WINNING ILLUSTRATION OF THE NATURALISTIC ILLUSTRATED CALENDAR OF CHERASCO COMPETITION 2021
I'm so happy and proud that my artworks conquered for the second time the eyes and the hearts of the Jury of this annual competition. Cherasco is a beautiful old city under Cuneo provence, in Italy. It's around 12 years since they are organizing this competition, with a lot of very good artists joining.
The difficult is, submitting 12 finished illustrations based on the subject they choose. This year it was the local birds nests.
Not to mention it, after making all of them I'm totally bored of those tricky and complicated nests!! You don't know how complicated they are until you'll try drawing them, I guarantee...
Here follow 4 of them, I'm sharing with you the pictures and some details that may help explaing how I and other naturalistic illustrators work.
I hope you like it!
Codibugnolo (Aegithalos caudatus) - Long tailed Tit - watercolor on paper - 2021
Fringuello (Fringilla coelebs) - Chaffinch - watercolor on paper - 2021
Gazza (Pica pica) - Magpie - watercolor on paper - 2021
Rigogolo (Oriolus oriolus) - Golden oriole - watercolor on paper - 2021
Codibugnolo - final sketch drawing for the composition
Fringuello - final sketch drawing for the composition
Gazza - final sketch drawing for the composition
Rigogolo - final sketch drawing for the composition
Codibugnolo - detail of work in progress
Fringuello - almost finished before adding the final shadows
Gazza - masking the subject and painting the background - with assistant
Rigogolo - drawing on the cotton watercolor paper - before painting with all the references close to me
I shared some pictures to show you how I work. At the beginning the research, finding a lot of reference for every bird, texts and pictures, to have clear every little detail that define the specific kind of bird. With all the picture I rebuild a new drawing and composition putting together pieces observed from all the images I prefer and this is how the new illustration take shape. The beginnign is transferring the drawing on the cotton paper, and after I start slowly and carefully paint overy one, for first step the background, and the other elements, and for second the main subject and the details. When all the illustrations are finished, I add the shadows to each one of them with the same colour to give an over all omogeneus impression. Then the last check and little refining with dark pencil and a white pen where needed.
