It's not always easy to find inspiration. Especially on those dreary rainy days when I haven't had my tea yet. But I love it when I'm drawing and the inspiration starts to come from the drawing itself. It's like the picture wants to be finished. You just need a little push to get on that hill :)

One way to get that push is to draw shapes and silhouettes instead of starting with a pure lined sketch. This way you don't have to worry about anatomy or landscapes yet. Click read more

I start with a neutral grey background. Grey is easy on the eyes and works well to build colour on. I use a darker colour of grey with some red blended in for the shape.

I know I want to draw a person, perhaps a girl, maybe this could be her arm, her hand...

...or long flowing hair :) I then start adding in the shape of her clothes. This is where I decided she would look nice in a brightly coloured kimono.

I use the LAB colour blender to help me with picking colours. It feels a lot more natural. But I'm still working in a CMYK workspace. So it's not like I'm using "impossible" colours.

I start to fill in more details and some white to break the dark pink. I also resized her (previously too small) hand.

Then I brighten up her (quite ghostly) pallor with some lighter pink and I add the final details.

It's still a relatively simple picture (no background and no additional finery) but it's finished. See the bigger picture in the Illustration gallery