I thought I’d share a really fun book cover series that I worked on for Harlequin Books; Molly MacRae’s The Highland Bookshop Mystery Series.
The series is set in a bookshop in the idyllic (but rather dangerous!) Scottish town of Inversgail. I’ve loved reading these cosy crime novels and trying to bring something new to the composition for each cover. A big thanks to Art Director Tara Scarcello and to my US agents Mendola Artists.
I had a lot of fun designing and illustrating the cover for Jenna Warren’s debut novel, The Moon and Stars, published in October by Fairlight Books.
I was commissioned by Rebecca Blackmore-Dawes at Fairlight to create a cover that would capture the love of drama and musicals depicted beautifully within the novel, along with the iconic old theatre setting, decorated with celestial imagery. The story features a strong nod to The Phantom of the Opera.
The Moon and Stars is published 20th October and available to pre-order here. Thanks to my agents at The Artworks!
I’m excited to share the paperback cover for Harriet Evans’ wonderful and darkly enchanting The Beloved Girls, published by Headline Books.
I loved working on the hardback cover illustration, so was thrilled to revisit it for the paperback.
Art direction and design by the fantastic Yeti Lambregts and thanks to my agents at The Artworks.
I’m delighted to have been asked by Andersen Press to take over their Instagram account this week and share my creative process behind Scissorella: The Paper Princess.
Scissorella is written by the fantastic Clare Helen Welsh and combines the much loved Cinderella fairy tale with the inspiring real life story of German animator Lotte Reiniger.
Left: My silhouette of Lotte Reiniger, Right: Lotte’s silhouette animations
Lotte is one of my all time heroes, so I was thrilled when the team at Andersen sent me Clare’s text. I adore working in silhouette and with the subject of fairy tales, so Scissorella was the perfect match.
Here are some images from a school Zoom event for Reading Rocks, I’m showing children the picture book and how to make paper puppets from my home studio in London.
Next I thought I’d share my favourite part of the book making process… the beginning!
I particularly love the weeks after reading a text, when I’m brimming with ideas and thoughts for how the book, characters and scenery might look, and where illustrations might work on the page…’Will that work as a full page spread? Can I split those illustrations into vignettes, to give the impression of movement and time passing?…’ So many questions!
I thought you might like to see the early roughs, working out the layout and pacing of the book. You can see how some of the roughs compare to the final spreads. It’s been so satisfying watching Scissorella go from early sketches to final artwork and beautifully foiled and printed book!
For Day 3 of my Scissorella #illustratortakeover of Andersen Press’ Instagram account, I thought I’d share some character development.
Just like the original Cinderella tale, there’s a clear journey that Lotte goes on throughout the book. I hoped to capture her progression; from put upon house maid, to crafty star of the ball, and finally inventive maker who creates her own happily ever after!
I wanted our Lotte character to have some resemblance to the real life Lotte Reiniger. She started working as an animator and paper cut artist in the 1920s & 30s, so I decided to give Lotte and her surroundings an Art Deco setting. I enjoyed taking fashion and interior design inspiration from this period, with colour inspired by the films of Wes Anderson.
You can see Lotte and her surroundings’ change. We decided that there should be quite muted colours and outfits at the start, transitioning to more colour and style as Lotte comes into her own. Here you can see some of those transitions and first character developments.
Day 4 of my Andersen Press Scissorella #illustratortakeover is all about details.
I usually work digitally, drawing silhouette shapes with a Wacom tablet into Adobe Illustrator. I sketch first, then after I digitally draw each character, object and piece of scenery I move everything around until I’m happy with the composition. Every now and then I also create paper cut outs with scissors or a scalpel. Scissorella was a fun combination of the two!
To create artwork reminiscent of the real life puppets of Lotte Reiniger, I drew my illustrations as usual and then photographed various papers before using these textures on top of my illustrations in Photoshop. I found lots of different types of paper; handmade, fabric and even a pearlescent type to use for Lotte’s paper cut dress!
Here are a few examples of how I’ve used the texture in the book along with the actual papers that I used.
It’s the final day of my Andersen Press Illustrator Takeover, so I’m going to reveal my favourite spread from Scissorella. It’s been a pleasure sharing details from the book with you all, thanks for following along!
The best part of working on Scissorella was getting to create a laser cut centrefold! In the book, Lotte visits the Prince’s palace ball and wows everyone with her paper cutting skills. So we decided to show a peek through the palace windows.
