Welcome to Part IV of my Sketchbook series; this one is a bit of a double-barreled post, both a sketchbook piece and the beginnings of a new project inspired by Middle-earth!

In last week’s post I had shown the small ink sketch of Bilbo that I made, I have now worked up the composition for the final artwork as well as done some experiments and have got the final piece drawn up and ready to begin.

But before jumping straight into the current form of the art, let’s see the journey!

This sketch was a rough play around with ideas for composition as well as mark making, trying to get the feel for this new medium and understand the way I can manipulate it; or in many cases, be manipulated by it.

Overall, this was just a rough sketch and would usually be put into the bin but for the case of showing a process, it has survived. The mountains however, I find quite pleasing to look at and I learned a lot about what not to do for the final piece by doing this one.

This photo shows the work area I’ve been using for this piece. You can see my small sketchbook at the top propped up where I sketched out the idea as well as the first composition rough and other pieces of drafts; I keep these on display to further inform the final piece.

On the board is the final sketch, mapping out the composition and elements that I will carry into the final artwork.

And of course the empty coffee cup, coffee being the staple of my working diet and yes indeed, every coffee I drink whilst working is stone cold by the time I get to it.

Here we have the final sketch, this is where I lay down ideas with an acute finality as very little will change between here and the final piece.

Compositionally, I was much happier with the mountains not stretching all the along the back and leaving some open space to let the landscape breathe.

Here we have the final sketch, in pencil to begin with, I am intending to film the entire ink drawing process and create a time lapse video but with such a large amount of video it will take me a lot of time to render and edit so I’m in two minds about it at the moment.

However, I have done a smaller sketch version and created a timelapse for that. I’m also giving away the original sketch to a winner that will be picked and announced on February 28th.

To enter is simple – Watch the video below

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Leave a comment on the video so that I have your name for the draw

For an extra entry, or initial entry if you don’t have a Youtube account follow me on Instagram @JGloverArt and comment to let me know you wish to enter the giveaway

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That’s all for now, I’ll soon be back to post the finished piece!

Until next time, farewell!

JGloverArt