I have been trying to develop an illustrative style for myself since I found out that illustration was a career path in the design world that I would like to go down. In my creative career so far I have always wanted to make somewhat surreal or low brow inspired works, but I wanted my work to look much more professional than it was. So the challenge I have made myself was to combine elegant art styles (pop art, minimalist, op art) with surrealism, line art, and storytelling that fits the kind of work that I want to make.

A reference photo was used for the woman's pose and the surroundings of the room, and all the shapes were created with pen, curvature, and shapebuilder tools. Stipple brushes and layer masks were used for highlights and shadows. Light sources were created with gradients set to overlay or a similar blending mode. A linocut brush was used for the line art in the hair. The gradients had some color banding, so in photoshop I added a noise layer to try and solve that problem, and a little random texture always looks good.