Do you remember back in January, when I showed you these inspiring pics from Pinterest?

Illustration by Chris Garbutt from Journey to the Centre of My Brain by James Carter

Card by essillustration available on etsy

I did actually create a page based on these pics, but I got to it in a round about way.
I really wanted to do something with the foxes, and initially thought I wanted to create a background with stamped foxes. I don’t have any foxes, (shocking isn’t it?!) but I do have a silhouette and the stamp cutting set, so I thought I’d find something in the silhouette store. But none of the foxes worked for me, if you know what I mean. Then I debated creating my own cut file, but I have so not been in a drawing mood. So… What to do?

I went back and thought about what exactly I liked about the foxes. I liked that they were whimsical and friendly. Cuddly even! I loved the brush strokes on the black and white one, and I loved the idea of family that the red and pink ones suggested. So that led me to the theme: family.

photo by Doc. Ing. of Lake Sauris in Italy from Flickr

Next I started thinking about color. I loved the blues and greens of the landscape, and how silvery the haze made the hills in the background. But I also loved the pink in the diamond illustration. So of course I combined them.

Illustration for magazine Revue XXI no. 23 by Cruschiform (Fukushima)

As far as structure goes, the three overlapping diamonds were going to show up on the page without a doubt.

After a bit of fun (which I’ll go into detail about on Monday) I ended up with this:

I had a lot of fun making the layout. The diamonds were fun to figure out, although after a bit of time, I’ve come up with an easier way to create even diamonds. Any whoo…

What do you think? Can you see the inspiration in the end result?