Physical post has become such an important part of everyday life for everyone. Isolating within our homes, access to deliveries have enable people to sell non essential items and maintain businesses that would be otherwise closed. The postal system also enables us to connect with friends and families with physical objects linking us directly through a cards and parcels. Postcards are a big part of my adult life, I have sent random cards to friends for most of my adult life. My collection of blank postcards is eclectic at best and my favourite part of my studio at Hazlehurst Studios is the wall of postcards I have been sent over the years.
This illustration's inspiration was the two surprise deliveries I received on the 16th. One from a friend of mine sharing a book with me about one of my most inspirational artists, Frida Kahlo. The second was a surprise present from my partner who by some mysterious means brought me a beautiful russian doll, something I have always wanted since a child but never found one which met my high standards for them!
I decided to keep the concept simple, as I wanted to play around with a digital learning technique I discovered of using only one digital brush for the entirety of the drawing. I got the idea for this technique from a digital artists YouTuber AngryMikko you can see the video where he talks about the process and the reasoning behind it here.
I had a lot of fights with this piece from learning how to get the finer detail with the brush I had chosen to deciding on the best composition with the dolls. You can see the struggle I had within the video even starting again on a new file. The style of the illustration is very much out of my comfort zone of clear lines and block colours (mainly those that would be easier to for me to embroider.) I'm pleased with the final result and I learnt a lot about different way to use digital art to draw and paint. I'm tempted to create another illustration for this day with multiple Fridas for the smaller dolls faces, I feel this is in keeping with her style.
