Creating an Album Cover Illustration - 제주바람 '어쩌면 아티스트'

Hi everyone!

As the last few posts were all beauty-themed, I wanted to shake things up a little with this album jacket illustration I did for the Korean indie singer '어쩌면 아티스트', which translates roughly to 'Maybe an Artist'...! (She surely is one, though!)

The song is called 'Jejubaram', which means 'Wind of Jeju'. As I live on that very island, I was all the happier to create the illustration! It's the perfect music for peaceful traveling (on Jeju or anywhere else), so if you're curious, you can give the song a listen here:

'Jejubaram - Jeju Wind' by Maybe An Artist on iTunes

'Jejubaram - Jeju Wind' by Maybe an Artist on Soribada (only a quick sample there, but hey, for free! ;)

K-Indie is a genre I love listening to on long days in the Cafe, and Maybe An Artist does sing in that lovely, laid-back style I personally really enjoy.

As for the illustration itself:

Jeju Island is famous for its 'Gyul', aka mandarins, oranges and clementines in all kinds of variations. They range from walnut-sized to roughly the size of a large grapefruit and come in all kinds of flavor variations, too! The song's lyrics evoke the scent of mandarins carried by the wind, so the choice of a mandarin tree motive was quite simple! (though we did some other sketches first...)

Some quick studies done during inktober (while traveling to the south of Jeju with my parents) were the basis for the mandarin trees, as well as some pictures I took.

The album illustration was then made with a light pencil drawing as a base, on which I layered watercolors. I didn't want to make the colors too saturated, going for a more 'milky' look. You can have a look at my watercolor collection here - I mostly used Cobalt Green mixed with Cobalt Blue, both giving a slightly muted color. For the mandarins themselves Scarlet Lake, Neapel Yellow and Cadmium Yellow were mixed, and some additional shadows added with Burnt Sienna.

The little sketch I did previously has now been hurled at Photoshop to form this mess:

As I'm currently preparing a lot of little printing projects (stickers, postcards, hand mirrors...) I'll maybe use it as some sort of background pattern. We'll see!

Something like this. Looks kind of christmas-y already, doesn't it?? (...panic!)

I loved working on this simple illustration and hopefully more is to come! As for now, I hope you'll check out 'Maybe An Artist's Instagram or Maybe An Artist's Facebook - she's a lovely person, talented person and deserves more attention! :D


More illustration projects will follow! I'm in the middle of several commissions, some of them spanning months already, and can't wait to share!

Have a lovely weekend and thanks for reading!