Illustrated Letterform

This was such a fun project to create as we were challenged to illustrate a letter to match an element that has to do with that letter. I chose to illustrate an O with the main subjects being to little lovey owls. While sketching, there were a few different options as to how I could illustrate the scene or whether the O itself would take on the form of a single owl. After some contemplation with the sketches, I decided to turn the letterform into a scene taking place within a tree. The scene is set at night as the two love birdies are falling asleep together in the middle of the tree. Overall, I tried to incorporate the O shape into most of the vectors as either the main shape of the starting point from which I created the images. 

The colors choices were made based on a calming nighttime palette that I created. I knew that I wanted the night sky to be using purple and blue tones, so the purple theme really took over when planning for how to color the owls themselves. The final composition is shown below along with the initial sketch. In order to create some sense of depth, I utilized the gradients in Illustrator and created various shapes using different color values to show the shadows that would fall because of the moon. The blob tool proved to be very useful in creating the notches and details in the wood. Overall, this project pushed me out my digital comfort zone in order to create the different elements in a creative way.