Eruption – Creating a Surreal Landscape Drawing in Ink
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
When I sat down to create the ink drawing for Eruption, I had a clear vision in mind – a surreal scene of a sunlit valley with mountain spires transforming into human bodies. Below them, lush vegetation and waterfalls intertwine with dense industrial structures.
As is often the case with my art, I wasn't certain what the image meant or what details would emerge in the process. I just began working and trusted the process to show me the rest.
The Creative Process for Eruption
In my last post, I reflected on the evolution of three-dimensional space in my art and how the backgrounds have steadily expanded over time. That shift culminated in Eruption, which became my first true landscape piece.
Bringing that initial vision to life was a challenge because it was fueled by a mix of emotions: grief and clarity, confinement and freedom.
Visually, those feelings appeared in three distinct tiers. At the bottom, a sprawling and rigid industrial environment. Above, a powerful sun piercing dense clouds with its rays. And in between, humanity – seeking ascension but struggling to break free.
I'd begun exploring linear perspective in earlier work like Rite of the Final Passage and Sovereignty, but I knew I wanted to push it further here. Working digitally on Eruption gave me the flexibility to build and rebuild the space until it matched what I was seeing in my mind.
I allowed the initial sketch on my iPad to stay loose and gestural. I wanted to capture the overall flow of the composition before committing to details.
Once the key elements were in place, I began refining and clarifying. Steady, incremental passes across the page allowed the details to emerge without losing touch with the core inspiration.
As each form took shape, my process began to shift from intuition to structure.
I built a series of perspective grids in Photoshop to anchor the architecture within the landscape. These became the backbone of the piece, allowing me to be deliberate with each line as the full drawing came together.
This image shows some of the radial paths I used for perspective lines. I've adjusted the opacity of the paths and the line art to make them more visible here.
The final element to click into place was the sky. Despite occupying nearly half the composition, it remained relatively open and undefined until late in the inking process, when it suddenly called for more shadow and weight.
The darkened areas that emerged created opportunities for beams of light to shine through, visually embodying the contrast of the underlying theme.
Final Thoughts
Eruption was a demanding piece for me. The art pushed me to express a mix of emotions in a way I hadn't explored before – a landscape drawing with prominent use of linear perspective – and it offered an opportunity to develop new drawing skills in the process.
I'm beginning work on the color palette now – I'll share more about the personal context for this one when the final art is complete.
I post process videos, sketches, and behind-the-scenes work as new art takes shape. If you'd like to see the next stages of this world as it's built, you can find me here:
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