Our Planet Week recap.

the biz

May 2

Written By Nelle 🌿

Our Planet Week is an initiative entirely organised by illustrators from all over the world, wanting to shine a light on - you guessed it - planet Earth and how important it is to take care of her. It takes place every year around Earth Day, with different prompts every time, and I’ve been tagging along for a couple of editions now. Here’s what I cooked up this year!

day one || forest growing

little fox in the forest.

We kicked it off with what’s obviously been your favourite, and I totally get it. The minute I hear the word ‘forest’, foxes are what I think about, too. Majestic, clever AND cute, I immediately wanted to build another illustration around this little fella, and the rest is history. Add in a cute butterfly, lots of greens and a little natural light coming out of the canopy, and we got an illustration that I definitely want to do something more with. Postcards or a larger print? What d’’you think?

day two || river flowing

raccoons by the river.

I should not have to explain why I chose to couple these critters up with the next prompt, no? I love those guys with every fibre of my being, which immediately helped make this one the most difficult illustration I did this week. I wanted to do them justice, you see, which ended up with me experimenting with new brushes and effects just a liiiiiiittle too much, maybe. The end result is - artist honesty incoming! - not my favourite, but I *did* stumble upon a new favourite brush to use for backgrounds. So at least that’s a win, isn’t it? Along with getting to draw a couple of cute raccoons, of course.

day three || wind blowing

floating mice.

This was my boyfriend’s favourite, and a favourite amongst the other OPW artists, as well, and I get why. It’s a lot simpler than my other designs, which makes the cute, little objects jump out a lot more. By far the quickest illustration out of all five, and probably the best.
What d’ya know.
Quite in love with the colour palette as well, so it’ll probably end up in my postcard collection. All it needs is a great caption! Any ideas?

day four || ocean glowing

glowy jellyfish.

Now, we’ve arrived at the illustration I am probably most proud of when it comes to composition, dynamic, lighting, colour palette and effects. I played around with the light pen, for example, and really love how it turned out. And the jellyfish? I must admit that my appreciation for them is pretty recent, as I’m usually quite wary of them whenever I visit the sea. When you look at them more closely, though, you can’t but admit how amazingly pretty they can be.

day five || seeds sowing

nature’s healing potion.

For the last prompt, I wanted to emphasise how important it is for us to keep talking about our planet and its decline, while taking action - however small, like keeping our own garden and environment as green as possible - as well. Add in a dash of typical Spells & Pencils magic and drawing this potion bottle was an obvious choice. So; keep clocking and calling out climate change deniers, pour it into illustrations or whatever else you like, and most of all: let Mother Nature do her thing and help her grow as much as possible. It’s time for us to adapt, because she’s done and given us enough, don’t you think?

So, that’s a wrap on Our Planet Week! I’m really glad I managed to tag along until the end, however stressful it sometimes was. Let’s just say I avoided glancing at my planner and to do lists as much as possible this past week. The thing is; getting to draw what I love most is the best energiser, so while I’m getting back to my last commissions with a boosted mood AND more inspiration than ever before, it does make one think about what to focus on in the future. I’ll let that sink in a bit more , haha. So for now: