We absolutely love this final project by London Art College student Angelique Johanson and have added some of the text she sent to her tutor Maggy to accompany her final painting for her Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma Course. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have!
This assignment was challenging to me, first because it is the last and I wanted it to be the best, and second, because of its specific use of colour and tone/light values.
I thought about a perspective of the overall scene which could be interesting and unusual (I didn’t just want aligned vertically birds around a tortoise).
I don’t know the story, but I Imagined the tortoise wishing to be able to fly, dreaming of flying and being helped by many birds around him. To achieve this, I thought of a tortoise looking in the sky in a close up view with birds on the left-hand side looking through his polished shell.
First sketches
I thought of adding feather on the ground floor but discarded it, fearing it would be misinterpreted. I try to find birds of different species and with different shapes and colours.
I made some test with colour… and realised that the choice of the birds, according to the colour of the species, must be taken into account, because it impacts the whole harmony of the illustration… So, after mixing and trying several times, I finally change some birds, I draw an eagle instead of the stork to find a good colour balance. The head of the tortoise seemed very flat. I changed this in the final drawing.
Final Drawing
I changed the colour of the macaw (red instead of blue) in order to complement better the flamingo. As I draw from my imagination, it was difficult for me to decipher where the lights might reflect in the scene.
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