Eucalyptus Botanical Studies – Archie Rose Gin Labels
Following the Poorman’s Orange and Sunrise Lime illustrations for Archie Rose’s Gin Labels, I thrilled to have been asked to create a third new label for their 2022 LE Gin Range. The subject, a Lemon Scented Gum was the focus for this label. To do this I created a series of eucalyptus illustrations capturing single leaves, a branch of leaves, seed capsules or gum nut cluster, single gum blossoms and a cluster of blossoms as well as a soft focus background painting that came together to create one label as you see below.
The Process behind the scenes
I love the process, working with other peoples talent and vision in collaboration to take ideas from nothing to a beautiful finished product. I love handing my part over to a client, stepping out of a project once it leaves my hands and suddenly seeing the product on the shelves months down the track. I love seeing how work from a clients hands evolves from idea into the visual in my hands… and again, how it evolves to the physical in the hands of the teams that come after my part is done. Its so satisfying and fun!
Its not that often you get a sneak peak behind the scenes for such things but believe me… it doesnt happen over night! It is months of enormous thought, effort, talent and team work to bring ideas to life. For my part it starts as a conversation, throwing ideas around on the visuals and approach, a brief to clarify and Im away. I look at the clients rough ideas as thumbnail/s and I start from there to develop and refine their concepts into beautiful visual imagery and artwork. Its a process.
On the left we start with the thumbnail from the client. Below I have refined the concept/s and created a simple pencil drawing to establish the layout and placement of each element to be illustrated. The first is the branch followed by the leaves and finally the flower / gum blossom and seed capsule / gum nut illustrations. Rough colour indications are then generated to help the client and designers get a sense of the design, placement and visual weight of the elements when combined.
This is then sent to the client for approval before any the rendering of finished artworks begin. With the thumbs up I move into the final drawing up, another step of refinement and finally the painting. With the artworks complete this goes off to the design team who weave the images together to a single design. This takes into consideration many things, including text, function, logos… the over all visual beauty of the product. From there its off to the printers, pop the labels onto bottles and lastly, onto the shelves for all to enjoy.
Here we see the table of completed illustrations, the gum leaf studies, the branch of eucalyptus leaves, the eucalyptus flower cluster, the small gum blossom studies and to bring it all together, a soft focus eucalyptus forest background that the other illustrations will be layered over. Its more work for me but it gives the client and designers far more scope to play with in the design process. I like to save my clients any unforeseen problems down the track and the best possible outcome for the project… as we have done again here! I am super happy with the results and I hope you will enjoy our collective efforts too!
The completed Archie Rose Lemon Scented Gum Gin Label