Oh how wrong I was.
This is the hardest drawing I've ever done, most detailed drawing I've ever done, and the most meaningful drawing I've ever done.
It's a birthday present for my Dad. :)
This took me about 22 hours all together, stretched over those 2 months, and I must say... I'm quite satisfied with it.
About a year ago or so, when I was asking people "what should I draw next?", my dad replied with "Me and you on my bike!" and I answered with "yeeeeahhh... that's not gonna happen any time soon. Too much detail on that bike!!"
There is too much detail on that bike. Seriously! I thought i was gonna give up a few times, but.. I focused on how nice it would feel to finish it. And it feels great!
This picture was taken in April last year, when he and I went to visit my sister in Verdal, on his Harley Davidson. This is the orginal photo:
I thought it'd be cool if it looked like we were at the Gran Canyon, so I tried to... redo the background a little bit. I didn't know it'd be so difficult, so unfortunately, what I'm the least satisfied with in the whole drawing - is the background. I can not draw mountains and... gran canyon stuff. Plus I couldn't find a good reference picture for that, so I looked at loads of pictures and just.. put something together.
So, now to the work in progress - and I'll talk more about the drawing as I go:
Sketch. Took me about 1 hour and 15 min, just drawing that. I tried to put in a lot of details to make the drawing itself easier.
Already here, I was thinking
"What am putting myself into...??"
Started to the left. The front wheel.
Realized I couldn't draw this picture without using the Pen tool, which allows me to make straight lines as well as ... bendy lines. I don't know how to explain it.
But drawing clothes isn't my strong suit, so.. I soon found out that wasn't gonna be that much easier.
About 2 hours in.
Just added some more... shadings to the jackets. Tried to make the sunlight glowing off my dad's jacket, stand out more. I don't do leather jackets.. too difficult.
Started working on the pants. Adding some of the sunlight that hits them. Also working on the shoes.
About 4 hours in. Working on the dad's helmet. Wasn't smart enough to use the pen tool that would help me make the clean lines here. It was fun playing with the light reflections though.
About 4 hours 15 min in.
Started working on the helmet I was wearing.
About 5,5 hours in.
I didn't save the sketch with this one, for some reason. Oh well.
Started working on the back of the bike. Use the pen tool a little for the cleaner lines, but it's nowhere near the way it ended up in the end. The bag is leather, but I didn't want to put in TOO much detail - simply because.. that'd be too much work. I'm not gonna DRAW the texture of leather...
Done a lot in that hour. Finished most of the back, Added more to the top of my jacket. And started on the front. Also started working on the reflections in the headlights. Since I was changing the scenery to the gran canyon, which is mainly.. orange in color - then I had to change the reflection a little, too.
About 7 hours in. Worked on more of the details in the bike.
Used the pen tool to get the straight lines, which would be impossible for me to do without that tool.
By adding a lot of the dark colors in there, I also felt like I'd gotten so much further with the picture. Tried to hold my motivation up.
About 7,5 hours in.
Just added more details. Worked more on the reflections and the colors of what I don't know the name of. :P
I should've studied more facts about bikes to know what this and that really is.
Oh well :P
About 8,5 hours in.Started working my way down to the front wheel again, which was far from finished when i left it earlier in the drawing. Also drew in some of the wires etc.
Detail work.
About 9,5 hours in, and I started losing my motivation for the drawing, since everything I was doing was minor detail work, which was barely even visible.So I decided to start on the background. The Gran canyon.
I soon realized that would be the more difficult part.
But the ground that we were stood on, I did not draw.
I did the coloring, of course, but since I could NOT be bothered with drawing GRAVEL - I simply copied the ground from the original picture, then used an option making it see through enough under the orange color, to make it blend into the drawing itself. The shading is also from the original, and I thought it fit perfectly into the drawing, since there's a sunset going on in the drawing as well, making the shadows drop where I wanted them to. I'm quite happy with the way the orange colors blended in with the copied-over gravel that way, and I do not regret doing it. There's a limit to my patience, and gravel and thousands of tiny rocks is that limit.
About 11 hours in, and struggling with the gran canyon itself, I almost gave up on having that background. I couldn't handle it. I lost all motivation for the background, and so I decided to leave it for a while.
I put in a lot more detail in the front wheel, and added the gravel..y.. background between the steel...string thingies (I really don't know anything about bikes, at least not in english)
I also worked in more details to the bottom part of the bike.
About 13,5 hours in. Just more detail work around the engine etc, and the... foot stand.. thing. (lol)
Decided to start working without the sketch.
More details and reflection to the headlights.
Added the logos. More detail to the front wheel.
Making the lights on the pants look better,
better details to the area around the engine,
finishing off the back,
and making part of the front wheel look better
Adding detail to the steer, and more detail to the back right behind my back.
I love the way the light reflects on the left (left for us) part of his face, and how I can TOTALLY see that it's him. It was a lot of fun doing that part. I thought it would be one of the hardest parts, but since the face is so small, the quality isn't that great in the original, so.. it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I also started on my own face, which was really weird, because I've never done a proper self portrait before. And this one isn't even proper - you can't see my whole face, and the quality isn't that great so... But yeah, fun to draw something that I'm used to drawing.
I also worked on the front.. shield..glass... Since you can see through it in the original, i had to make this one see-through as well. I also fixed up my dad's helmet a little bit.
About 19 hours in.
Added more detail to my face and the helmet I was wearing.
Worked a little bit more on the background. Actually, with this I called it "finished." Was nothing more I could do. Like I said earlier - I couldn't find a good reference photo, so I basically just stared at a lot of different pictures of it, and put something together. The shading was the hardest part, because of the colors. I couldn't just go with black because that would look too unnatural - not that the finished piece looks natural, but.. then again, this isn't about the background, it's about the bike and me and my dad.
However, I really do like how the mountains aaaall the way in the back are so faded they have a totally different colors. I've always been fascinated by that when I look at landscapes, how the far-away-mountains have this faded grey color. So I liked that in this drawing. And that's the only thing I liked about the background. Haha. Even the sky, I'm not that happy with, but.. I wanted it to look watercolory, and I didn't want the sky too look that good anyways, cause I want the attention on the bike and my dad and I.
About 21 hours in.
A few finishing touches on our jackets.
And fixed my face because I didn't like the colors in it.
As you can see in the original, my face already looks out of place in the picture, because my dad has all that light shining off his face, and my face is hidden in the shadow of his helmet. I have only cold colors in my face, and no sunlight reflecting off it, and so i decided to add a few lighter parts in it, with warmer colors, to make it look a little better. At least it looks better than before.
22 hours.
22 HOURS!! I've never spent so many hours on a drawing before. 22 hours over 2 months... The most detailed, frustrating and difficult drawing I've done.
Within the last hour, I added the Harley Davidson logo on my dad's arm and of course my signature at the bottom right corner. Adding the logo was a little challenge because of the curled up sleeve on his jacket, but it was more fun than expected. Maybe because it was the final thing to do. :P
Here's a few close up pictures of it all:
And that's that.
My biggest drawing project so far, is over, and I'm very happy about doing it.
As I'm writing this, my dad has still not seen the drawing, and he doesn't even know that I've done it for him, so I look forward to showing it to him in just about an hour from now :)
Happy late birthday - sorry about the delay. Hope you like it :)
Glad i deg! :)
-Connie
