Thursday, November 12, 2015

TBT: Late Night NYC night club scene (circa 1997)

"Late Night NYC" illustration by Steven Salerno ©1997
TBT
Here's an ink & pastel illustration I created 18 years ago depicting a lively NYC nightclub scene... I can't remember who the client was, or even if it was an advertising or editorial assignment, but it's one of my favorites. I have it framed and on display in my studio. 

It was made simply by drawing the line art of the characters with an ink nib pen, then rubbing pastel colors into the paper with my fingers. If I were to create this same type illustration today I would still draw the characters with and ink pen on paper, but instead of rubbing the pastel into the ink drawing, I would rub the pastel onto a separate piece of paper, then scan the ink drawing and the pastel piece into Photoshop in separate layers. This would give me more flexibility in merging the ink line drawing with the pastel color background in terms of additionally manipulating the colors digitally as well as jockeying the positions of both elements. 

Visit stevensalerno.com