Cardinal Snowscape Illustrations

ILLUSTRATION

Shown here are various illustrations from my Cardinal Snowscape Collection in the Surface Design section on this website. The first two full illustrations are identical except for the poinsettia on the mailbox in the second one, which was added for a holiday category. (I might be adding a bow to the mailbox post; we’ll see.) The inspiration for the full illustration and the pattern collection was a watercolor painting, shown here under this text. The painting is not great by any means, but it did have some elements that I wanted to take further.

There are also several break-out spot illustrations here that have the background removed and, isolate the full foreground scene, just the bush where the cardinals are gathering, and the mailbox.

Another full illustration is shown with two larger cardinals perched on a tree limb during a snow squall. The background is made up up watercolor trees masked together with different transparencies to suggest a forest with trees fading back into the atmosphere of the storm. Masking was necessary because each group of trees is transparent to get the desired effect, but seeing trees through tree trunks just wasn’t going to work.

Next, there are cardinal tiles with Chinoiserie-style faded blue watercolor borders. Chinoiserie is a bit of a stretch, but I wanted a similar look. The borders were created with little vector drawings and mechanically made into borders. The hardest one was the meander in the upper right corner. I had to look at the borders from the Antioch Mosaic Floor in the Retouching section on this website to get a feel for how to draw it. Mine isn’t as elaborate, but it’s appropriate for a tile. The blue watercolor effect was done in Photoshop with my own painted and scanned textures.The cardinal tiles use motifs from the Cardinal Snowscape patterns. Individual tiles are also available.

Lastly, we have spot illustrations of each individual cardinal scene that were also used a pattern motifs. All of the illustrations on this page are available for licensing.