I was interested in learning how to achieve a painterly effect in Illustrator, and once again a YouTube video came to the rescue. I drew some stylistic inspiration from variety of bird drawings I found on the web, and used a combination of Illustrator’s Mesh and Warp tools to blend the colors and distort the individual shapes to create a more organic watercolor look. I drew this in parallel with the city illustration; as I mentioned in that post, I’m eager to learn how my brain tackles the creative proces of working in a variety of drawing styles at the same time. In general it was pretty enjoyable to switch off between the two projects for a couple hours at a time.

This is the first of what will probably be a series of bird illustrations I hope to make, each potentially in a slightly evolving style. This is meant to be a Steller’ Jay, although they typically have more grey/black on their upper back. More to come.