Behind The Scenes / How To Make A Travel Journal

I finished my travel journal! It's called Planes, Trains & Fireworks and documents James' and my trip to Toronto, Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Rochester. (It's available here!) Fitting bigger personal projects around illustration commissions is challenge so this took some time to complete, which is why I can't quite believe it's finally done and printed. Wohoo! I thought it would be fun to share some behind the scenes of the process! So here we go:

1. THE SKETCHBOOK I KEPT ON THE TRIP

As you can see during our trip I just made very messy scribbles and notes in my sketchbook. When we're on holiday, James and I like to wake up, walk and explore all day (often 10 hours of more) and then fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day. There isn't ever much time to draw, let alone put effort into making a pretty sketchbook! This is an A5 Travelogue Handbook sketchbook, by the way.

2. PLANNING / STORYBOARD

Back home in London, I made a rough plan/storyboard for the travel journal I wanted to make. I went through the sketchbook I kept on holiday and roughly divided the content into pages. This time I used an A3 Seawhite Of Brighton sketchbook, because I needed the space!

3. SKETCHES 

Then I started to make sketches for the book. Since my original drawings were very basic, I used the photos I took on holiday as reference - for example for all the food we ate. Some things I googled as well, like images of chipmunks which I then drew a few times for practice. (This is a random A4 Leuchtturm lined notebook. The pages were perforated so I taped them with washi tape to make sure they wouldn't rip out).

4. PENCIL LAYOUTS

At this stage I drew each page layout pretty neatly with a mechanical pencil onto A4 sized layout paper. It's pretty close to the final drawings, I only tweaked small details while inking.

5. INKING & LETTERING ALL THE PAGES

The whole book is inked by hand on paper and hand-lettered, too. Ouch! This was the stage where my hand was really aching but it was also the most fun and satisfying part of the process. It's A4 Fabriano drawing paper, with a bit of texture. I love it because it makes the lines look so much nicer than smooth paper.

6. FINALISING PAGES IN PHOTOSHOP

After scanning all 40 pages, I cleaned up any smudges in Photoshop and 'coloured' the pages (i.e. I added black areas and screentone). I also tweaked the layout, corrected typos/mistakes, added a few small things...) This  stage took a lot longer than I had expected. I printed out each page and taped them up on the studio wall so I could see my progress and also see how it would all look together!

7. REPEAT PATTERN FOR ENDPAPERS

During our trip I collected a lot of tickets, bits of paper, business cards etc which I scanned and turned into a repeat pattern for the endpapers of the book.

8. THE COVER

The cover was such a nerve-wracking thing because after all this work I wanted it to be something I would be 100% happy with. No pressure, right? Sometimes things are fun and ideas come easily, but with all this pressure I had zero ideas. I made so many different sketches, none of which worked, until I came up with this one. It wasn't until I draw the elements separately and moved them around that the final version came together.

9. CHOOSING THE PERFECT PAPER

Now it was time to put everything together in InDesign and to ask the printer to send over a lot of paper samples. I wanted the paper to be perfect as well, something beautiful with some texture that would make the final product beautiful and hopefully even more fun to read!

I then asked the printer to send me two printed proofs on different papers that I liked and ended up choosing Mohawk Superfine Eggshell paper (it's so lovely!).  I also realised that the illustration wasn't centred properly on the cover, so I fixed that before sending the travel journal off to print.

10. THE FINAL PRODUCT

And that's the end of this very long story behind the making of PLANES, TRAINS & FIREWORKS. I love seeing/reading behind-the-scenes and hope you enjoyed this! There are more details and peeks inside here in my Etsy shop.

Red Cap Cards / Foil Valentine's Day Cards

Last weekend a box full of Valentine's Day cards I illustrated for Red Cap Cards arrived. So exciting! Like the recent range of Christmas cards, they are foil printed and make my ink drawings look magical. I love them! I added them to my Etsy shop here. If you're interested in carrying them wholesale, they're available directly from Red Cap Cards. It may be a little too late to order them for Valentine's Day on Tuesday, but it's always good to be organised and prepared for next year! Happy Valentine's Day to you. And if you're not a fan of romance: Valentines, Schmalentines.

Shop / 2017 Wall Calendar

The last time I made a wall calendar with my illustrations was back in 2012 and I thought it was about time to do another one! Inktober (a drawing challenge where you do an ink drawing every day of Inktober) is always fun for me because I love doing black and white work. Last October I took this opportunity to put together my colouring book, and this year I decided to make this calender which you can colour! You can also leave it black and white, I think that's pretty, too!

I got it printed on the same wonderful paper as the colouring book, which is smooth and beautiful and most importantly handles both felt tip pens and coloured pencils well without bleeding or looking funny. (Believe me, it was very hard to find a paper with these qualities!) I'm so pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you will love it, too!

It's available here from my Etsy shop (and if you prefer Dawanda, I've made it available there for a limited time, too).

Red Cap Cards / Gold Foil Christmas Cards

 Christmas cards already? I hate to break it to you, but Christmas is only 9 weeks away. Aaaaaaaah! It's freaking me out a little but at the same time I'm excited to share these gold foil Christmas cards with you. The lovely Carrie of Red Cap Cards had the genius idea to turn my black and white illustrations into gold foild cards and they turned out so pretty! And they're even nicer in real life since they're so beautiful and shiny that they are tricky to photograph.

If you want to be organised and get some cards early, I've just added them to my Etsy shop here. Or if you want to carry these cards in your own shop, buy them wholesale directly from Red Cap Cards!

Shop / Anne Of Green Gables

I was originally commissioned to re-imagine the cover of 'Anne Of Green Gables' by Frankie Magazine last year, and it turned out to be one of my favourite illustrations I've ever done. Anne is one of my favourite characters ever and I know I'm not the only one - so I've made this illustration available as a giclee print. It's available here in my Etsy shop! Who are your favourite literary characters?

Tracktown / Hand-Lettering and Poster

If you've ever met me, you know that I love to run! It's good advice not to start talking to me about it because I'll never shut up. Also, I'm living proof that you don't have to be good at it to enjoy it: I am a pretty slow runner, but it's one of my favourite things to do!

So when one of my favourite runners, Alexi Pappas, got in touch to ask if I wanted to work on her and Jeremy Teicher's second feature film Tracktown, I was super excited!
Over the weeks that followed, I hand-lettered the title, the opening/closing credits of the film and some related elements, such as the pattern used around the edge of the poster. It was so much fun. Even more so because I loved the film! I think anybody who pursues a dream that people around them can't quite understand will be able to relate to Tracktown. I won't give too much of the story away, but if you're near Eugene, Oregon - go and see the screening on July 5th!