy)As you can see I modified it a little as I went, this usually happens, its part of the process, you can always see things better with 'fresh eyes',still, its seems to have turned out ok, well I hope you like it, please leave me a comment, good or bad. When I have 5 pieces I put them into my portfolio. Off now to finish the other illustration.