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.
Here’s a lovely project I worked on earlier this year; branding for Curl Coffee and book shop in the Badaro neighbourhood of Beirut, Lebanon.
I was commissioned by founder and owner, Nisrine, to try to capture the beautiful exterior, interior and clientele of the shop. Working with architectural and design plans, I was thrilled to create the artwork and watch as the shop came together in real time.
Photo @curlcoffee
Photo @curlcoffee
Photo @curlcoffee
Photo @curlcoffee
My illustrations were used as a mural inside, on POS branding and on various products available in the store.
Every small detail was so carefully thought through by Nisrine, including the community ‘take a book, leave a book’ library, hanging from the tree outside. I particularly enjoyed illustrating Nisrine’s two wonderful dogs!
Photo @curlcoffee
I really hope to visit Beirut and the shop on my travels in the near future! Thanks to Nisrine and my agents at The Artworks.
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 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.
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.
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.
As we continue to be under lockdown due to the Coronavirus crisis, we might not be able to visit any bookshops in person but the paperback edition of The Little Mermaid was published just last week, so I thought I’d share some behind the scenes sneak peeks of my illustration process.
The Little Mermaid is rewritten by the wonderful Geraldine McCaughrean, based on the original tale by Hans Christian Andersen and published by Orchard Books. With design by the fantastic Sarah Malley.
The Cover
The very first thing I set about doing was deciding what our protagonist, the Little Mermaid would actually look like. I was excited to be able to draw lots of swirling hair and to create lots of fish scale details for her tail- one of my favourite things is adding lots and lots of detailing. I also started to create her underwater sea palace and coral reef setting.
I tend to sketch some things in pencil and then move on to drawing digitally in Adobe Illustrator using a Wacom tablet. I draw a very rough shape before working back in to this to add more detail. I’ll draw all of the elements; characters and background scenery and then start playing around with layering them, figuring out what works best.
Once I was happy with her general look, I redrew her to fit the cover better, and started to try to frame the title with seaweed. I sketched out a basic seaweed shape, drew this digitally and then thickened the seaweed up, trying to make it look more organic. I then filled the rest of the cover with decorative coral, shells and bubbles.
Cover work inprogress
Cover sketch, more work in progress and final cover
Inside the book
Here are a few initial sketches and progress images from the interior illustrations, all the way up to final artwork.
Sketch and work in progress
Final illustration
Sketch and work in progress
Final illustration
Sketch and work in progress
Final illustration
Thanks for reading! You can see more of my books and other work at https://www.laurabarrett.co.uk/books.