The word Sufi صوفي was a commission, and the client wanted it to be done solely in black and white.
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| The usual studies were made until I settled on 2 designs for the client to choose from. |
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| A full square grid to begin with... |
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| Finished pencils |
Come rendering time, I had a number of coloring options, as black is simple. Acrylic was the least easy of those options but I wanted its richness. Also, rather than blocking out all the black and then drawing the white lines over it, I decided I wanted to reserve the lines from the start so they would remain the white of the paper. Very risky, but the result would be the ideal treatment, aside from having it silkscreened!
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| First step: Outlining the piece with a 0.2 pen, reserving 1mm-wide lines. |
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| Close-up showing what would become white lines over black. |
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| Next came very careful coloring, starting with painting black broadly while keeping away from the outlines. On the right you can see how that first passage looked like. Next came a much more careful second coat to opacify the black (left), and treatment of the small corners and dots with two sizes of smaller brushes. You want to be careful what kind of music you listen to for that kind of work! |
