Colour tricks in Photoshop

Belinda Leung demonstrates how to paint with muted colours to create a festival scene tinged with nostalgia, featuring Hong Kong’s Lion Dancers

See how Belinda Leung creates a festival scene.

This image is part of an ongoing personal project called Hong Kong Heroes. Its purpose is to celebrate the unsung heroes of Hong Kong culture, many of whom are disappearing or possibly no longer exist as I remember them.

For this project I’ve experimented with ways of taking greyscale compositional sketches into full colour to represent this city of vibrancy and high contrast. Knowing your intentions before starting a project is a good way to maintain consistency, and here I want to invoke a sense of nostalgia in the viewer, represented by the muted colour.

Because they’re personal icons, drawn from my teenage memories, a lot of research is required before starting each image and all manner of things can distract you from your initial intent. Being selective with your reference and having a good idea of what the basic palette will be is a good way to keep everything on track.

This image features lion dancers who perform during festivals and celebrations. These festivals are a hive of chaotic activity, but since the objective for this project is to put the characters centre stage, I chose to focus on the dancers’ faces, framing them in areas of calm among the chaos to show their concentration and focus.

For this image I’ve made use of various Photoshop techniques to create a piece that’s both colourful and harmonious.