We found ourselves roaming around a serene farmyard located in the center of Zürich early one Saturday morning. We had had no intention of ending up there, but had taken a wrong turn and stumbled upon this beautiful little sanctuary of peace and tranquility in the midst of the city’s hustle and bustle. The children could not believe their luck! Ducks, horses, pigs and sheep a plenty meant that their Saturday morning was suddenly looking up.
The day was going to be a hot one. It was early in the summer but already the temperature was rising. The air was dry, as was the foliage around, but the sky was a spectacular blue. As we cooled ourselves in the shade provided by one of the beautiful old trees, it was impossible not to notice the cherry tree that stood as a centerpiece to this oasis. The otherwise colorless foliage surrounding the farm accentuated the little red dots that were unevenly scattered along the many branches.
«Look someone hung upside-down lollipops on that tree»
It was early in the season so the cherries had not ripened to the deep mahogany shade that could be expected later in the summer. The children unanimously described them as “firetruck” red. We couldn’t argue with this description, it captured the color perfectly.
Shapes
We looked through the photographs we had taken that day and thought hard about how best to capture what we had seen. As we zoomed in, the prettiness seemed only to intensify. What struck us the most was the intricacy of the branches from which the cherries were hanging. We tried to capture this by playing with stroke sizes and color intensities. Once we had a basis from which to develop our branches, we started with creating the cherries. We were careful not to create them to perfect looking, even though opting for a simple oval shape would have made life much simpler. Rather, we set about sketching by hand until we had several shapes with which we felt comfortable.
The leaves were complicated to say the least. We had observed considerable variations in leaf forms, something that we wanted to bring to our print. However, to achieve this required considerable experimentation with shading, placement and detail. After countless iterations, we finally produced a set of leaves which we were happy captured all elements we felt were important. We finally had the ingredients for constructing our representation of that charming cherry tree.
Colors
Throughout the process, we played with several color variations. We experimented with greens and reds in an attempt to exaggerate further the splendor of the cherries. We tested analogous colors, but we felt that they didn’t bring anything to the print, rather the contrary.
It was the stark contrast of the red cherries against the blue sky that made the beautiful tree stand out in the first place. To us, it was important that this was transmitted to our print. Finally, we extracted the colors directly from the photographs, with only slight modifications. It turns out, at least in this case, it was impossible to find a more fitting combination than that provided by nature itself.
What do u think of this print? We would love to hear if you have any color combination suggestions that we could try.
If you love this print, you can place an order on our website: Raindrops, warm or Raindrops, fresh.
