This week we sat down with new artist Isabelle Follath to talk more about her process in creating Joy, her first illustrated picture book that published last week. 

I had just finished an intensive five-week class about illustrating children’s books with Art Director Zoë Tucker and agent Lilla Rogers, when I was commissioned by words&pictures (and imprint of Quarto) to illustrate a picture book for them. A beautiful and heart warming story by Corrinne Averiss about a little girl and her grandmother and the nature of happiness and empathy.

​Naturally I was thrilled to bits and also slightly overwhelmed. But remembering what I’d learned in the class, I started by drawing just accessories for the characters to get a feeling for them (in this case: clothes, toys, lots of cakes, blankets and comfy chairs). I love drawing characters and Matthew Morgan and Sarah Chapman-Suire, the lovely creative team at words&pictures, gave me free reign. So the main characters were developed quite fast.
 
I also had to think about how I would illustrate joy, an abstract feeling that means different things for everyone. I ended up exploring abstract shapes and colours that changed slightly with every joyful experience of the main character. Brian Wildsmith and Björn Wiinblad and their exuberant use of colour were a big influence for me.

​Sarah and Matthew were very supportive and the roughs for the cover and spreads were accepted with minimal changes. Next I worked up the coloured spreads in watercolour and pencil, drawing some elements separately and putting everything together in Photoshop. This allowed me to adjust the colours and move the ‘whooshes’ around. Which I did extensively; I was endlessly moving butterflies and swirls of colour around the page! All in all it was a very intuitive process. I tried to re-enact the emotions the story was conveying and moved from warm and to cool colours, and from busy to calm compositions. I would definitely do more planning on the colour scheme for my next book, but maybe for Joy this more organic process was the right thing to do.

​Working on Joy was a wonderful experience and it was a real blessing to have such a lovely, supportive and encouraging creative team behind me. I’ve learned so much and will continue to do so while illustrating future stories. For me, this is the true beauty behind creating a book.

For the keen-eyed among you, you might have noticed a new portfolio pop up on our artists page this week. We're so pleased to welcome our newest signing at Pickled ink, Isabelle Follath! 

We came across Isabelle's artwork on Instagram and instantly fell in love with her brilliant character sketches, and just had to get in touch to see if she was looking for representation. To our delight, Isabelle was keen to work with us and we already have some exciting projects on the horizon. We're sure you'll love her work as much as we do.  Find out a little more about her below. 

​If you would like to commission Isabelle please contact her agent Amy Kitcherside at amy@pickledink.com

​I spent my childhood doodling on every available surface and creating my own world through drawing and cutting out all the characters from my favourite picture books. However, I made a rather lengthy detour by studying Philosophy and Computer Science at university, only doing small illustration jobs here and there. Eventually I took the plunge and started to work as a freelance illustrator for advertising agencies, fashion magazines and book publishers.

With the birth of my daughter my love for picture books grew and when I took an e-course on illustrating for children’s books, I knew that I had found my happy place. Soon after I finished the course, I got my first assignment to illustrate a picture book with Quarto. 'Joy' written by Corrine Averiss, publishes in July  under the imprint words & pictures. 
 
I find inspiration everywhere, from the pebbles and flowers in my garden, to the colourful packaging in the supermarket. My preferred materials are pen and ink, watercolour, pencil and digital techniques to put it all together, but I'm always exploring new media. When I’m not drawing you can find me making more coffee, trying to learn new crafts or going on a hunt for art supplies and the perfect greenish-gold watercolour. 
​Isabelle Follath

I spend a lot of time jotting down ideas or observations many of which are inspired by my family. This particular idea started whilst daydreaming on a train.​  I was imagining a book where the words were opposite to the pictorial narrative so that children could get a feeling of knowing something that their parent didn’t. I guess the idea is similar to going to a pantomime where children call out “it’s behind you” only for the adult to turn around just at the moment it disappears. I wanted to try to capture that feeling in this book where the words say one thing but the pictures tell a different story.


