A Calamity of Mannerings - Illustrating a Book Cover

I just wanted to share one of my of my recent commissions, illustrating the cover and interior spots for A Calamity of Mannerings by Joanna Nadin, and share a little bit about that process. 

A publisher got in contact with me asking me to illustrate a book cover and several black and white spot illustrations for a book they described as I Capture the Castle meets Bridgerton. I love this era of literature, so this was the perfect project for me! Initially they wanted the cover to show the three sisters. I used the WebCam on my computer to take reference photos of myself in different poses, and referenced those to sketch the cover. I sketched cover in procreate on my iPad, as this allowed me to sketch directly on top of the book cover layout created by the designer, and allowed me to sketch each element in a separate layer. This meant I could move the characters around and see how they were going to interact with the text. 

The publisher then decided to go in a different direction and wanted to just show the main character with her suitors. I took photos of my husband in the poses that I needed as a reference photos (I’ve been strictly forbidden from showing those photos to anyone!). Because I was sketching in procreate it was really easy to remove the two sisters and add in the two male characters. Once this was approved I did a very rough colour mock up to check they were on board with the colour palette. 

I then created the final artwork. The colour is all hand-painted with watercolours, but the line work is added digitally, which makes it look very clean and fresh. We weren’t sure if we wanted some of the line work to be gold embossed, which is why we wanted to have all the line work on a separate layer.  I don’t normally use black lines work in my work, but I think in the context of a book cover, where you need to grab peoples attention and stand out on a bookshelf, it really works.

The book has just come out and I’m so pleased with how it’s turned out. The designer did a beautiful job, and the book itself is getting rave reviews.

Five Days in Norway

I’ve just got back from a little holiday in Norway. We booked flights very spontaneously and we had a wonderful five days staying with friends in Stavanger. We hiked in the woods, went to the beach, visited the city and I even have time to do a little bit of painting whilst Herbie napped. I bought my neocolor pastels with me which encouraged me to sketch in a quicker, looser way. Before I went I picked out 10 colours that I felt were best suited to the Norwegian landscape, lots of blues plus some creams and browns. The only thing is I wish I had more greens, but I made up for that by mixing it with some watercolours. Here are some pieces from my sketchbook and some of my photos from the trip. I don’t have a lot to say other than Norway is a beautiful country and we had a lovely time. 

Slow Travel with a Toddler

I’ve just got back from a holiday to Mallorca and it was truly blissful. It was our first holiday since having a baby and we brought my parents along as reinforcements. I kept my expectations low as I’d heard ‘it’s not a holiday, it’s parenting in a different location’ a million times, but to be honest it was lovely. I think the key was taking it very slowly (and having a 4 to 1 adult to toddler ratio). We didn’t sight-see, we didn’t go to markets or galleries, we didn’t do day-trips and we only ate out three times. We just relaxed and took things at Herbie’s pace and found that with his naps and early bed time there was actually a lot of time to just chill out and read. I even had time to set up a still life of some lemons I picked in the garden and paint them. We even embraced the cloudy days, painting the moody skies and wrapping up warm and going to the beach regardless. Here’s to taking things slowly. You can read my top tips for slow travel here, buy a copy of my guided journal Slow Travel here and see more of Mallorca in my post from 2018.