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.
As it’s both half term and lockdown here in the UK, I thought I’d re-share the Jungle Book themed colouring and activity sheets I created.
There’s a complex colouring sheet for older ones and some simpler activity sheets for little ones, all downloadable to print for free here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iAgATT2MVA_EIxYtM4i2EqHkhCK1pcDB
My lovely agents, The Artworks, interviewed me and all of the other talented artists.
You can read more about my workspace, daily routine and creative journey and process here: https://www.theartworksinc.com/2020/07/17/meet-the-artists-laura-barrett/
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.
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of visiting Milbourne Lodge Prep School in Surrey.
Mrs Bawden, Head of Art invited me to come and talk with the children about the botanical illustration I created for Silent Pool Gin a few years ago, and also about life as an illustrator.
Now, you may be wondering why I was discussing gin with primary school children, so do read on to find out…
All term, the Year 6 classes had been working on a project called ‘Money Can’t Buy’ within their Art and Music lessons- looking at encouraging the pupils to reuse, recycle and be resourceful and creative.
Silent Pool Distillers, who are local to the school had kindly donated lots of empty bottles for them to reuse & work with. The children had been exploring the legend of the actual Silent Pool in Surrey- the 13th Century tale of a young maiden who fell into the lake, scared by the evil King John, riding on horseback.
In Art, they made paintings and got creative with the pattern I illustrated for the Silent Pool Gin bottle. In Music, they used the empty bottles, glasses, household objects and even an old piano to make wonderfully inventive and decorated instruments! They then composed a piece of music to capture the Silent Pool legend.
During my talk the pupils were such a wonderful and bright audience, and it was so rewarding to talk to such engaging young minds.
Due to the success of the project, the children then performed their musical composition beside the scenic Silent Pool in Surrey.
It was an absolute joy to hear them perform their beautiful piece of music! Here are a few shots from the distillery- it’s always an honour to see my illustrations in the wild.
School visit photos by Mrs Tiggy Bawden & Mrs Rachel Bowen-Perkins.
Thank you to Milbourne Lodge School for having me.
If you are an educator and would like me to come and speak at your school, college or university just get in touch.