using a program for the first time properly is always a little daunting, as you don't really know your limits or what is possible in terms of creating artwork. This whole process was made so much easier already having my roughs drawn out to work from.
I was able to scan these in a use them as a basis for my illustration in Adobe Illustrator.
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
My first postcard was a huge learning curve. Luckily I gave myself the time to learn the ropes and play with the Adobe Illustrator software, helping to inform my other postcards as I went along.
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| Original scanned rough |
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| Scanning and positioning the rough to work on top of in Illustrator |
Shape
Using what I had been taught during the Illustrator workshops, I began the artwork process by using the pen tool and creating simple shapes, using my rough as a faint guide underneath. Each shape generated was created on a new layer, to help with editing later on.
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| Adding shape to on top of rough guide |
Each national park has its common elements. These extras were always going to be a little fiddly to create, but using the many tools Illustrator has to offer, these weren't too difficult to create. I was able to make use of preset shape tools and the pat finder tool to help join shapes together in simple forms
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| Tree design formation |
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| tree positioning, making sure all elements are symmetrical |
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| small leaf and plant additions |
Recognisable elements of Yellowstone National Park are its waterfalls, mountains and specifically geysers. I wanted these to all feature in my "floating island" style postcard and enjoyed creating these out of simple shapes.
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| Shapes building the final image |
Mountains
Having been inspired by other illustrators works using geometric patterns, I thought this would be a good way to represent the mountains featured in the background of my postcard. Mainly using shape to build up my image, I was worried that a variety of flat shapes would make the scenery look too simple. By incorporating detail into the mountains using geometric shapes, I was able to add interest, colour and depth to the work I was producing (and I liked the overall effect).
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| Creating geometric shapes |
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| Adding colour |
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| Playing with opacity for a variety of results |
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| Changing colour and adding texture |
With a lot of the key elements in place (thanks to my roughs as a guide) I was now able to add the all important colour. I used a lot of reference material at this stage, as photographs of the realistic national park help to portray the scenery's true colour scheme. Keeping this in mind, Yellow Stone surprisingly has a lot of yellow featured throughout the mountains, hills and low scenery. This yellow based palette worked well against the blue of the water and geyser steam I had created and helped start me off on the right path.
Whilst playing with colour, I was able to see how my image was coming together, once my shapes had been filled. I was unhappy with how simple and flat some of the shapes looked, and to combat this, I managed to re-draw some of the key elements such as the waterfall and hills. I wanted them to look less harsh and more realistic in shape.
Texture
Flat colour still wasn't enough for me and whilst looking into other illustrators work using vector, textures seemed to appear a lot and I wanted this to feature in my own work. After researching into how to create textures (or use the ones already preset in Illustrator) I was able to play around and this element was the main feature in all my illustrations in the end. I feel it really helped bring the scene to life, along with my use of drop shadows, to help give a sense of 3D and depth. I wanted to stray away from the "Microsoft Paint-esque" image which i was in danger of creating in my first attempt using Illustrator and I think i managed that.
Note to self and others interested: Creating texture
In the swatches tool, Illustrator has its own texture presets and adding these to a shape is easy. Copy and paste your shape onto your surrounding board. Fill the shape with the desired texture and set its opacity/gradient. once happy with the texture, set this shape back over the original and voila. Adding noise is done in the same way, and preset textures and patterns themselves can be edited. Drag the pattern/texture swatch out from the tool onto your surrounding work board. Select the various elements of the texture you want to manipulate and add gradients/alternate colour etc. Once happy with the manipulated swatch, drag it back into your swatches palette and it is ready to be used as above.
Grand Canyon, Arizona
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| Original scanned rough |
Again, using my scanned rough as a background guide, i was able to start by creating simple shapes over the top - building up the basis for my image. I made sure that the rough and my vague idea of border and where all my elements were to be drawn - matched that of my previous postcard. Small ovals drawn at the base of the image helped centre the artwork and give me a starting point - something which I literally copied and pasted throughout the postcards, to help with consistency and composition.
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| Using ovals to centre and start image |
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| basic shapes building the image |
Colour
Luckily, the Grand Canyon has quite an obvious colour scheme. The reds, oranges and yellows are clearly a defining feature of the desert-like national park, but I didn't want this to overload the image as details could get lost. Looking back at my research, I realised that the large Colorado river runs right through the centre of the park. This gave me a great opportunity to feature a key attraction (which people might not realise is there) and use the blue of the water to cut through the image and add some interest.
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| creating colour scheme |
Drop shadow
As well as using texture throughout the post card artwork, creating a sense of depth was also really important and i felt my use of the drop shadow tool really helped to do this. Each details was able to stand out, moving further away from a flat and lifeless image.
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| drop shadow |
Mountains
Keeping in mind my theme across all the cards, I wanted another linking element to be the way in which some of the key components of the image are depicted. I was able to achieve this by using the geometric shapes to define the canyons within this postcard (as i had done for the mountains in the previous postcard).
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| creating geometric shapes |
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| adding the correct colours keeping in mind colour scheme |
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| Playing with brightness and contrast to add light |
Manipulating textures
As described previously, here are some screenshots of how I manipulate a preset texture and added it to my artwork.
