The Process Of Illustration: Katriona Chapman

This post kicks off a new series on zero2illo called ‘The Process Of Illustration’ and will be examining a number of illustrators methods, techniques and thought processes when they are working on an illustration.

Without further ado, let’s jump right in to the first in the series…

Illustrator: Katriona Chapman

Illustration: Empress Cixi

The first step is to do a couple of thumbnails to plan out the general composition. Even though here I’m happy with the general idea, there’s still plenty that needs changing.

Next I scan the thumbnail, print it at the actual size I’ll be working at, and trace it. I then work this up into a more detailed rough, paying particular attention to the characters’ poses, hand positions etc. This piece was about a character with a despotic side, so I wanted to emphasize the richness of her clothes and the deference of her servants. I also wanted her to seem regal and cold. I scan this rough and do a bit more digital tweaking (see below right). You can see where I’ve raised part of the screen behind the Empress.

Alongside the on-line research into period costume that I’ve done, I also photograph myself and others to use as reference for the figures. I try to only use this reference material loosely, as I want the figures to be quite stylised.

Next I do a rough colour plan in Photoshop. Here I tried the servants in red and Cixi in green, until I realised it worked better the other way around.

I trace the final rough onto watercolour paper.

I decided that a background wash of quinacridone gold would add to the luxuriousness of the scene, but I kept it away from the area that would be purple because gold and purple would become muddy if mixed. I have a colour reference chart that I use for colour-mixing, where I’ve mixed secondary colours using all the primaries in my paint-box. That way I can decide quite quickly how to mix my colours, without having to do too much experimentation.

I continue filling in areas of colour. The painting stage takes a couple of hours. I mainly use Windsor & Newton artists’ quality watercolour, because using cheaper ones can be more trouble than it’s worth!

I don’t bother creating much form at the watercolour stage… just paint flat areas which I then work over in watercolour pencil. My first step is usually tidying up edges, which is what I’ve started to do here.

As you can see I’m quite obsessive about my pencils, and don’t like throwing them away when they’re used up! I use Caran D’Ache watercolour pencils which I like because they’re very soft. They allow me to lighten dark areas as well as add shadow. I find it also useful to have a harder pencil in indigo for adding & smoothing out dense shadow.

This shows the process of starting to add fine detail in pencil. The pencil stage takes a lot longer than the painting stage… this one took a couple of days. Overall the illustration took four days, including research, sketching, and final artwork. I can work faster if I have to, but there was no deadline for this piece!

I work my way down the figure, adding detail to the costume as I go.

I often tape off areas that I’m not working on, so that I don’t risk damaging them.

Here is the finished illustration. I sometimes have the tendency to add too much detail, so here I tried to limit the fine detail to the figure of the Empress, and leave other areas fairly plain.

About The Illustrator

I’m a London-based illustrator who has been working in children’s illustration for several years. I work almost exclusively in pencil, coloured pencil and watercolour. My illustrations are often themed around the natural world, especially animals, and tend to also have a lot to do with imagination and adventure.

You can see more of Kat’s gorgeous work on her website and blog.

Kat is also about to release her first self-published book ‘Five’ - check here for more details and to see some of her beautiful illustrations from the book.