Libby Hamilton at Andersen Press acquired the book at Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2015, how did that initial idea or germ for a story develop into the finished book? Did it go through many changes or different directions?
​ 
The book went through many changes but generally the idea stayed pretty constant. Working with Libby and Beccy was brilliant. This is my first book and so I was definitely learning as I went along. Libby and Beccy were so encouraging of my ideas and designs that it was a real pleasure to work with them throughout the project. We used to Skype every couple of weeks to catch up on how things were going.  One of my favourite parts was a suggestion made by Libby to have the cat trying to eat sugared mice. The chocolate shop is one of my favourite images and I particularly love that little detail. It certainly wouldn’t have been the same book without their excellent advice!

​Did you find that writing the text or illustrating the pictures came more easily to you?  Do you have any advice for other début creators about the process? 

The text definitely came first but thats probably because it is such a short story, however I loved making the illustrations much more so I enjoyed taking my time over those.

I think it’s important to believe that if you really want to make a book, you can. Personally I find self belief really hard, but no one ever makes a book that hasn’t tried. So I’d encourage people to go for it, it’s a great experience.

​If you were to do it all over again, is there anything you would do differently?  Can you explain why? 

A small thing I’d change is I struggled with the French ultramarine blue watercolour that I was using. It was particularly grainy and I even had dreams about granulating blues... I think I’d use a blue gouache paint instead now. 


Can you describe your process for creating the illustrations from initial character sketches to the final art? What medium do you work in and do you have a favourite part of this process?

For this particular project I used Windsor and Newton water colour and pencil crayons and my favourite da Vinci brush.

My favourite stage is doing the rough drawings. I love the freedom of those early scribbles but I also love it when you have happy accidents with the finished artwork. 

My roughs drawings tend to be really small because I can then draw hundreds of little images much quicker than I could ever draw big roughs. In addition small doodles feel far less intimidating.

​​Looking After William is dedicated to your husband, Will.  Does the real life Will bear a resemblance to the character? Or is the little girl (and her cat) based on your own children? 

Most definitely YES. The girl is based on a combination of my two daughters, she looks most like my second but is also like my eldest. William is most assuredly based on my husband, Will who is also a great dad!  


​It is also dedicated to your daughters, Polly and Bea.  How much did they inspire you to begin working in the world of children’s books?  And how much do they continue to inspire you in what you do?

My children have been a huge influence. I think I really discovered the joy of children’s books through reading to my daughters. Trips to the library became an essential part of our lives. My girls are also hilarious,  like most children and so of course they have been hugely inspiring to the stories I’ve written.


You have worked in the world of animation, how does creating picture books differ from that? 

Both art forms have their unique qualities. Animation is very much a team endeavour with often hundreds of people working on any particular project together. Working on books can be quite isolating, so having regular chats with a fantastic Editor /Art Editor and lovely agent can really help with cabin fever.

Working in animation has been really helpful because it has taught me to draw lots and to think about characters and story structure all of which has been very useful for making books. 
​

Today's blog post introduces our newest signing, Briony May Smith, to the portfolio. 'Grab that Rabbit', with Pavilion Books publishes today, coinciding nicely with World Book Day, so we thought a behind-the-scenes look at the project was a fitting choice!

​There can be no doubt that Polly Faber's tale of kindness and forgiveness (with a dose of adventure!) was the perfect text for Briony's artwork - whose illustrations are often inspired by her rural surroundings. Briony brings a warmth and richness to her work with her soft pencil line and vivid colours. ​

Scroll down to see early cover explorations, first book layouts and more...

​When I started sketching the character of Hodge, two lambs were born on a nearby farm. One had a very striking black ear, which prompted me to place Hodge’s 'black splodge', as described in the text, on his ear and face. The cottage of Mrs Sprat is loosely based on the cottages I love to look at in Ireland, where half my family are from.

