Edna’s Incantation, 2022

watercolor, graphite, colored pencil, Photoshop

My friend Melissa Boston recently celebrated the publishing of her first poetry book Edna. To prepare for its release she asked if I could come up with a little sketch inspired by one of the poems found in her book. *See below. I was more than happy to do so but after reading the poem I knew I couldn’t just do a “little” sketch. I ended up making a full digital collage in which I layered hand drawn and painted elements to create a single illustration. I’m used to tweaking and editing my work in Photoshop but I’ve never created anything quite like this in this manner.

To start, I created a bunch of random paint strokes, marks and washes. Then I drew and painted the two main focal points of the piece (the portrait and branch). Once everything was scanned and cleaned up I layered all the assets together until it was done. The biggest challenge was making sure the composition didn’t become too busy and cluttered.
I am very happy with the end result and l look forward to playing around with this method again in the future.

Click HERE to head over to Finishing Line Press to order your own copy of Edna and support a wonderful creative mind.You can also check out Melissa’s site HERE to learn more about her and her upcoming book events.