Photoshop & Traditional Media
DEVELOP IDEAS FOR DRAWING
J.A.W. Cooper demonstrates their thought process, turning a kernel of inspiration into a finished, gallery-ready image
Artist
PROFILE
J.A.W. Cooper
LOCATION: US
J.A.W. Cooper was born in the UK and grew up in Kenya, Sweden, Ireland and Southern California. With two ecologist parents, animals and natural objects feature strongly in their work. Cooper lives in Portland and is an advertising art director, illustrator and a fine artist. www.jawcooper.com
In this tutorial I will take you through my ideation process as I work on a drawing for an upcoming solo show at the Nucleus gallery.
I’ll demonstrate how I start with a word list and use that to generate the kernel of an idea as a quick thumbnail sketch. From there, I’ll refine, build, augment and edit a rough drawing in Photoshop until I arrive at something worth turning into a finished drawing. Finally, I’ll take my rough sketch and use it to make a refined graphite drawing on matte archival drafting film.
I use this ideation process to generate ideas for both commercial and personal work. The execution process demonstrated here is just one of many ways I like to work with some of the various sets of tools I enjoy creating with. Some of the materials will create specific effects, but even if you only have graphite pencils and bond paper at your disposal you should be able to utilise these methods and techniques.