flor

Illustration - Flor album.

The album Flor by vocalist Gretchen Parlato was released in 2020 on Edition Records and received a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album. I created a line drawing of Gretchen singing and watercolor illustrations of flowers to be used for the album LP and CD as well as promotional and tour posters. The poster of her singing with flowers emerging from her heart and floating out around her would become the full spread for the front and back album panels for LP and CD. After the hiatus following the birth of her son, the material on this album focused on motherhood and family, as well as her love and respect for Brazilian music. For this reason her son, 4 at the time, was given the job of hand-printing the titles of the tracks, while Gretchen hand-printed the lyrics and track list. 

"In Portuguese, flor means flower. The title represents a blossoming, an opening, an offering, and a return.” says Gretchen. “Flor is the nostalgia of something familiar and the breath of something new. It’s detail, it’s listening; it’s rooted, yet growing and giving. It’s both simple and mysterious. My art has always reflected my life. These days, I’m finding the balance between artistic creativity and nurturing motherhood. My purpose now has both a higher and deeper meaning, and this project is a musical representation of that journey.”

I took an unusual approach in preparing the artwork. I created the line drawing separately, then painted each flower individually, importing each one individually into Photoshop. This way I not only had the flexibility to modify the arrangement as I went, but also enabled the Edition Records graphic design team to use individual flowers through out the album's internal pages and CD booklet. I was honored to be part of this beautiful project.