​It was an absolute delight to work on this text, starting with a few concept pieces, followed by loose thumbnails and roughs, and then onto colour artwork. I had a lot of fun hiding bugs and little details into the artwork, as I fondly remember looking for secret stories in picture books as a child. There are even items I own in the book. There are dog figurines based on my dog Finbar and our old family dog Paddy. I also own a sheep figurine and a tiny China teapot and a blue mug with pink flowers which feature in Mrs Sprat’s kitchen. There is a white chicken in a frame which is our ten year old chicken Sully. I hope people enjoy reading about Hodge and his adventures!

​Welcome to the agency, Briony! 

Yellow Kayak by Nina Laden and Melissa Castrillón (Paula Wisemen Books/ Simon & Schuster, £12.99) hit shelves this February and we were keen to find out more from illustrator Melissa about how this exquisite project came together.




Congratulations on Yellow Kayak, your second book with author Nina Laden and publishers Paula Wiseman Books. Can you tell us a bit about how your illustrative process works?
 
Using the imagery to frame and play with the text is a really important initial stage for me. I often start by taking elements of the text, visually elaborating them and looking at objects with interesting shapes to try and make the imagery and text work both together. I often use negative space to do this, or I use vignettes or the illustrations to frame the text.

Then the colour palette is chosen.

For the final artwork, I drawn it out in layers – each layer corresponds to a colour, like I would prepare a screen print. And then the final stage is adding the digital colour, which I do on Photoshop. I try not to rely on computer processes too much, so that the final outcome can still look handmade/handprinted.

Here's a spread from initial sketch to final artwork.

Did you have total freedom on the characters in Yellow Kayak? Did you experiment with other characters?
 
The character development is always the part of the process that I am least comfortable with, perhaps because I feel it is my weakest area. Because Yellow Kayak is kind of the follow up book to If I Had a Little Dream, my art director, Lizzy Bromley, suggested it would be a nice idea to have a boy protagonist in Yellow Kayak, as the main character in Little Dream was a girl.

I had initially started developing the characters for Yellow Kayak as a girl and her dog but then Lizzy suggested I try having a boy and possibly a giraffe. Which, at the time, seemed insane to me to have a giraffe! But, as always, Lizzy is a crazy genius and it really worked.

Do you have a favourite artwork, or a layout that you’re most proud of?
 
I think the most surprising spread for me and one that was a happy accident was the sunset spread where the boy is bailing out the kayak.
 
I knew I had to have a lull in the story somewhere and a spread that was more serene with less action. By chanceI had been looking through my huge stack of sketchbooks in preparation for a day helping students at the school of art here in Cambridge and I happened across a coloured pencil study of some rolling hills. I thought 'AHA!' that would be perfect for the rolling waves. Luckily it worked out just right and it is now one of my favourite spreads.

Your work is always exploring negative space and interesting layouts, as well as beautiful natural scenes, are you inspired by any other artists or illustrators?
 
Thank you for noticing this about my work! I find that exploring negative space and interesting compositions is one of my favourite parts of the development process. I adore lots of older children's book illustrators and textile designers such as Roger Duvoisin and Joseph Frank. The limitations of colour printing and process back then seemed to bring out a stronger sense of design, which I really admire. Other more modern day illustrators whom I love for their amazing use of colour, composition and design are Joohee Yoon, Iconori, Eleanor Davis and Joelle Jolivet.

Your colour palette is so striking too - do you select that at the early stage, and like limiting yourself to a certain number of colours? Is there a colour you’d never use?
 
Choosing the colour palette is so important for me, it ties everything together and breathes life into the whole book. Colour is always something I start thinking about from the beginning. Sometimes the colour comes straight away but most of the time I have the palette at the back of my mind and takes a bit longer to prise it out.
 
I'll always work in a limited colour palette and no more than 5 colours. I feel like a lot of my work is detailed so I need that reserved colour palette to restrain the imagery and stop it from become to overwhelming. It creates a balance I suppose. I thought I'd never work with black, but in the current book I’m working on, my debut as author and illustrator, there is a chance that black will come into the fray as one of the 5. I guess never say never!

