During the quarantine, a group of local artists and illustrators were selected to collaborate with Ayma Boards. They gave each one of us a fresh, clean board to intervene freely, the only constraint was that we had to work with the concept of the quarantine in mind.
Personally, to understand, explain, express, and represent what being at home for so many days has meant. It sure hasn’t been an easy thing to do.
During all those months at home, I had a ton of different feelings and thoughts. I tried to keep myself active, working on personal projects, exercising, learning an instrument, and keeping in touch with my loved ones. Just staying calm and safe.
Solution
Thinking back to what I felt and did over these past few months has led me to come up with a series of characters. Each one of them doing something different, from feeding their children while working, spending time to catch up on some reading, immerse themselves in a new sound, enjoy a good book, or lay back with their pets.
I wanted to give a positive point of view of this situation. Even though is hard for everyone, being at home has given us time to appreciate and cherish small things in life. Realizing we don’t need that much stuff, just time.
Take a look at the process
Draft & sketch
The first step before starting any piece, is to research about the concept you would like to explain. I start by writing down, everything that comes to my mind, then, I look for information or even look at previous work from myself, or people I admire.
When I have some ideas on my mind, I start drawing, fast and rough sketches, just to see which is the best way to represent the concept on the final product.
For this particular project, since I had to work on a skateboard, I used transparent paper to get an idea of the color palette and composition for this particular canvas.
Paint and final details
After deciding on the sketch and color palette, I drew directly onto the board. Then, I started painting the first, second, and third layer with acrylic.
Little by little the characters started to come to life, thanks to a choice of bright colors and textures given to them with acrylic paint and crayons.