Water Sensitive Cambridge

 Water Sensitive Cambridge

I chose to base my illustrations around the theme of 'Enhancing urban biodiversity by providing habitat for wildlife, and food for butterflies, bees and birds. 

When learning about WSC, I found that the Rain Gardens used to prevent flooding were highly versatile - they could be used in homes as well as along pavements. I tried to express this in my drawings. 



In each thumbnail I tried to relate to the chosen theme while also expressing the idea of preventing flooding - the main objective of Water Sensitive Cambridge. 



The final sketch involves flowers used as umbrellas, a visual metaphor to show the benefits of a rain garden. The flowers keep the path clear for pedestrians, whereas the rain floods the surrounding not inhabiting flowers.

For the illustration, I tried to keep close to the colour palette given from the client. I did not find the colour palette particularly aesthetically pleasing as there was not a lot of variety in shades of blue and teal. 


However, when colouring the second sketch, I no longer liked the appearance of other colours not included in the client's colour palette and decided to remove the pink and purple tones from my final illustrations.



I used a 3:2 ratio for the original illustration and 1:1 for the square crop. I received peer reviews which encouraged me to create a more dramatic scene. Instead of a grey skyline with shallow puddles, I greatly emphasized the effect between the flooding and the flower barriers to better visually communicate the concept of the client's company objective.

However, I feel that the concept of umbrella flowers is slightly lost in the illustration, and unless you were told of what is happening, you could not interpret the image clearly. If I were to make adjustments I would want to include water splatter to indicate the protection provided by the flowers. I would also include water dripping from the petals similar to a usual umbrella. I also added flowers and fauna to better represent my theme. 





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