Final Piece #7

For my 7th final piece, I have decided to create the image of a peacock, in the shape of the letter 'F'. I used reference from some of the photos that I took at flamingo land park, which featured a few peacocks in their zoo enclosures. For this piece I again kept to a strict palette of 'pastel' tones, as to resemble the 1950's style of children's illustration. I started out lightly drawing the letter 'f', and shaping the image around this like a frame. After carefully drawing the peacock with a fine pencil, I began to add colour, detail and tone using watercolours. To get the unique tones I used watercolour paint to achieve this. I also used a fine ink pigment pen, to add some simplistic detail, such as the feather shapes and to also go over the beak and crest. I feel this makes the image more 'striking'.

Overall I am really happy with this piece, I love the shape, and the detail on the body, and it is one of my favourites. However, even though this still sticks within the pastel tone of colours, I wish I painted this in a slightly more vivid blue, like a sky blue. I feel this would have made the illustration that little bit more interesting.

I cannot wait to see how this will go in my handmade book, which will contain 6 pages (excluding covers).


Thomas.