This is probably the longest I've gone without blogging. The final month of 2015 and this first month of 2016 have been spent taking a (much-needed) break and reassessing everything in my life after the numerous changes and challenges of last year. I've had to make decisions on what to prioritise and what to cut out completely, and have been surprised by the choices I made.
So I'm starting this year out full of Hope, and I'm passing that along to all of you. I've decided to carry on with the free printables to subscribers of the Floating Lemons monthly newsletter although it almost didn't make the cut. But despite my extremely full schedule now that I'm back in college, I do find pleasure in producing a text-based illustration every month, and anything that makes me feel good is staying for the coming year! This year I'm going for just one word, every month, that will express some form of inspiration or just good energy, and I think that "hope" is the perfect way to begin, even if it is a wee bit late ...
Here's a step-by-step progress of the illustration, from trying to figure out which text design I should use:
I was helped immensely by friends on my facebook and instagram pages who voted almost overwhelmingly for number 6, thank you! I then scanned it in, cleaned it up and printed it out very faintly so that I could roughly draw the flowers intertwined through it, and experiment with colours:
Once I decided on what I liked, I scanned the whole thing in again, made small changes in photoshop, reversed it and printed it out so that I could draw the outlines out in pencil and then transfer them onto a sheet of watercolour paper, then start colouring it in with watercolour pencils:
I then added water, painted over the pencils, worked in extra layers, and kept going:
Here's the final illustration before I scanned it in and cleaned it up in photoshop:
It took me a lot longer than expected but it was a pleasure getting 'into' a piece of art again, and a wonderful beginning to a creative year full of hope. I'm expecting more changes and challenges this year and look forward to tackling them all. Cheers.
PS: To get the Hope design as a free printable please do sign up for the Floating Lemons monthly newsletter and you'll get a text illustration available for you to download and print out at home every month. To subscribe just click HERE. Thank you!