MODERN NURSERY ART - ANOTHER WHALE OF A TIME

You may remember from a previous post { found here } that I was playing around with using hand drawn animals in Adobe Illustrator. This all began because I wasn't having any luck finding a modern nursery art piece to give as a gift for some family friends that became new Grandparents so I decided to make my own. 

I ended up using a fabric design in print form for that gift but it made me realize that it would also look super cute with fabric as well.

Well, I had another opportunity to test out this theory as my colleague's beautiful baby boy was turning one and moving into an new house.  I jumped at the chance to make him something for his new space to make him feel at home & wanted to share the results with you.

I took the whale that I drew for the piece above and literally cut it to use as my template.  Walter's room is going to be navy blue with splashes of orange so I used that as my color palette and got to work designing.    

I ORIGINALLY TRIED TO INCLUDE THE BLOW HOLE SPRAY, BUT IT JUST  DIDN'T WORK

INSTEAD, I CHOOSE TO USE SOME CUTE BUBBLES

MOVING CLOCKWISE: 1. MY TOOLS 2. POSITIONING MY TEMPLATE FOR TRACING
3. TRACING MY WHALE 4. MY ORIGINAL FABRIC OPTIONS

FIRST DRAFT - I THOUGHT THE ORANGE WOULD POP, BUT THE FLOWER PATTERN JUST WASN'T DOING IT FOR ME.  ALSO, LOOK AT THAT SAD ONE ARMED TEDDY I USED AS A PROP!  POOR GUY!

QUICK TRIP TO THE FABRIC STORE AND VOILA! SWEET AND SIMPLE BLUE CIRCLES FIT THE BILL { even though it was unintentional, they matched my bubbles perfectly - sweet serendipity! }

I was super pleased at how it turned out and just gave it to Walter's Mom. Yea! She liked it too.  I'd love to hear what you think of the final project.