collage

Marsh Illustration

Marsh Illustration by Terri Wilhelm
| terriaw

I’m excited to share another new illustration piece to add to my portfolio and the next one in my series of habitats – it’s a Marsh Collage!

Marsh Illustration by Terri Wilhelm

Instead of doing a sketch first, I made a tiny version using the Hahnemuhle Agave Watercolor 8 x 10.5 cm pad as an experiment, just playing around one night.

I liked it so much I decided to make a larger version. I

Marsh Illustration by Terri Wilhelm

illustrated the marsh background on a large piece of Arches hot press watercolor paper with watercolor and colored pencils.

Marsh illustration by Terri Wilhelm

And then I illustrated the wildlife on separate paper, cut them out and taped them into the landscape with foam double-sided tape to give them a more 3D look.

Marsh illustration by Terri Wilhelm

Click here to check out my first one – a marsh wetlands and here to see my second one in the series – the shoreline. Stay tuned for the next habitat illustration in this series.

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Marsh Wetlands Collage

Marsh wetlands illustration by Terri Wilhelm
| terriaw

I’m so excited to share this new illustration piece I finished in March!

Marsh wetlands illustration by Terri Wilhelm

I did some sketching first in my sketchbook to brainstorm ideas and test out different scene compositions and birds.

Then I illustrated the marsh background on a large piece of Arches hot press watercolor paper with watercolor and colored pencils.

Marsh wetlands illustration by Terri Wilhelm

I illustrated the birds on a separate sheet and cut them out.

Marsh wetlands illustration by Terri Wilhelm

Voila, my first collage illustration!

I started with the idea of illustrating birds since I haven’t focused on that in a while, which led to researching birds that live in a marsh wetlands habitat. I didn’t want to illustrate the birds and then have to do a background around them which led me to the idea of this collage. It turned out even better than my imagination!

Marsh Wetlands by Terri Wilhelm

I’m on a roll this year completing a bigger illustration project like this (outside of my sketchbook) each month, the Stargazing animals series in January, the Woodlands Map in February, and this Marsh Wetlands in March. Stay tuned for what’s to come in April!

Designing With Texture

| terriaw

The next section of study in my design class has been designing with texture and patterns. Our project was to create a texture quilt with images of texture cut from magazines. Images of texture would be things like grass, fur, rocks, brick, rusty metal, tortoise shells, and more.  The other guideline was that the images couldn’t reveal the actual object.

I collect Patagonia catalogs because the photography is so beautiful, and I love to read their environmental and adventure essays too.  It was a great resource to find large pieces of texture.  Check out my pile.

pile of texture images

I also bought a diving magazine for the beautiful beach photos and under-the-sea textures, which had a nice effect when laid next to snowy textures.

cool texture images

Gardening magazines had good texture too. green and cool texturesClimbing magazines had good images of rocks and mountains, which looked great next to images of vegetation and sea life textures. 

mixture of texturesWe had to keep in mind the design concepts of symmetry, asymmetry, proximity, hierarchy, proportion, repetition, rhythm and unity when designing our quilt pattern.  It reminded me of all things we learn in quilting classes, so this was a fun exercise to work on.

red-gray textures

As you can tell, I decided to make log cabin blocks using a one-inch log template with the darker colors in the center. (Would you believe I have never made a log cabin patchwork? I have a great pile of scraps from recent swaps that I want to use for scrappy log cabin blocks, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet.) I didn’t do a border because the white around the edges of my paper seemed to finish off the piece quite nicely. 

the texture quilt!

Isn’t that cool? This was such a unique way to study texture, create patterns and get a taste for working with color, which is our next and final section of design.  I really pushed myself here to trust my creative instincts and also figure out when to stop the gathering and planning process, and start designing!