It was a challenge making sure that everything lined up properly, and that the windows were ornate but not so much that they would fall to pieces! I’m so pleased it worked out. ✂
Here’s a page from my sketchbook, planning out how the laser cut windows might work and a video of the final printed version.
Scissorella is written by the fantastic Clare Helen Welsh and combines the much loved Cinderella fairy tale with the inspiring real life story of German animator Lotte Reiniger.
To celebrate the publication of Scissorella: The Paper Princess, Clare Helen Welsh and I have created a range of activities and resource sheets for Andersen Press. You can download them on Andersen’s website, under ‘Free Stuff’!
Cut Out Your Own Scissorella Puppet
Head on over to their website to find these resources and more!
I’m excited to share the cover I created for the reissue of The Amazing Mr Blunden by Antonia Barber for Little, Brown UK. The book is being republished to coincide with the new Sky TV adaptation of the classic tale, to be written and directed by the wonderful Mark Gatiss this Christmas.
Working with the fantastic Charlotte Stroomer, middleweight designer at Little, Brown, I had a great time getting stuck into illustrating the gothic house setting and juxtaposing the Victorian children with the modern day kids.
You can see more of my book covers at https://www.laurabarrett.co.uk/book-cover-designer-illustrator.
I’m excited to share the cover of Fiona Mountain’s new novel The Keeper of Songs, published 2nd July.
It was a pleasure to work with Fiona and cover designer Heike Schüssler AKA Judge By My Covers. I’ve long admired Heike’s beautiful covers and was thrilled to have the chance to work together.
I illustrated the iconic setting of Chatsworth House and the folk singer Molly Marrison, and Heike art directed, designed and illustrated the other elements of the cover.
The novel is ‘a modern day Downton Abbey’, ‘inspired by the work of folk singer Sam Lee’ and is based on real events - the murder of ‘The Runaway Lovers’ in the Peak District.
Thanks also to my lovely agents at The Artworks!
Excited to share a new book cover illustration for T.A Willberg’s historical thriller Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder.
Commissioned by Harlequin with art direction and design by the wonderful Kathleen Oudit.
Published by Park Row Books. Thanks to my agents at Mendola Art!
Here’s a short timelapse video I created to show my illustration process in Adobe Illustrator.
I create silhouettes using a small Wacom tablet- starting with a pencil sketch, I’ll then draw all of the elements separately digitally- characters, background details, etc, before piecing them together and layering them up- almost like playing with the stage set of a shadow theatre. I love hiding really small details in my work and will often find that I’m working on an area of an illustration for ages, before zooming out and realising that it’s only the size of a postage stamp!
Creative Process Timelapse
This illustration was created for Kamila Shamsie’s Duckling, part of the Fairy Tale Revolution series published by Vintage Books.
I was thrilled to be commissioned by Vintage Books to illustrate 3 fairy tales that have been given a feminist spin by 3 bestselling authors; Malorie Blackman, Kamila Shamsie and Jeanette Winterson. The tales were Blueblood, Duckling and Hansel and Greta- all modern takes on classic tales.
I created the interior illustrations for the series to go alongside another title by Rebecca Solnit- Cinderella Liberator, which used original illustrations by Arthur Rackham- one of my illustration heroes. It was a real honour to illustrate stories by such well respected authors that I’ve long admired.
Working with book designer Friederike Huber, there was a lot of freedom to work out which parts of the text to illustrate. After reading through the tales several times, along with their original counterpart tales, I noted what I thought were the key scenes and very loosely created sketches for them. Then Friederike created the layouts and, with the team at Vintage, decided which illustrations would fit best. For Duckling, I took a walk around the local lakes in my area for inspiration on the setting, and looked over old photos from trips to forests in the UK and Germany for Hansel and Greta. For Blueblood I looked at a lot of fashion and interior design magazines.
I worked with a wonderful team at Vintage- senior designers Julia Connolly and Kris Potter, editor Charlotte Knight plus Friederike. It was one of those special projects where the working relationship was particularly creative and productive, with lots of ideas being bounced back and forth. The book covers were designed and illustrated by cover designer Anna Morrison- I was tasked with creating silhouette characters to be dropped into her beautiful designs.
The series is published today and available to buy from Waterstones, Amazon and all good bookshops.