Digital Watercolor Portrait

I recently saw an interesting style of digital art that looked like water color painting overlaid with pen and ink. But it was awesome because it was vector. So I thought I might give it a try. With a photo I took of my son, I started by first drawing the outlines of his face by using the pencil tool in Illustrator. I started with thicker lines and used thinner lines to add more detail. On a separate layer I overlaid hundreds of shapes I drew with the pencil tool on the auto close path setting. Each shape was at about 20% opacity and I just kept drawing shapes one overlapping the other with varying colors to create the skin tone. I then did the same thing with the hair, clothing, soccer ball, etc. Keeping each part on a different layer including the teeth and eyes, so I could edit those areas more easily. I think it took me a total of around 16 or so by the time I was done with it. And I think it turned out pretty well for my first try….