Boats in the Harbor

I return to Vigo this week,, after been traveling long weeks across the Mediterranean coast in Spain, back to the Atlantic coast , and back to my country with my family and friends.

I still dont t know how much time I will be here, but what I know its that I live in a marvelous country, with beautiful views and landscapes, glorious nature and excellent people.

This kind of things you realize when you have been abroad and you come back, ,

So the first week in Vigo it has been nice overall.. i had a lot of work for different clients but I still found time to do what i live, thats sketching outside on location.
So even the week it had been horrible in terms of weather, raining everyday of the month, sometimes had breaks with a little sunshine that allowed me to go outside and sketch.

I choose one of my favourites places this week to draw, thats the vigo harbour, . Its very nice, it has a lot of boats to sketch and many beautiful places to sit and relax. There are parts more industrial, but i went this time to the tourist area, where the cruise ships are arriving.

Vigo has the biggest harbor in Spain and the second biggest in Europe, just behind Rotterdam. So thats why there are lots of nice boats to sketch amd paint to choose.

Final Illustration

This time I went to draw a special tugboat. There are a lot of this kinds of boats.. so many big ships are entered the bay area so they need to be carry in and out by these small but strong vehicles.

Photos of the Vigo Harbor

Line Art Sketch

i did a ink sketch first in my sketchbook, I really liked the shapes of this boat, lots of interesting things to see and to study.

The weather was nice and I had a great time there sketching, I love to smell the sea and listening the sounds and talking with the people there while sketching. Its at the same time a meditation and a social activity, plus you get an artwork done, so its cool.

Painting process

When I finish the sketch , I traced the drawing in another piece of watercolor paper. Canson 180 grms. A3 format. i did a clean ink line drawing and later I added some india ink wahes for the shadows. After this, I add the first layer of watercolor, so yellows to start putting an overall calid mood to unify the artwork, and then I added the opposite color, in this case, blue, for coloring the shadows. Finally, I added local colors like oranges to some parts of the drawing and the darker tones.

Military ship

Final Illustration

The second drawing I did was a militar ship, it a]was a french ship but it has also the spanish flag. I fell in love with the shapes of the ship and I decided to sketch it.

i choose an L composition, leaving one quarter of the page white. I could fit the entire boat in one page, so I only sketch the important parts.

Line Art

Painting process

Later at home I did the same process, I traced it in a new paper, added ink wahes for the shadows and add watercolors. This time a blue green color , not so much variation this time.. usually ther are kind of monochromatic the naval ships. With grey or green tonalities..

Ourense illustration

I did this illustration for a ONG located in the city of Ourense (Spain). They asked me If I could draw a composition of different places of the city in one illustration , they would sell tshirts with later to get funds for charities.

line art

I agree so I did some sketches first, thinking about the composition and the elements of the design.

I added 3 main elements.

The river with the bridges

the famous thermal waters of the town

The old town with the bars

I mixed together in a circular composition, and I traced together in a ink drawing.

process

Later I scanned it and did a digital coloring to test which colors could fit.

After that I did a more traditional version , similiar to the digital color palette, but with more saturated colors..

Finally I scanned again the illustration and after talking with the clients I did some changes and add more color in photoshop to some areas.

Watercolor Illustration

Ink Sketches

This week I also had some free time to sketch in my small ink sketchbook for more casual drawings..

The kind of drawing you do while you are waiting in the train station, or while you are eating l or talking with friends having some beers..

Hope you liked it too, some of them are more finished , others are just leave unfinished because , they are just to draw and having a good time..

Thats all! Thanks for reading my weekly blog, next week will be more to show I promise..

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