Donate Life Design

Poster contests are not my favorite thing to do, I always feel pressure to perform and I always end up making mistakes that end up making me not like the piece. This contest focused around organ and tissue donation, so I decided to create a spring scene, as people who received donated organs and tissue often have a new life, as they are no longer suffering from the effects of the illness that forced them to seek a new organ. The colors light blue, light green and yellow are often associated with spring and new life, so I chose to create this piece. I also tried to create some visual interest by trying to create a sense of windiness, with the streaked sky and blowing grass. The cherry blossom tree represents the organ and tissue, as it has the same pinkish color, and is a tree, which grows.

To create this piece I used Prismacolor Colored Pencils along with both black and brown Micron pens. I first did the linework in pencil, before lightly erasing and using the Microns to darken the lines. The last and longest step was the colored pencils, as I was trying to create smooth highlights on the trunk of the tree—which alone took me an hour—but I was pressed for time so the same kind of care was not applied to the rest of the piece. My favorite part of this piece is the sky, which I did last, because it has a feel of motion that I really like.

If I could re-do this piece, I would've saved the lettering to add in Photoshop rather than on the paper, and would've spent the most time on the cherry blossoms, which, to me, feel rather lame and not nearly enough three dimensional. I am ok with the background, but perspective is something I struggle with, so the transition of the hill to the ground were the tree is standing is rather awful.