Ironclad

I started this piece just over a week ago. Just to family commitments and being on a Social Engagement course for the coaching business I also run. Time to fit the piece in was a struggle.

I started the layout in blue polychromos pencil, for the main character it allowed me to capture a little detail, as the process was really loose. The character again became my main focus in starting the detail process.

I realised from here how difficult this actual piece would be to draw. The amount of detail nearly overwhelmed me at one point. Especially the chain mail.

I actually dreaded it and it took the best part of last weekend to finish that particular element.

It was a massively fun piece to draw, even though it had the hidden details, that gave me concern for worry and after almost completing the figure I had the challenge of the background, which alone took me about 3 hours of work. I'd say total time for the piece was around 12 hours.

Creating Messi

I decided to follow on with my experimentation with coloured pencil again to do another piece of artwork, this time the person of my interest would be the phenomenal Lionel Messi.

Messi being one of the greatest footballers in my lifetime, meant I was taking on an interesting task at hand.

Loosely plotting out the layout for the image with and starting to add detail to the shirt mainly as, I felt that would be the area that popped the most, and would draw the eye into the piece.
I decided to add in the black of the shirt first.

Then I added in the blue, and shading effects of the shirt.

From there I decided to tackle the hair and arms, for the hair used a brown colour to add a first layer, as I knew I was going to add a background that had a lot of black areas in, I needed a colour to separate the and lighten the hair a little first. The skin tones contained several colours  with Ochre being the primary colour then a touch of blush pink and red with browns.

I was really liking how this piece was coming out at this point and contemplating leaving the background out totally. But in the end I decided to stick to the original idea. I have how ever decided to also draw Messi in this format on his own.

This piece is available to buy at http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251563990162?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1586.l2649

Marilyn Monroe

So yesterday I decided to try my hand with a medium I haven't used in a good long while, coloured pencil!

I have an abundance of the things lying around my home and I really wanted to use this blog as a chance to push my boundaries and try out as many different mediums as I can.

Things may work they may not.

So I decided to try my hand at Marilyn Monroe.

I started by mapping her out in 2H and probably filled in too much detail. I thought of the piece more as a usual pencil piece really and I think this cost me as I notably made an early mistake, that many budding artist or artists will spot in the final piece. Her left eye is too low, it should sit a little higher and be slightly above the right.

I drew in the colour without realising at first, once I had I nealry threw in the towel, however as frustrating as it was I decided to continue the piece rather than start over.
After all this was to be an experimentation in whether I could use the medium.

from there I started to tone my face, using primarly Derwnt Coloursoft skintones and Reeves Premium pencils.

Then I added in the hair color, far too yellow really in relation to what the actual image of Marilyn was, but using white paper I needed to draw the colour hair and detail out on the page more. 

From there I added in final details to the piece and some final tones. 

Overall I'm fairly happy with how elements came out, though through the piece I learnt several lessons and look forward to trying more work in the medium. 

Thank you 

Kieran

ebay Art Sale

Raheem Sterling

So in this piece I decided to go with the moment Raheem Sterling turned against Pirlo in the Recent England vs Italy World Cup game. There has been a fantastic set of games recently and I've been inspired to draw a series of pieces in this simplistic style and try to recapture some of the great moments.


I started the process very similar as the previous one, building a general layout in blue polychromes pencil. Trying to figure out how each of the 3 figures would lay on the page.

Again I decided to follow a similar route and added more detail in with a 2H pencil and rebuild and try to get my proportions of the Raheem and Pirlo as accurate as I could, I struggled slightly with elements of Pirlo's face, particularly his eyes.

But once I spent a little more time with the details on my 2B phase of the image, I started to find out the details I wanted to create the finished piece.

This piece is available on an ebay auction at Raheem Sterling piece

Please like my Facebook page at Kieran Beech Illustration

When RVP Took Flight

Another incredible day of World Cup action has taken place, yesterday I posted a piece in which I drew Robin Van Persie, shortly after completing that piece I already had the next in my mind, that fabulous goal he scored against Spain with the diving header.  It was an absolute beauty of a goal.

The Process

As previously discussed I wanted to use this blog as an insight into the particular process I use on the pieces I draw.

So firstly I started the piece in Blue Polychromos pencil getting the basic shape and some areas of detail. it's very loose and over the next stage I'll start to add basic detail. I usually do this with a 2H pencil.

My main aim here is to try and correct errors and bring the piece as close as I can to the final drawn image, I'll still probably adjust as I go back in with my final 2B pencil but going in with the 2H first allows me to tidy areas and get a better feel for proportions.

Here is the final  finished piece!

Welcome and World Cup pieces!

Hello firstly I'd like to welcome you to this new blog, it will run in correlation to my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/kieranbeechillustration but this page will show snippets of the process I use to create some of the images I do. It will also show some of the more experimental pieces of artwork, please like and share the Facebook page if you wish to also.



The recent world cup as inspired a couple of my new illustrations firstly came this Neymar piece.

The last night I was drawing this Robin Van Persie piece, it was actually a bit of a voyage of self discovery as I found I liked the simplicity of the style of image I did.