Art Notes: All the Way to Havana

I hand-lettered the title and added texture to the wall.

Hello dear readers. A few weeks ago, I posted about the release  of All the Way to Havana, written by Margarita Enlge. While I was waxing poetic about my experience researching the book, I neglected to talk about how I actually illustrated it. So, I’d like to clarify the process with this brief bonus post.

For my Little Elliot books, I work in pencil on paper and color digitally. It’s a tightly rendered style that showcases a nostalgic (if not a bit “polished”) Old New York. While this style works well for these books, I felt that the same treatment would not translate well to All the Way to Havana without a few adjustments.

drawing for the Malecón spread

Usually, I work to size. That means that the drawing I make is the same size as it is printed in the book. For Havana, I chose to work really large. A double page spread from this book measures about 36” wide on average. This allowed for more looseness in my pencil stroke and allowed me to capture more movement in the drawings. These drawings rely on a thick pencil stroke, so instead of using my usual fine pointed 2B graphite mechanical pencil, I mostly used a 4B ebony pencil (and sometimes switched to the finer point for some details).

detail of wall, sidewalk, and pavement textures

distressed wood and rust can be found on any street corner

Though it is unfortunate that Cuba suffers economically, which prevents everyday maintenance and development, the result is a rich patina that has formed over Cuba’s surfaces: worn wood, chipped paint, rusted metal, gravel and soil. There’s a zen beauty to it all. I felt it was imperative to represent these textures in the illustrations. However, I wanted to keep my line somewhat loose while keeping the textures tight. So, I decided to use textures from the photographs I took in Cuba, and overlay them onto my drawings in Photoshop. 

 

detail of The Gran Teatro de La Habana

Another choice I made, to push the mixed media style even further, was to introduce different art media in addition to the photographs. All the vegetation throughout the book is painted in acrylic. Dirt is photographic and/or paint mixed with pumice. Water is painted in watercolor. The book, like one of Cuba’s antique cars, is an amalgamation of different parts.

a watercolor sea, a pup & pumice, and a painted palm

photographic textures enhance the walls and roads