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| ...before texture |
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| manipulating pre-set texture |
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| ...after texture |
Yosemite National Park, California
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| Original scanned rough |
After completing the two previous postcards, I was worried that the shape elements and overall composition were beginning to look too similar. I had tried to incorporate different defining elements from my research - to help set the postcards apart in someway, but composition tends to be dominant no matter what the content. I really struggled with this Yosemite postcard because of this.
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| starting shapes |
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| adding colour and repositioning elements |
Half Dome
The Half Dome in Yosemite National park is a key defining feature and something which i couldn't leave out of my postcard. It is one of the main attractions and quite beautiful as it towers over the park. primarily white granite, I wanted to keep this in mind when colouring the dome, as well incorporate my style used for the mountains and cliffs in the other postcards.
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| creating geometric shapes for rocks |
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| adding areas and guides for shadow, depth and darker shades of colour |
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| Checking for gaps by inserting a bright colour underneath |
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| Adding colour |
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| Adding texture to key rock formations |
Sequoia Tree
Another main defining feature of this park, are its huge red sequoia trees. these beautiful trees stand so tall right throughout the scenery and are really unique in shape and bright colour. I wanted the tree to look realistic, and simple shape wouldn't convey the same amount of detail and importance I feel these trees have to the park, therefore i sent quite a bit f time getting the aesthetic right.
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| starting with simple shapes |
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| adding a variety of colour and streamlines shapes |
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| highlighting areas with lighter colours |
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| leaf and branch design |
Composition
Struggling with the composition for this piece didn't last long. As soon as i had my half dome and sequoia tree completed, I was able to work around these and create scenery different from the other postcards. Adding the waterfall and lake were important in terms of what the national park features, but these also help increase depth and sense of realistic space.
The final addition of the foreground hill and foliage elements helped to round the image off compositionally and gave me even more to play with.
The Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
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| original scanned rough |
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| Basic shapes |
Once i had the basic shapes for my composition in place, i needed help with colour palette to get an idea of how the image is to look. I found it important with the other postcards to determine a colour palette early on, therefore using my reference imagery, I was able to use the colour picker tool and literally choose the colours from the photograph as a starting point. I also found it helpful searching for pre-set palettes using the swatches. The wide variety of similar colours and tones made the process of colour decision a lot easier.
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| colour reference |
Specific elements
Forests of multicoloured trees are a key feature in this national park as the mountains are literally made up of them. i had the idea for these trees to line each of the hill and mountain shapes I had created, keeping true to the national park itself.
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| Trees and reference |
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| flat coloured shapes |
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| Adding mountain gradient |
Texture, gradients and noise overlay examples
Here are some more examples of how I have added texture and pattern to each of the key elements within this artwork. This has helped keep my artwork consistent across all postcards.
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| manipulating a pre-set pattern |
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| adding manipulated pattern to my swatches and then adding this to my shape |
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| adding gradient (light on top) |
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| creating a noise gradient |
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| adding the noise and gradient to the pattern |
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| changing pattern to dot and adding gradient layer, pattern layer and noise layer back on top of coloured shape |
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| Adding coloured gradient with noise to coloured shape |
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| Image beginning to take shape |
Smoke/Clouds element
Creating the smoke/cloud element for this image was really fiddly but great fun. I used the pen tool and managed to create sweeping shapes weaving in and out of their surroundings. This helped to tie the whole image together.
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| basic smoke shapes using the pen tool |
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| adding colour and gradient |
Change in tree design
Now that all of my main elements were completed, I decided to change the trees I had designed earlier. I didn't feel they had enough life-like impact and were definitely not detailed enough.
I went back to my reference material and using an image of the trees in the park, I generated some new ideas and colour scheme which was a lot more pleasing.
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| testing rounded trees and size |
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| creating a "tree palette" |
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| adding texture and colour |
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| final trees in place |
Successes
I feel this whole process was a complete success from start to finish. I was completely daunted by the prospect of creating artwork with a program completely unknown to me, but sticking with it, researching and watching tutorials of how to overcome the problems I have faced, helped me to learn new techniques thoroughly and i see this program as more of a tool now instead of a digital process to be avoided.
using my roughs as a guide and starting point was the key to this work being created. Without it, I could have easily spent hour trying to draw on screen and honestly, there are too many options that i wouldn't know where to begin. Adding the rough as a base layer with low opacity, meant I could keep hiding it and showing it throughout the postcard artwork process - referring back to it whenever I needed too.
With my roughs as a guide, i still felt completely free to develop my ideas and artwork on screen. Learning new techniques meant I was able to push my idea further than I ever thought possible and with the help of reference material, i was able to make informed and considered decisions for key elements and colour palette throughout.
Failures
I am a little worried that i may have gone overboard on the textures, patterns, gradients and drop shadow. I feel these elements make the artwork a lot stronger and more interesting, however maybe next time I will experiment with the "less-is-more" approach and see what small amounts of additions like these can bring to the artwork.
I tried hard throughout this digital artwork making process, to keep the postcards as a set but separate. In some ways I feel I have achieved this as despite all national parks being quite similar and having similar key features, I made sure to feature different elements from each park in each card. i am concerned this may not have been enough though, and looking at all the cards as a set - they may be too similar to be distinguished from each other (if you are unaware of what they are or the key feature defining them).
Overall i really enjoyed learning a new digital program and feel this is a tool to be explored more in my future practice. I have learnt not to give up even when obstacles seem impossible to overcome. Somewhere there is always an answer, and if not - artwork can be altered, a new ideas can emerge from mistakes.
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