Making of ‘Longboarder’ print

This has been a long time in the making, starting as they usually do as a thought that just keep lurking around in my head.

We live by the sea on the North Kent coast but its a very calm coast so never suitable for those who love surfing. It can be windy though so we will see the odd windsurfer on the right day but you are more likely to see paddleboarders as it’s so calm.

Skateboarding fascinates me and I really wish I’d taken it up when I was young. Think my brother did for a while in between BMX’ing. More specifically, I think I would enjoy riding a longboard. They seem more elegant, more cruisy - much more in line with my pace to be honest. However my health is a barrier to that so maybe through drawing, I can live vicariously as a cool longboarder.

I regularly walk a short stretch of the promenade when walking Dolly and there is an area with a shelter on top of a small chalk cliff covered in flint overlooking a bend in the promenade. When I decided to knuckle down and start this illustration, I started with a photo reference of this area.

Before tackling it full on, I did a very rough sketch playing with composition, light and shade and colour in my sketchbook on Procreate. Really helped me get an idea of how I wanted it to look and out of my head and visualised for the first time. I knew from here that I had something I liked and wanted to progress further.

A new way of working for me, separating the background from the subject on separate layers. I started by trying to simplify shapes as much as possible to just the bare elements needed. I already decided this would be large blocks of flat colour with black outlining.

Before tackling the colour of my longboarder, I tackled the background first to give them an environment to exist in.

Colour choices are always overwhelming - so many choices leave you floundering. However, life got easier when I found this Instagram account that creates colour palettes from cinema stills. However, I find it interesting that even using a defined palette, the combinations are endless and how swapping one for another as the main colour can completely alter the mood.

A timelapse of all the sketches, refinements and colour experiments that go into creating each new print.

Above is a timelapse of this print from start to finish and shows you all the steps along the way - the decisions, the sketches, the corrections, the colour combinations - thousands of decisions go into each finished piece before it becomes a print.

Now it’s done, you can order an open-edition print exclusively from my print store now.