Botanical illustration design by freelance graphic designer

This is a sketch I drew one evening based on photographs I had taken on my last trip to Australia. We were staying in New South Wales which has wonderful lush vegetation. The house we stayed in was practically in a rainforest so we had plenty to look at when relaxing on the deck, including bright red parrots and some very loud insects. I used some coloured geometric shapes to pull it all together and give it a slightly retro feel. I love outlined sketches as they’re so flexible when used with other elements, there’s no colours to clash or over-styled brush strokes to crowd a composition. It’s the idea form of sketching for the collages I make. I really enjoyed creating these pages in my sketch book and I’m vowing to create more on a more regular basis. It’s therapeutic if nothing else.

The other thing these sort of sketches are useful for is wallpaper or pattern design. I’ve been really getting into repeat pattern design, it’s a lot of fun. It’s nice to get a mix of hand illustrated elements, flat smooth colour and collage elements. I’ve been collecting some nice patterns in Pintrest. Damn I love Pintrest!!