Cyberpunk Alleyway

Gouache, 5.5 x 8.5 in

I've recently been very inspired by the work of the late Syd Mead, a renowned industrial artist behind the concept art for the Blade Runner movies. I was aiming for a somewhat muted and dark look with a strong focus on purples and magentas in the place of greys. Besides a touch of transparent watercolor, it's done with a palette of Yellow Ochre, Pyrrole Red, Prussian Blue, Ivory Black, and Titanium White gouache by M Graham, on a Stillman and Birn Alpha watercolor book.

I started with a fairly detailed line drawing. I knew my challenge would be getting an accurate sense of perspective and depth without sacrificing detail. This drawing took maybe 30 minutes.

From there I did a quick lay in of watercolor - a slightly warm blue mixed with Ultramarine and a touch of Quinacridone Rose, a magenta shifting to a neutral purple by varying mixtures of QR and Phthalo Blue, and finally a cooler blue that's mainly ultra. I added some small dashes of bright color that I knew I wouldn't be able to get with my gouache palette.

Next I added in the darks. This is a very simple mixture of the three primary gouache colors with a good bit of water. I made sure to get clean, defined edges with a half inch synthetic flat. At this stage my main goal is to get wide blocks of a united dark in two major areas - the edges, and the central road. The eye is supposed to be drawn to the middle of the picture.

Now I add in the middle values of the sidewalk, the garage door, and the network of beams over head. This step is where it really starts getting complicated. The delicate work of detailing and defining forms is key to the creation of a coherent picture. By now it's about an hour in, and the picture is starting to take shape.

The process of painting gets a lot harder now. Balancing all the colors and maintaining integrity of the composition is hard to do. Luckily gouache is a very forgiving medium. A mistake can be correct somewhat easily, and it also allows for a lot of small strokes and precise detail. The work is almost done, but I leave it for a bit to refresh my energy. By now it's been 2 and a half hours of painting (the line drawing and the first application of transparent watercolor was done the day before).

After this I take another thirty minutes to add some more detail and clean up the ragged edges of the top center to get the picture seen at the beginning.