Jungle Pattern

I decided to take a brake from illustrating wild animals and draw more wild animals. I went on and create a repeating pattern that I've always wanted to do. It can be hard to get the positioning right so the design tiles smoothly. In this pattern I wanted to approach the shape of the animals in a more graphic design manner and worry less about accuracy, regarding the anatomy. Although my illustrations aren't really realistic in general, I always like to present what an animals look like in a stylised way, but still stick to some basic anatomy rules. With this pattern I became a bit more adventurous and took more of an artistic license. I might try to make some more in the future!

Happy Hippo

With no delay I went on and completed the next beast of the wild, the Hippopotamus or Hippo for short. I decided to take this pachyderm where his name suggested, "horse of the river", and although hippos look nothing like horses, they do love water. The hippo takes a dive into the fresh waters to cool himself down and there he sees wonderful shapes and colours, ribbons of fish and weed, all moving in slow motion. A school of fish is startled by the impact of the dive, while some other fish remain unimpressed. Something I wanted to portray in this illustration was the hippopotamus's main characteristics, his unique and enormous mouth  - wide open - and the bulk of his body. I didn't want to just show his head sticking out of the water, but to show the whole animal, so I thought I'd take him underwater. Also having this very heavy animal floating in the middle of the illustration, defying gravity, creates a very interesting visual.

Gorillas go Bananas

For my Wild Animals project I chose to do the gorillas next. These gorgeous big beast have huge muscles and furry forearms and can look pretty intimidating, especially to a child. On the one hand I wanted to show the gorilla's might, but at the same time I wanted to present a tender side to him too, so I thought I'd make him a father who's taking his little gorilla baby for bananas. Best dad in the world or what? Also I wanted to create an environment that felt natural for gorillas to live in, thick jungle with all shades of green all around and massive leaves hiding the sky. During this illustration I myself discovered the fascinating way in which bananas grow from the banana tree, batched up on a branch with a flower at its end, brilliant! So I wanted to share this new found knowledge with the children, although they already probably know.

12th May - International Nurses Day

A big Thank You to all the Nurses out there who help the weak and suffering.