Three Sisters, a craft beer brewery based in Taranaki, New Zealand approached me with a project, an illustration for their Sour Cherry & Vanilla Imperial stout (later changed to Sour Cherry & Rye Imperial Pastry Stout) named Black Forest.
The idea was three sisters wandering a dark forest in New Zealand, finding the ingredients. The medium, though digital is influenced heavily by woodblock as I wanted to portray New Zealand forest as a dense thicket of texture, but also take into consideration the open fields - so composition/negative space take the main stage as the ambiguous forest and the hinting of the fields with silhouttes of fence and farm animals. I later incorporated trees in the foreground to strengthen the forest vibe.
