Who is Enrique Bernal?
The drawings below look as if a neon sign or a phone screen is shining on the paper. The trick is a two-step process. Mexican artist Enrique Bernal, known as Kike, first draws his portraits and animals by hand with mechanical pencils and pens. He then photographs the sheet and adds the coloured light digitally in MediBang Paint, a drawing app. His glowing sketches spread widely in early 2020, when My Modern Met in Spanish and Oddity Central both featured them.
How the glow effect works
The pencil drawing does all the structural work: proportions, hair, folds of fabric and shading. The digital step adds only light. In Bernal's pieces, the glow usually does one of two jobs. Sometimes it acts as an imaginary light source, a strip of colour along a cheek, lip or hip as if a neon tube were just out of frame. At other times the light becomes an object in the picture, such as glowing butterflies, birds, a straw or a tattoo.
MediBang Paint, made by MediBang Inc., has versions for computers, tablets and phones. Like most digital painting apps it lets artists work in separate layers above a scanned or photographed drawing. Glow effects of this kind are usually made by painting soft colour on a layer set to a brightening blend mode, then adding a smaller, almost white core where the light is strongest. Because the light sits on its own layer, the original graphite marks stay untouched underneath.
The gallery
A young woman in a heavy hooded sweater, drawn in fine cross-hatching. An orange glow lights her lips and jaw from below, as if from a lamp or a screen, while the rest of the drawing stays grey.
Curly hair is built up from hundreds of loops of pencil. The yellow glow comes from the cup she sips from, so the drink itself becomes the light source and spills colour onto her hand and sweater.
A girl in a cat-ear hood, lit in hot pink along her cheek and hand. The colour is limited to the side of the face that would catch the light, which makes the effect believable.
Here a gold light seems to come from a glowing stick held in her mouth, and it reflects off a large hoop earring. It is one of the clearest examples of the light acting as an object inside the scene.
A small crescent moon shines on the forehead, and a warm glow lights the hands pressed under the chin. The rest of the long, loose hair is left as plain pencil.
Pale yellow birds fly around a girl with closed eyes, and thin lines of light trace the edges of her hair. This is the "fantastical" side of his work, where light becomes the subject.
A girl with hair buns and a cropped top, lit by soft pink from the side. A small glowing script tattoo on her stomach adds a second, separate light.
A profile in glasses, with a narrow peach glow along the nose, lips and lenses. The effect is subtle, close to a reflection from a screen in a dark room.
A bob-haired girl looking over her shoulder, lit with a faint pink rim. It shows how little colour is needed when the line drawing is strong.
A full-figure drawing of a girl taking a selfie, with cool blue light along her waist and hip, as if from a neon sign beside her. The pen in the shot is a reminder that the base is a real sheet of paper.
Turquoise butterflies circle a seated figure, and the same colour washes over her face and hair. It is one of the most saturated pieces in the series.
A portrait with a glowing ornamental tattoo on the forehead in violet and white. The design looks printed onto the skin rather than shining onto it.
A profile of a woman smoking, where the glow comes from the cigarette and warms her fingers and lips. It is the most cinematic image in the set, close to a film-noir lighting setup.
Want to try it yourself?
You can get a similar effect with a pencil sketch, a phone photo and any free drawing app that supports layers. Shoot the drawing in even light. Add a new layer, choose a bright colour, and paint softly only where the light would really hit. Then add a thin, almost white line at the brightest edge. Keep the light consistent, coming from one direction, and leave most of the drawing grey so the glow has something to stand out against.
Pencil first, light second
Bernal's work shows that digital tools do not have to replace traditional drawing. Here, the hand-drawn line is still the heart of each piece, and the light simply decides where your eye goes first.
Sources: artwork by Enrique Bernal; background from Oddity Central and My Modern Met (Spanish); app information from MediBang.
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