This is the first time that I am entering an illustration competition. It is organized by Lilla Roger's Studio and you can find the link to the competition site at here http://www.lillarogers.com/global-talent-search .The theme was Little Terrarium Wall Art. When I learned the theme I got so excited and happy! Because I love Terrariums and I have two of them which I care so much:) So as you see my two terrariums are on the top photo.
I want to explain how I approached this theme. First I needed to understand the plants to have an idea and come up with an interesting, fun and whimsical concept. When I searched the plants I learned that Terrariums have very different plants then the other ones that we know. So I started to draw some of them to analyze their shapes and colors.
After understanding terrarium plants I decided to sketch the ideas that come to my mind. I tried to not force myself and be relaxed as much as possible. So I listened a calm music and let it help me to draw in a natural way. The sketching moment is the most fun part for me because I feel so full of ideas and it makes me feel like I can use all my feelings with the project. There is no pressure, it is a way of expressing yourself! In this process mostly I laugh at the things I draw because I come up with funny ideas and this makes me so happy. Using art to communicate with yourself is the best part of art!
So I wrote many words which related to this subject. I asked myself different questions like what does it mean to me? What do I feel about it? What if I combine this and another subject will it be fun? ... etc. This really helps me so much. So I tried to find different concepts by thinking in different perspectives. In the end I realized that nature is a way of healing myself. I asked myself why people buy these small plants to their home. It come to me that we are so far away from nature and in this busy life we need peace in other words we want to feel we are alive (human). Nature is the purest meditation for me, so I thought I can combine terrarium and meditation (yoga). And remind people that we need nature and we can connect to ourselves with it. But I also felt it is sad in a way that people are trying to connect to the nature in this small form. I think we should go to parks so we will really be in the nature. Because of the life circumstances (ex:being busy) we are creating small worlds to connect with the most natural things in life. How sad is that! Anyway I felt so much and learned so much through this project.
The third step was to finally start to work on the piece. As you see I have gathered some of my process of my digital painting(above). I had hard time to find a good word or words for this piece but in the end I come up with something that satisfied me. For me this was the first time to write on a illustration. I never designed a typography before. But this was a great experience to learn the way of making sense with the type and the whole art. The second thing that I struggled was the background. I wanted it to be simple and not distracting the other elements in the piece so I tried to handle it with subtle changes in the colors.
Characters were the most fun part of this piece. I got inspired from plants to design these cute fun characters. I wanted them to be the ones that will remind us to show that nature is so important for our health.
This project was the first round of the competition. I am not sure but I read that there are 999 people that entered this competition. Next tuesday Lilla Roger's Studio will announce 50 people who have been selected to continue to this competition. Totally there is 3 steps of this competition. But they will exhibit all the entries in the online gallery. I hope I can pass this first round but if it doesn't happen it doesn't matter for me because this was my first attempt and I learned so much from it. It is an amazing feeling to work on a theme with different people. This is so motivational! Thank you so much Lilla Roger's Studio for this great opportunity! Good luck to everyone who have entered... By the way my final entry is the last image (below), hopefully you will like it too!
