Graphic Translation - "Cultiv8 Brooklyn" Urban Garden

I found this image online.  It had wayyyyy to much going on with the rainbows and everything, but I liked the upside down city saline, and the tree idea.  Candice and I talked about an "urban garden" idea, so I wanted to use this as a starting point.  I was going to simplify it, and try a different type of tree altogether.  (Please excuse my border play logos peeking through paper...haha.)  

I was searching for tree images on my phone and found this one that I thought was cool.  I liked the look of the tree and its branches, but most of all I liked the roots showing.  The leaves of the tree were too nice looking, I was going to make mine a bit rougher since I decided to use it to represent an urban city.  

I traced the tree, I decided I would get rid of the part that was supposed to be grass for the final part.  

Another tree I considered.  I decided it wasn't the one I wanted to go with.  

Again, another tree that didn't make the cut.

The first rough trace of the original image with it's original tree.  Next step is to swap out the tree for the other one I wanted to use.

I wanted to roots to be able to use the roots as negative space, so I didn't color them in and kept them as 1 piece with the trunk of the tree.  Got rid of the mound of grass look on top, and decided I was ready to start Illustrating this.  In my head I knew that the leaves of the tree still needed to have more rough and jagged parts, I thought that would fit with the urban city feel more.

I swapped out the tree and used the one I wanted.  I was going to make the top half look like a mound of grass, but after looking at this I didn't think that would work.  I also decided that I wanted to roots to look a bit different so I wanted to do one more version before getting into Illustrator.

I knew I wanted this urban garden to be in either Brooklyn or San Francisco.  The name "Cultivate" came to mind, it plays well with the garden theme.  I started thinking of calling it either "Cultivate SF" or "Cultivate Brooklyn"...then the idea of using the number 8 came to me and my decision was made.  "Cultiv8 Brooklyn" was born.
  

Color option number 2 for "Cultiv8 Brooklyn" Urban Gardens.

And option #3 with the logo in the middle of the tree.