The original for this image was painted back in July 2021. When I started toying with the idea of making it into a poster an issue arose. The format of the original image wasn’t suitable for the poster I had in mind. Initially I tried to work a bit of Photoshop magic, but it simply didn’t work. Therefore I ended up revisiting the image, repainting great parts of it, but kept some of teh base elements. During this process I also changed the colour palette completely, because I felt it needed a little change. This lead to these blue nighttime colours, one of which is actually the Pantone colour of 2022: Very Peri.
This illustration is available as a print, that can be found in my InPrnt shop. Other illustrations featuring US National parks and landscapes can also be found there.
After finishing the nighttime version, I went back to the original colour palette, because I still felt it was right for the subject matter, and having a day and night version seemed really cool. Though, I struggled to make the image work, but it turns out that had more to do with some of the original elements I tried to keep in the image. The clouds in the original image were quite stylised, and clashed with the softer shadows in the poster, and fought for attention. I didn’t realise that was the reason why the image didn’t look right, but it was pointed out to me by a friend of mine who gave me some much needed feedback. The amends to the style clouds pulled everything together, and saved the image. It went from a version I hated to one that I love.
Prints of this illustration are also available in my InPrnt shop.