 | Ya-Ling Huang's first UK picture book This is the Way in Dog Town (published by Frances Lincoln) is now available to order online. We caught up with Ya-Ling to find out a little more about her creative process. Could you talk us through your illustrations. How do you create your work? Back in May 2018, I proposed a story idea to Frances Lincoln for a picturebook collaboration. Katie Cotton from Frances Lincoln loved the world but suggested a change of direction, to base the story around a nursery rhyme focused on first experiences. It was the perfect theme for the world I'd created. Like most artists, I started with character sketches and thumbnails before working up a larger, more detailed picture. |
It actually ended up being quite a smooth progress and I didn’t have to change much before jumping into final colours. I drew the majority of dog characters with watercolour outlines, creating delightful, fluid lines with varying colour tones. As you'll see from some of the images below, there's usually many colour palette swatches around my paper. These detail my experiments and history of exploring good colour matches. I've also tried out different materials to go alongside the watercolours. For example, crayon is good for creating texture where I want a rough surface and collage can be useful for covering up mistakes that can’t be fixed!. I enjoy this process immensely (and time is always an issue), so I love diving straight into colour work after sketches before even deciding on a colour palette and working it out as I go. I am keen to work loosely and am happy to leave marks and amendments from changes made along the way. However, sometimes these changes don’t make it into the final image. This image, for instance, I created twice because the first colour attempt failed, especially the grey tone that was applied to the house:
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I also changed the dark brown of the roof to a softer green and left the dark colours until last. When working with watercolours, I find layering from light to dark always works best. After this image I became braver applying colours to shape the shadows and once dry I would then move on to layering different colours over the top. To emphasise perspective, I stuck to brighter colours in the foreground to contrast with softer, subtle colours in the background. Overall, It was all about layering and understanding how the paint would build up.
Many artists work digitally nowadays, why do you prefer to paint traditionally?
I have been drawing traditionally since I was 5 years old so I am experienced in drawing by hand. It also allows me to express my feelings more effectively. I enjoy the accidental results that occasionally surprise me and it keeps me motivated to create more.
What was your favourite part of the process?
I love working through those problems I encounter during the art-making process and the challenge to find solutions. When successful I feel I have learned a lot and improved my technique. I'm always learning.
Was there a spread that you found particularly challenging?
These two scenes (below) were particularly challenging because of the effort involved to keep them consistent in terms of composition, size and elements. The varied lighting from day to night was one of the main concerns which dictated the way I worked.
Many artists work digitally nowadays, why do you prefer to paint traditionally?
I have been drawing traditionally since I was 5 years old so I am experienced in drawing by hand. It also allows me to express my feelings more effectively. I enjoy the accidental results that occasionally surprise me and it keeps me motivated to create more.
What was your favourite part of the process?
I love working through those problems I encounter during the art-making process and the challenge to find solutions. When successful I feel I have learned a lot and improved my technique. I'm always learning.
Was there a spread that you found particularly challenging?
These two scenes (below) were particularly challenging because of the effort involved to keep them consistent in terms of composition, size and elements. The varied lighting from day to night was one of the main concerns which dictated the way I worked.
The method of actually painting these two images were very different. In the top image I started from one corner and gradually filled the page. The bottom one I applied warm colours to create the atmosphere I wanted as the first step and then drew on top of it to complete the scene. First with orange yellow for the first layer, it then changes from blue to green and red to orange and so on. This is the uniqueness of watercolours. I later encountered a problem - the protagonist’s mother in the evening scene ended up totally blended into the background as her apron was yellow! Because I paint traditionally, I couldn't just change yellow to red. Fortunately, we could fix this digitally and it's one of the very few changes to the artwork made on the computer.
Finally, why dogs?
I lived in a seaside town in England where dogs were probably more common than residents. Inspired by the town life, I wanted to create a series of dog illustrations. From there, I gradually fell in love with them. I kept myself busy creating artworks everyday and by the end of that month, I had over 30 artworks - and so a dog town has been created!
I lived in a seaside town in England where dogs were probably more common than residents. Inspired by the town life, I wanted to create a series of dog illustrations. From there, I gradually fell in love with them. I kept myself busy creating artworks everyday and by the end of that month, I had over 30 artworks - and so a dog town has been created!