“Phase I” is the original moon illustration that I worked on. I created it in 2018, when I was really ready for a break from super complex pieces. I had begun thinking about super minimalist and simple black and white art that I would like for my own room. Yes, truly- every now and again I do create something just because it suits my own style!
I love all the loose botanical illustrations I see, and it’s not something that comes easy to me. If you follow along with my progress posts, you know that I really struggle to not fill in all white space. When there’s still room for more, the piece feels incomplete. This crescent moon is absolutely an example of where I just had to stop myself from going overboard.
I began this piece with a protractor / compass and making a perfect circle centred on the page. Really this just means finding the centre of the page and using it for the compass needle to sit on. When I do this, I bring the circle out wide but leave at least 2” from the edge of the paper. It took a lot of frustrated framers to drill this into me- Because I realized just what a pain it is if you’re illustration is tight to the edge of page.
The small inner circle was trial and error. I had a good idea of what I wanted it to look like, and so working out where that inner circle would be just took a few tries. You have to be pretty gentle when you know the spot you’re place that compass needle is going to be white space in the end. Most of my mandalas have that spot covered by the end and it’s not a big deal- But with this one I had to be pretty gentle.
The pens I used for this piece were sakura microns in the 005 and 01 sizes. I also used a Faber-Castell in the 03. Lot’s of line work, lots of dots but not necessarily stippling. I used the dots to make patterns but very little to shade. A lot of the depth in this one was created with the varying line widths.
After completing this piece, I did create two other shapes of the moon to pair with with. I like the full moon a lot, but I suppose I feel that next one missed the mark. I definitely plan to circle back to this series in the future and create more moon phases.
With “Phase I” I created prints and blank greeting cards. The original artwork, prints and cards are all on my Etsy Page. The prints will only ever go as large as 8” x 10”, as it’s what I’m able to do with the sizing of the original image. If I went any larger it would need to be traced digitally, and for me I really like the keep the traditional and original line work.
Thanks for taking the time to learn about this one, and enjoy!