“The lane is overcrowded
But the top is just for one”
Jinjer – On The Top
Since Jinjer released a brilliant album called Macro, I felt like it was finally my turn to dedicate a drawing to their incredibly talented front woman Tetiana Shmailiuk. I saw them live multiple times and they just seem to get better each and every time. The cover artwork of Macro gave me the idea to make my Tetiana’s portrait a part of the moonlight series as well (if you look at the cover you’ll know why).
I had a quite clear image in my head of how I wanted things to look but I simply wasn’t able to find a reference picture that came anywhere near it. Until I found a photo by Warren Chua that immediately caught my attention. It’s aesthetic, powerful, rich in detail without being overloaded and just was the perfect fit.
I quickly started regretting my choice, though. The photo displays Tetiana’s tattoos perfectly so I had a lot of work to do with drawing all of them as accurate as possible – with a ballpoint pen and only a few millimetres of space to work on. In the end, the result looked better than expected and I was able to move on to the dress only to be confronted with the next challenge. How on earth do you draw transparent fabrics with a ballpoint pen? I decided to make things a bit easier and draw the fabrics in a non-transparent way (I wouldn’t have known how to do it any other way). The rest of the portrait was done quite quickly, including Tetiana’s face and hair. The accent colour of this drawing was chosen to fit the colour used in the album cover for Macro, so I drew the moon and some details in turquoise.
I’m really happy with how this artwork turned out and I think it might even be my new favourite from the series.
Paper size: A4
Materials: ballpoint pen, Prismacolor pencils
Time: approx. 10 hours
Reference photo used for the drawing was taken by: Warren Chua
Miss Escapist Art 