The brief:

For this exercise the article that I chose to draw my illustration from was an article I found in Psychologies Magazine titled – “How Nature calms the mind”. It focussed on how doing little things daily outdoors can help reduce anxiety and spiralling behaviour. What I found from completing the exercise was that the main focus of the article was that spending 20 minutes in the garden daily can work wonders for the mind and soul.

I went through the article and highlighted the key words that I found to be important helping me move forwards with my illustration:

For some reason whilst I was reading this, all I could see in my head was a free, chilled out, easy-going woman gardening in the sunshine in the style of one of the Grecian goddess style garden ornaments. I thought this would be very fitting for my illustration – The Grecian Goddesses wear very minimal clothing and this could reflect being in touch with nature and going back to nature. Thee statues are very feminine and this article is very much aimed for the female target audience. The Grecian Goddesses also belong in the garden which is the whole message of this article.

I sketched a rough idea in my sketchbook of what the idea was in my head – even though it was only really sketchy, I really liked it! I drew squiggly hair which reminded me of an Afro hairstyle – I then wondered if I should make my figure dark skinned but I then decided that my figure should just have a dark sun tan from being outside in the garden each day. I then had the idea that the squiggly hair could be flowers blossoming – this would represent the garden in the article but it would also represent self development, growth and the fact that the mind is now clear enough for life to grow.

I drew this sketchy illustration with a large trowel balancing in her arms and a watering can in her hand and I contemplated making the illustration look modern and relatable by letting her wear garden Wellies.

I looked on Pinterest for some further ideas; I needed a photo of a Grecian Goddess statue rework my sketchy illustration around and I needed ideas for the 20 minute aspect of the article.

I wondered how to get the 20 minutes into the illustration and I instantly thought of a Sun Dial in a garden. Whilst I was searching Pinterest for ideas for this, I also came across a pop up advert for B&Q which had an image that seemed perfect for my illustrations hair. I could copy these flowers and draw them onto my illustration:

I then started to draw out a few variations of my garden Goddess to decide which one would work better for my illustration:

I also took photographs of me holding items in the way that I wanted my illustration to, so that I could accurately draw from the photographs and make my illustration as realistic to a human pose as possible:

When I think of 20 minutes I think of a clock face and how 20 minutes looks on it. I drew this out and then realised that I could turn the clock drawing into sun rays to represent nature and the warmth and happiness of being outside. I drew out my chosen design for the Goddess and drew the 20 minutes into it and I liked how they worked together.

I then drew my final illustration out onto mixed media paper and decided to use ink, Pencil and colouring pencils to create the final piece.

This is the final piece. I am pleased with the tonal value and shading on the piece to give it some depth. The flowers are very simplistic and I feel with more time and practise I could have made them more realistic.

I then digitally manipulated it to put on my social media and changed the colours to brighten them up slightly for screen.