One of the panels for a series of illustrations to be submitted to an international competition. Lord, I'm scared.

EDIT (10/19/05):
Wow. When I submitted this, I NEVER expected it to get this kind of attention, so I didn't really spend much time on the description. I'm so flattered! Thank you guys.

The Technique:
Based on a technique employed by the incomparable illustrator CF Payne ([link]).
-Super-light acrylic wash
-Watercolor wash
-Light wash of a mix of ochre/diox purple/green oils and turpentine - coat the whole piece, and then subtract the lights out with a kneaded eraser before it dries completely
-More layers of acrylic washes (until you get the colors of the final piece)
-Colored pencils on top for detail/extra highlights/shadows

Use the spray fix stuff called Sureguard II between layers so that everything sticks. It's a really time-consuming technique, but it's great for the depth, unification and values it gives a picture.

The Competition:
Teatrio ([link]) is an Italian children's book competition held annually for amateur and student illustrators. They give out a theme every year, and the artists have to do a sequential series of illustrations encompassing that theme. This year's theme was "Hello, My Name is Bernard". They only accept 500 submissions, and I made it to round two, where they narrowed it down to 80, so I was thrilled with the result, even if I didn't get into the final book.

My piece:
(At this point, I'm still waiting for the final 3 panels to come back to me.) My Bernard story is about an old man, who, as he's nostalgically wandering the streets of Paris, happens upon an opera poster. The woman on the poster comes alive before his eyes, and pulls him into her world, where he becomes young once more and finds her to be the love of his life.

Nice and sappy.