I love reflecting on the whole process of a book. Especially when I go back to some of my very first sketches. The evolution of illustrations can happen quite quickly but generally take many, many sketches to finally get the perfect story telling illustrations before completing the final artwork.
ROUGHS TO FINALS
COVER
The front cover of a book, as everyone knows, is SO important. It needs to give an instant feel to the story and an invitation to open it up and find out more.
ABOVE: The final painting for back cover (My personal favourite illustration in the entire book)
AVOVE: the final painting for the front cover
COLOURS
I always like to play around with a colour palette to see what feels right for the story. These were the colours I worked with for Under the Same Sky.
I generally use the same painting palettes throughout the entire book to ensure consistency.
CHARACTERS
Working out the character clothing is always a favourite part of book creating too, I keep a profile handy to refer to.
WORK IN PROGRESS PHOTOS
ENDPAPERS
My favourite part of creating a book is deciding on the endpapers. Throughout the book’s process I really get to live the entire story and it is like placing the bow on top of a nicely wrapped present. I love the end papers so much I always save doing them until last.
Under the Same Sky is written by Robert Vescio and published by New Frontier Publishing.
Available September 2019.
Staying creative,
Nicky x
It’s not even my story, but I just adore the illustrations in this book, Nicky. The wildness, the love, the joy, the colours and of course…the pigeons!! I am always utterly captivated by the artistic process. Thank you for sharing it with us as always, Dimity xxx
Thanks so much Dim, I am humbled by your words x
The master at work. Love this! Thank you so much, Nicky. 🙂 xxxxxxxxxx
Thanks Robert x
Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful process.
Thank you so much for sharing your process Nicky. I particularly love the colours you are using in ‘Under The Same Sky.’ I avoid using yellow ochre so I’m facinated how often in appears in your colour mixes.
Could I please ask what is the name of that gorgeous orange – or is it a pinkish brown situated right next to the scarlet red on your colour charts? It looks like you’ve written Quin Sienna.