CASE STUDY
ABOUT:
Red ants pants
The Red Ants Pants music festival has a yearly poster art competition and my artwork was featured in 2023!
The festival was founded and is produced by Red Ants Pants owner Sarah Calhoun. The Red Ants Pants non-profit is dedicated to women’s leadership, working family farms and ranches, and rural communities and the festival helps fund community grants, timber skills workshops, and a Girl’s Leadership Program.
1. THE IDEA
Red Ants Pants founder Sarah Calhoun gave a TEDx talk where eloquently told her story and the brand's history. A huge part of settling in White Sulphur Springs, MT for Sarah was the beautiful sage brush. She also told stories of the first people to join the music festival, lining up in RVs, trucks, and trailers to enter the pasture. I loved this imagery of community members showing up for each other to enjoy the rural landscape and good music, so I wanted to create a beautiful, golden hour illustration of sagebrush with music goers lined up like the ants from their logo!
Red Ants Pants founder Sarah Calhoun loves the MT sagebrush. She also gave a TEDx talk where she told stories of the first every festival, with RVs and campers lined up all the way down the pasture. I loved that imagery of community and landscape, so I wanted to create a beautiful, golden hour illustration of sagebrush with music goers lined up like the ants from their logo!
2. The process
I sketched the outline idea in procreate leaving plenty of space in the sky where the Red Ants Pants team would then add the text for the musician line-up!
I wanted large sagebrush in the foreground to frame the piece and give it more depth.
I then added color, golden highlights, shadows, and dust being kicked up by the cars.
The illustration style resembles a colored pencil sketch to give it a rustic and vintage feel.
I sketched the outline idea in procreate leaving plenty of space in the sky where the Red Ants Pants team would then add the text for the musician line-up!
I then added color, golden highlights, shadows, and dust being kicked up by the cars.
3. IN PRINT
After the Red Ants staff added the typography, the posters were ready to hang up all around Montana!
