Holiday Trees and an Angel

Holiday Ornaments

Jutta Schneider challenged us in a weekly prompt– the first two being “ornament” and “tree,” which this top image illustrates. I’ve taken classes on Mid century Style from Jutta so that’s what I wanted to create. I decided there was too much texture on this illustration, so I revised the image to be more true to the mid century style. A little more flat, some outlining, and the odd-shaped motifs with some half-tone look. Shading and highlights are obvious with hard edges. I like this one much better.

Winter Solstice Angel

@CatCoq also suggested a challenge in her newsletter to create a holiday Scandinavian Folk Art design. What I designed is not quite Scandinavian Folk Art, but it does have holiday motifs and symmetry. I created it for yesterday’s Winter Solstice, Dec 21st, the shortest day of the year. Every day from now to summer solstice will be progressively longer– the light of day returns!

So my design says, “Let the light in” and “Winter Solstice.” A little angel holds a lit candle with a heart. The angel is bordered by holly and berries, foliage and berries, and red ribbons.

I sketched the design, then used the Procreate native syrup brush to draw and fill the color. I then added color variation and texture with Jennifer Nichol’s New Gouache brushes to the ribbon and leaves. See Jenn’s community information to find her free and membership brushes [affiliate link]. I think Jenn’s brushes added some dimension and variation to the motifs.