Behind Soul Notes Poetry- The Illustration Process.
It’s difficult to put into words what my illustration process is since so much of it happens in my head; floaty images and ~vibes~ materialising in my mind’s eye as I read or write. That part of the process is different for everyone, the part where inspiration strikes, and you have that vague feeling of “I want to make something about this”. I’d say inspiration is the starting point of any illustration, the illusive seed of excitement that grows and grows until it manifests into a drawing! That is exactly what happened for me when embarking on illustrating Emily McChrystal’s debut book ‘Soul Notes Poetry’. Before Em even asked me to illustrate the book I had a mind full of roses and magical motifs from reading her words.
But Ella, what if I can’t summon any inspiration?
What if I get stuck at the start? You may ask. That happens to all of us too, I think. Sometimes, even if you’re itching to make, those mind’s eye vibes remain nothing but vibes, and growing that urge to make into something that has a form and an idea behind it feels almost impossible. When I’m having one of those days I turn to Pinterest. This is my secret to being constantly inspired. I always make sure to have curated “inspiration” boards ahead of time, filling them with drawings and photos and anything visual that makes me wish I’d made them first. Even if the images saved to that Pinterest board don’t perfectly relate to the brief I have to illustrate, the feeling of “wow, look at these beautiful things, I want to do that too” is often enough to carry me to a good idea. Sometimes an image on my board might have a certain aesthetic, like 70s or cottage core, and that is enough to turn my vague vibes into a concept! If you’re not a fan of Pinterest, mood boards have the same effect.
Like an illustrative magpie you’ll find yourself collecting all of the visual bits and bobs that make your heart sing. Even on a grey day those collected treasures will bring back your creative flame. Here is an example of a Pinterest board I put together in the early stages of illustrating Soul Notes Poetry – this is also really handy for communicating your vision to other people (especially clients) at this early stage, because while the feeling might be clear in your mind, it can be hard to verbalise those ideas without reference images.
Once I’m well and truly fired up with inspiration and an urge to make I get started with pencil sketches. These are usually super rough thumbnail sketches where I try and get my foggy thoughts into somewhat cohesive scribbles. It’s at this stage I start thinking about composition and style, trying out lots of different quick variations of the same idea until I come across one that sticks. Here’s an example of how that worked with my Soul Notes Poetry work. This was a really helpful tool in my collaboration with Em as it helped me to establish which version of my ideas she felt was right without having to spend hours and hours fleshing out an idea that in the end, might not match the feeling she had in mind!
Developing the ideas…
Once I’ve settled on the thumbnail that is most successful, I start developing the drawing! For me that usually entails linework. I am forever faithful to my favourite pen: the V5 pilot pen. For me, having the comfort of familiar tools, an understanding of the weight of the line my pen produces and a control of the medium really helps me to work, it’s a comfort blanket that allows me to fall head first into trying out new ideas as I have something familiar by my side. The tarot style illustrations I created for Soul Notes Poetry were definitely something new for me, but with my old faithful pilot pen and the time I’d spent on preparation (through mood boards, brainstorming with Em and rough sketches) I always had guides to follow and lead me to the final drawing. Here is what this chapter looked like in its initial line work stage.
As I work haptically to begin with, the next step for me is to scan in my drawing and neaten it up digitally. Sometimes a drawing changes massively in this stage as I realise a hand’s not quite in the right place, or I want to completely switch around the composition. Other times I’m simply painting out traces of pencil that an eraser couldn’t quite make disappear. Whatever the case, this part of the process is another stage of refining and reflecting on what I’ve made so far. My weapon of choice for this is usually photoshop, but there are tonnes of software you can use, from drawing tools like Procreate to free apps like PicsArt (which I often use for Instagram graphics when I’m on the go and need something ready to post ASAP!). After I’m completely happy with the line work I get started with colours! What works best for me, especially if I’m making a set of illustrations for one project, is to make a colour palette. The first drawing always takes hours and hours of editing and experimenting to find the colours that work best together and capture the right vibe, so once I find that perfect balance I’m happy to stick with it! Here are two examples of different palettes I use for different projects of mine, and how they are applied to my drawings:
Having this palette set up is really helpful as it both saves me a lot of time and creates a cohesive, recognisable feel across all of the drawings I make for a project. When working on more spontaneous, one-off illustrations that aren’t part of a project I’ll either go to something like Pinterest for inspiration, or more likely will look back on past illustrations and pick out the colour combinations I like best. Once I’ve got that decided I get to colouring! My current illustration style uses block colours which means I can literally paint bucket fill a lot of my work, but of course this process will vary person to person!
And here we have it, the finished illustration!
Even after this process I often find myself coming back to tweak and make revisions, either because I’m not happy, or the client I’m working with wants to try something else. It might feel frustrating at the time to go back in and change what you’ve spent hours on perfecting, but it’s all a part of the process. These final revisions help you realise what you like, what fits this project, and helps establish a communicative relationship between you and your client. This is the finished version of this illustration though; in fact, it’s entered the final stage of the illustration process now as it has been printed in the pages of Soul Notes Poetry! It’s quite amazing reflecting back to the fuzzy thoughts about tarot and rose bushes at the start of the process when I see the printed image in front of me. In many ways drawing feels like magic to me, manifesting and making real the instinctive reaction and feelings you have towards written word or an idea. If you take any advice from this ramble-y reflection on my process let it be this: just give it a go, it is so worth going through all of the to-ing and fro-ing of experimenting and refining to be left with something real that came from a feeling.