I made this piece with the hope that one day it will be in a picture book all about different flying animals which migrate. This came about after a conversation with my agent where she told me what some publishers had said about my work. They loved my ‘Soar and Swoop’ mock book cover and thought it could be the base to a full book about migrating animals. Of course you don’t have to tell me twice to make a piece of art which could potentially lead to my goal of being a children’s book illustrator, so with that in mind I set to make a spread for the book. As it currently stands, the book is nothing more than a cover, this illustration, and a few ideas jotted down on a mood board, but its something I want to focus on more over the next coming months.
After a lot of research into all things migration, I’ve selected a list of around 10 of the most interesting cases, one of which being the migration of monarch butterflies. I mean how could I not be inspired by such beautiful reference photos! I picture the book being mainly factual and more about the pictures than the writing, with around two spreads dedicated to each animal it covers. So with all this in mind I started playing around in my sketchbook with my HIMI gouache set, doing some very low pressure painting, having no clue what the final result would look like, just going with the flow.
To my surprise, the piece started to look really promising! As someone who usually plans out a piece of art to with in an inch of its life, (doing lots of thumbnails and sketching, followed by a digital colour mock and sometimes practice pieces), It’s always a very pleasant realisation when a piece starts to come together organically in the moment.
After a couple painting sessions, I had filled the double page spread in my sketchbook. I was honestly questioning if I even needed to take this concept further by making another, more refined version of this piece, but ultimately, if this was going to end up in a picture book one day, I knew I could do better… I have very high standards!! On top of this, the piece needed to match the same style as the book cover which I had made last year. This cover still remains one of my favourite artworks, and this is mainly down to it’s mixed media approach: the background is acrylic gouache, the swirls and distant buildings are watercolour, the foreground buildings are collage, and theres a good amount of pencil and crayons sprinkled about too. Meanwhile, my sketchbook butterflies were mainly just gouache. I was keen to include more collaged elements to the piece, as well as refine a few of the messier areas.
One thing I loved about my first attempt, was the looseness I captured, something which felt a lot harder to do once the stakes are raised. No longer was this just a play in my sketchbook, this was the finished piece… an illustration which I wanted for my portfolio and a potential future children’s book spread. I tried my hardest to keep it loose, although I do feel It’s an element which got a little lost on the final piece! Despite the added pressure I painted in the same way I had before, but being more mindful of the composition and doubling the amount of butterflies in the piece.
For the majority of the butterflies, I wanted them to be simple shapes without much detail as to not overwhelm the piece, but still mimic the thousands of Monarch’s flying in unison. As for the focal insects, I decided to collage them. This would give them a sharp outline with the crips edge of the paper, contrasting them from those in the background. I painted on the wing patterns with brown and black paint and used a pan pastel to create the bright spots at the edge of each wing.
Once they were all stuck down (which took a lot of paper shuffling trying them in so many different spots) the piece was almost finished. I just needed to add on lots of swoops, something which I managed quite well on the original sketchbook attempt. Now the thing about swoops is, they always look so much better if you paint the very quickly with one fast motion. This is something I chickened out on when it came to this as I was scared I would ruin my many MANY hours of work! I feel my swoops on the final look a little stiff because of this, so I took to photoshop to digitally add on the final elements I was too scared to do traditionally, like the splatters and extra swoop lines.
Here you can see the two pieces side by side, and while I do love the looseness of the original, the final has a much better composition with a more defined focal point. The piece feels a lot more me, with the inclusion of collaged elements, and the colours are less muddy too. All in all, I’m glad I went in for round two and this is a piece I would gladly have in a picture book!