I used cut paper to illustrate a birthday card of jungle animals celebrating at a birthday party.
I photographed the final cut paper artwork first, and then I experimented with the type digitally. The bold, white typeface worked the best because it had the most contrast and legibility, and it matched the shape language of the animals in the illustration.
I received feedback on my sketches to make the animals more animated and detailed to improve the composition, so I made the animals interact with each other and their gifts more and I added more leaves in the background. I created a digital color comp of my final sketch to ensure the colors worked before cutting the paper shapes. I transferred my final sketch to the colored paper using tracing paper. Then I cut each shape with an exacto knife and glued them all together.
I always start my process with traditional sketches to explore different ideas and compositions. I experimented using different animals such as fish, safari animals, woodland animals, desert animals, and jungle animals.
