I’m sharing a new piece today that leans heavily into color and light, a bit of a departure from my recent monochrome studies. This illustration is based on an older reference photo I stumbled across in my digital archive, taken years ago with my trusty little Pentax *ist DL. The original image was from a perfect summer day at the docks, and it possessed a specific, almost hyper-real vibrancy I wanted to capture on paper.
To achieve that intense, almost saturated color sensation, I reached for Zebra Sarasa clip pens. Gel pens offer a unique, smooth laydown that allows for building up dense, pure color that doesn’t muddy easily. The vivid red of the boat, the striking cerulean of the water, and the pop of the yellow floats came alive with these pens. It was an exercise in pure joy, trying to translate the blinding heat and bright light of a memory into physical lines. You can see the texture and directional strokes of the pen defining the ripples in the water and the grain of the weathered wood.
It’s a small snapshot of summer, frozen in ink.
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