FAIRIE CARDS
I wanted to create some more birthday cards, and decided fairies would be an interesting topic to explore. As these are greetings card designs, the fairies needed to be appealing enough to the average buyer (not too scary!) but I didn't want to draw stereotypical Victorian fairies - with their dainty, human faces and frilly frocks.
Instead I turned to the natural world for design inspiration, with each of my fairies being influenced by birds, insects, and flowers.
The Readers Digest book 'Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain' has some great information on fairies and the kind of activities they're likely to get up to, which helped me come up with different ideas and write short descriptions for the back of each card.
The costumes and objects that the fairies have include plenty of nods to certain folk customs such as Morris Dancing, Celtic instruments like the Carnyx (an ancient war horn), and plants associated with the fae, including Datura flowers and amanita muscaria.
Like my other card designs, each one starts off as a detailed graphite pencil drawing, which is then scanned and coloured digitally in Procreate.