The Western Slope Poster

This poster was originally part of a series of illustrations created for the Real Estate issue of Colorado Homes & Gardens Magazine in 2008. They were used on the intro pages for each section of the magazine to show the variety of places in Colorado. The magazine wanted to use my simplistic retro “travel poster” style for each of the illustrations. The four sections in the issue include Denver, The Front Range, The Mountains, and The Western Slope. This poster includes grapes on a grape vine, a vineyard, with a butte in the background.

The Western Slope of Colorado refers to a region of the U.S. state of Colorado incorporating everything in the state west of the Continental Divide. The Colorado River and its tributaries divide the region into north and south at Grand Junction, Colorado. The area has a climate similar to that of the Great Basin. The typography was also meant to look retro within the piece. Created in Adobe Illustrator, I am able to enlarge and reduce the illustration without loss of quality. I call this the “travel poster” look which is a simplistic graphic illustration style but with more gradations than the old world travel posters from the 1930’s and 40’s. The process: I first create rough sketches. Then I tighten up each part as a pencil sketch and scan the drawing into the computer. I then use this scan as an underlay importing it into Adobe Illustrator. Each part of the image is created as a shape and eventually I fill the shapes in with color. After the color palette is established, I then create simple gradations to allow the image to have some depth. This piece has been printed as a giclee on watercolor paper.

Colorado Homes & Lifestyles magazine is written for Colorado homeowners. Each issue of Colorado Homes & Lifestyles magazine features articles about architecture, design and decorating, entertaining, luxury real estate and more. It has been developed as part of my Colorado Vintage Travel Poster series.