Eden Project live brief - inspiration and ideas

We got a surprise opportunity to get our work in the stores at the Eden Project at the start of this module, they wanted us to design some packaging for a candle range that they have created. This sounded like a fun brief but when I read into it I noticed that the main content would be flowers. This was not my kind of thing at all as I do not really like drawing flowers or anything from nature as a rule but I saw it as an opportunity to explore myself as an illustrator and come up with something that could be more along my street.

We had to choose a theme from their list and within that theme there were three scents which we then had to illustrate as three designs for the candle packaging. Reluctant as I was, I chose to go with the Rainforest theme as the scents seemed the most appealing to capture visually. Above are some of the images I collected to inform my research, from left to right we have Amber and Tonka bean, Vanilla and Tropical flowers. I should also note that I selected amber coloured plants for visual interpretation as I know that amber, as well as being a precious stone, is purely a scent.


The main point of interest for me was the tropical Rainforest plants as they seemed the most alien, the most peculiar and the most dazzling. Taking that in I remembered that these images do not necessarily have to be realistic and could be as abstract as I wanted them to be as long as they represented the appropriate scents. I then gathered together a mood board of abstract flower illustrations to influence my designs.

Some of the illustrations that I found were incredible, they really blew me away and got me in the mood to get started with these images. Some lovely shapes and patterns are made within these illustrations and the flow of the images are consistent, something that I would want within my images. I also remembered that during the summer last year I had in fact drawn some plants, My Under Da Sea  illustration featured a range of odd sea foliage and it was that illustration combined with my mood board that reassured me that I can do this kind of thing. 

The image to the left was the original crazy colour palate, this was before I had actually decided that it was going to be an under water piece, it was only when I had added the fish in that I knew where it was going to go, the one to the left is the finished image. I can draw flowers, I just have my own abstract way of doing it. 

Here are some of the flowers that I made, I wanted to mimic the process that I had used for my Under Da Sea piece and that involved making the flowers separately and then layering them up and changing the opacity to the desired effect. Once I had the flowers in place I would then add bits and bobs to tie it all together. Below are my final out comes for each scent. 

Amber and Tonka Bean 

Tropical Flowers 

Vanilla 

Overall I am pretty surprised with the outcomes, they turned out great and the colours work well with each other. I added a small character to each one as I felt that it would complete and contextualize each image. The flowers do have a sort of sentient look to them and as my lecturers mentioned, there is no reason at all why I could not incorporate monsters into this kind of illustration. This style would work nicely for some large and long scenery shots with silhouetted characters throughout. I have mentioned in this module already that I need to work on backgrounds more and this could be the start of that, these jungle plants could start the ball rolling. This brief reminded me that I can be flexible and generate elegant and gentle images, and although there is nothing monstrous about these plants, their shape and personality open up some interesting doors for me. I will have to play with this style some more in the future, 

A pleasant surprise