These are two illustrations with similar themes: whimsical animals at night.

For the first illustration: I had the idea for this illustration, named "alone at sea", for a very long time before figuring out exactly how I should convey visually the feelings I had thought of. As always, I started sketching until I was pleased with one idea.

For the second illustration: The idea for this illustration was something I had in mind for a long time. I wanted to paint white, almost star like, deers dancing in the night sky. I had to make a lot of exploratory sketches in order to find the best composition for what I had in mind.

Here are some of the exploratory and final sketches, both on paper and digital: