To create this image you'll need:
Two pencils; one sharp and one fairly dull, an eraser, a piece of paper (a sketchbook would be perfect),
a scanner, and a digital editing program (the one used here was Adobe Photoshop Elements).
When I started drawing this, just like many of my drawings, I had no idea what I wanted it to look like when I was finished. But that's what is so great about art; you can watch yourself create something from nothing. It's a wonderful feeling.
To create an image like this one, we will be doing the work half by sketching it by hand, and half in Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Step 1. On your piece of paper, draw a very rough sketch of the body of the mermaid. It does OT have to be perfect, or even detailed; just the rough shapes that make up her body. You can make a choice whether to draw the hair now or to do it in your editing program. I used a calligraphy brush in Photoshop to draw the hair instead of including it in my original sketch. After making the light pencil marks where you want them, go over them a second time with a darker pencil and erase the stray light pencil marks.
Step 2. Scan the sketch into your computer at at least 300 dpi (the more dpi the higher the quality, and the larger your image file will be) and open the file in Photoshop. When scanning any kind of image into your computer, you should always follow the "300 dpi minimum" rule.
Step 3. Go to Enhance>Adjust Lighting >Levels and and drag the bars to darken the shadows (dark pencils stokes) and lighten the highlights (background and stray light pencil strokes).
Step 4. Now, no matter how much you tinker with Levels, unless you had an incredibly clean-cut sketch to begin with, you will probably STILL have stray lines. There's really no way I've found to correct this except by going over every extra line with you eraser tool.
Step 5. After that, go to Filters> Artistic> Cutout and use whatever settings you like most. I suggest 5 levels or less. After that, you just need to use levels of gray to fill in any blank spots there may be and you're done!
My Suggestion: Get a piece of paper and a couple of pencils, one sharp and one dull, and just start drawing. If you mess up, don't start erasing, just use the mistake to create something new. you never know what you'll come up with.
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