My project in Composition and Color for Creative Illustration course

My final project is based on the history of London's Chinatown (article here).
Chinatown has a special place in my memories. It has always been a location where I would celebrate important events in my life (birthdays, graduations, wedding etc).

Key words I took from the article and from my own experiences are: Hope and Celebration. Hope refers to the many generations of Chinese families who migrated from China to London in the hope to create a better life for themselves. For many, Chinatown would be the place where they set their roots down or at least find a community who could help them find work and make friends.

The lion dance is a symbol of both hope and celebration. The flying money notes in the air are embossed with the Chinese words for China Town. The red lanterns add colour and a background, plus their gently curving path complements the direction the leaping lion dancers are making.

Marcos showed a number of techniques in these tutorials that I've never used before - mainly the idea of adding analog textures and painted lines on top of a vector drawn design. He suggests it allows the artist to add their own personality to the final image. I also enjoyed his break down of compositional theory - especially the idea of triangulation. Another take away tip was to see how Marcos includes abstract shapes into his final pieces which add an interesting sensory element to the piece. My usual work can often be a bit too literal so it's really nice to try something a little more free-form.

In my final stage, I used soy sauce and Chinese tea to create the painted layers and textures, then blended them in Photoshop onto the digital drawing

I enjoyed this course and it opened my eyes to a different way of creating a visual.