Lord Speaker's Christmas Card Competition Final Entry

After merging the background and the stag, I needed to make it a bit more interesting than just a stag on a background. So I started playing around with borders and shapes in an attempt to focus the viewer's gaze where I wanted it most- and from that found my final design.

Lord Speaker's Christmas Card Competition Entry

This is the background I painted for the entry. I used a wet-on-wet technique to enable me to blend the colours gently into clouds of colour, and later used a small brush and flicked the tips to add some speckles.

Below is the final edition of the stag, all patched up and put together. To complete the design I will merge the two images and create vivid effects using geometry, typography and layer styles. 

Lord Speaker's Christmas Card Competition Entry

So using a multitude of references via free stock images I drew out my own stag portrait on A3 paper using HB and 7B pencil. I drew the antlers on a separate page simply because I wanted them to be big and wide and they would not fit on the page. To add a touch of Christmas magic I drew some baubles to delicately place on the stag's antlers.

Lord Speaker's Christmas Card Competition

Last week we were given an optional brief to create a christmas card design for the Lord Speaker.

We could use any medium so long as it was 2D and the entry needed to be sent by post to arrive before the 8th of October.

So, I started thinking about the symbolism within the Houses of Parliament and the House of Lords. Historically they have played an important role in the governance of England and as such are seen as quite important, regal characters. To find something to tie into a Christmas theme I started thinking about majestic animals native to England and how they could relate to the brief.

Stags have always been prominent in English society, wether through game hunting and national galleries of art and photography, usually as a symbol of national heritage and royalty. Red deer are the type native to England and are characterised by a red-brown coat, large, proud antlers and a piercingly pensive expression. One example of England's penchant for stags as a feature in art is the oil painting Monarch of the Glen, painted by Sir Edwin Landseer in 1851.

The Monarch of the Glen, Sir Edwin Landseer 1851

Therefore my main idea for this is to draw a portrait of a stag in my own style and to create a soft, powdery looking snow-storm background in watercolour paints and to add some graphical effects via Photoshop.