We love the foiling under the dust jacket of Yellow Kayak, was that your idea?
 
I’m so glad you love it! I’m so blessed to have the support of Simon & Schuster and Paula Wiseman Books to make the bling become a reality!  On our first book If I Had a Little Dream, it was my idea for foiling under the jacket. It was gold foiling on a beautiful blue back round and I wanted to do that same for Yellow Kayak. However, once again, it as Lizzy Bromley my amazing art director who had the genius idea for the bluey-green foiling. I was reluctant at first, but she hit the nail on the head and it makes the book look even more magical!

Yellow Kayak by Nina Laden and Melissa Castrillón is published by Paula Wisemen Books/ Simon & Schuster, £12.99 and available in all good bookshops. Melissa's full portfolio can be seen here.

2017 is drawing to a close and we've just posted out our annual wrapping paper to all our clients. This year our four designs were created by artists Eve Coy, Lucy Eldridge, Paola Escobar, and David Wardle. As our final post of the year, we thought we'd show you some of the development work for Lucy's wrapping paper 'An Aurora of Polar Bears'. 

Lucy kept us updated with some lovely miniature sketches and paintings as she worked through her ideas. The patterned background was a completely unexpected and imaginative way to respond to the collective noun brief we sent her. We especially loved the images below where we really started to see her vision for the artwork come together. 

We want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas from all of us here at Pickled ink! We'll be closed for the holidays from Friday 22nd December and opening again on the 2nd January.

Lalalimola continues her successful collaboration with Specsavers with this illustrated Eye Pack for Schools.  Her clear, bright and graphic illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to Specsavers' fun and informative pack explaining how our eyes work and why it's so important to look after them.   It also informs pupils about what to expect at an eye test, why we have different eye colours and concludes with a testing quiz full of interesting facts.  Do you know what the average life span of an eyelash is*?? 

Below is a snapshot of Lalalimola's illustrating process showing roughs to final art. As you'll see in this project the final art barely differed from the line sketches, which is an illustrator's dream!

*The answer is C - 5 months.  Have a go at the other questions in the quiz below and learn some fun new facts.

Announcing a new artist signing at Pickled ink is always exciting. Today we're very happy to welcome Paola Escobar to the portfolio!

As you can see from the images here, Paola has an eye for creating beautiful, detailed scenes and is fond of a pattern or two! Combined with her sophisticated colour palette, Paola's artwork just jumps from the page. 

It was her illustration of Policarpa Salavarrieta, Colombian seamstress and spy in the Kickstarter project 'Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls' , that first caught our eye. An incredibly popular campaign, the book created by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo was later published by Penguin.

Paola spent several years working with advertising agencies before deciding to focus on illustration as her passion. Picture book 'Matrioska', illustrated by Paola, publishes this month in Spain and we can't wait to see how her work continues to grow as we go forward. 

If you would like to commission Paola please contact her agent Amy Kitcherside at amy@pickledink.com

DARON PARTON | ERICA WILLIAMS | HANAKO CLULOW | JEZ TUYA
 JÚLIA SARDÀ | RACHEL CLOYNE | YA-LING HUANG

​PAOLA ESCOBAR
*launching soon*

CINDY WUME | DAVID WARDLE | KATIE HICKEY | LAURA ELLEN ANDERSON
LO COLE | LUCY ELDRIDGE | MELISSA CASTRILLÓN

DAMIAN KELLEHER
DAVID STEVENS
OWEN PYGRAM

Alexis Snell first worked with The Monkey Puzzle Tree on their logo design. Just recently she has collaborated with the company again to create this beautiful pattern entitled 'How the Leopard got his Spots',

Printed onto a rich velvet, the pattern is incredibly striking and none more so than when seen in person. We're thrilled to share these fantastic photos, curtesy of The Monkey Puzzle Tree, which show Alexis' fabric as upholstery - creating some stunning pieces of furniture! 

To read more about the project, please click on the images to view the original blog post.