Over the summer I worked away on a collection of illustrations inspired by a traditional garden potting shed, and all the gardening items and tools that are common in such a quaint little setting.
I was commissioned by small British puzzle business, “Bloom Puzzles” to create a series of illustrations that evoke a warm summer's day spent pottering about in an English country garden, enjoying the scents of the garden in full bloom and listening to the gentle buzz of the bees.
There was over 50 individual elements to illustrate, including a larger “potting shed” centrepiece illustration, lettering for the title and hand-drawn annotations for the flowers.
As usual I worked in graphite and watercolour (and a little bit of mixed media) before scanning the designs to create clean digital files.
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| an early potting shed sketch |
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| a more polished drawing |
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| a basic rough colour test |
I illustrated each element individually before digitally assembling a lively design centred around the garden shed. The contrast between larger objects like the garden gate and beehive to the smaller creepy crawlies hopefully makes for a fun and challenging puzzle with some surprises to be found along the way.
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| layout wip - the layout design was assembled using pencil sketches |
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| layout wip - coloured elements were gradually added in |
It even has its own Spotify playlist to help set the mood as you puzzle over the pieces. Bloom Puzzles is a business that gives back - 5% of sales from this puzzle goes to Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
If you'd like to purchase one of these lovely puzzles for yourself or a loved one, you can find them here at Bloom Puzzles!
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| the finished design |
To view more work from this project please visit my portfolio website.
