Part of a series of four illustrations I will be posting more of, based on poems written by children. These were made for a uni project working with Grimm & Co, a charity that enables children to express themselves through writing.
The idea for this portrait came to me when I was looking at a packaging of soap - it was very glossy and it looked like it could look like pearls. As well as the soap packaging, I used white ink mixed with acrylic paint (for opacity) on black paper.
India ink on tissue paper. I had never used ink on this kind of paper before; I really liked the results! There are some folds and wrinkles on the paper that give the pattern some interesting details. The paper is also super absorbing, which plays nicely with the quantities of ink. Since it's very thin, there can easily be overlays between textures. And finally, when trying to use less ink (so that it wouldn't seep through and cause a big dot - the absorbing quality is nice, but it was also somewhat of a challenge!) I used very little ink on the lettering, causing a scratchy, dry look.
