Behind the Image: Painting the Night Sky with Natalia Hubbert
Natalia Hubbert is a watercolor artist and Adobe Stock Contributor who creates delicate, rustic illustrations with an emphasis on soft colors and organic textures. We featured her illustrations in our 2017 Horoscopes for Creatives, and asked her to share the inspiration and process behind her paintings.
Natalia has been intrigued by zodiacs and horoscopes since she was a teenager. Combined with her love for creating sets of illustrations, the twelve zodiac signs were the perfect creative project.
“I tried to create something in a more traditional, vintage or antique style compared to the modern zodiac signs that you see today,” Natalia explained. She delved into research to learn how zodiac signs were illustrated hundreds of years ago, and referenced those historical images for inspiration.
After sketching and painting by hand, her illustrations were scanned and lightly edited. The editing was kept to a minimum to preserve the hand drawn aesthetic and watercolor textures. To make the illustrations look more rustic and aged, Natalia added filters and experimented with layered backgrounds on Photoshop.
When designing a collection, there are many factors that need to be consistent across all of the images, such as the angle of the drawing (side view, top view, or other), style, details, light, shades and shadows. It’s a fine balancing act to create a dozen individual paintings that are individually unique but also work together as a group.
One of the biggest challenges that Natalia faces when she is creating her classic illustration sets is time. Though she starts out with a goal of creating just a handful of illustrations per set, as the creative process flows, the number of items on her list starts to grow. Luckily with the zodiac set, she only needed twelve illustrations and a few accompaniments such as stars and clouds to complete the collection.
For Natalia, who also takes on assignment projects, working on stock illustrations is a therapeutic activity. Without a client to answer to, she is free to experiment and has the luxury of making paintings that reflect her creative vision.
“I love all stages of the process – painting, scanning, working with Photoshop – it’s pure enjoyment,” she shares.