Day 7

Thinking about colour

And it has finally arrived! The day, which will be followed swiftly by the night, before Christmas! How can I put into words how special it has been for me to have published my first book? All I can say is that I feel very very proud, grateful to all of the people who supported me along the way, and so thankful to The Folio Society for putting their faith in me with this book.

I will use this final post to talk a little bit about the artwork. When I am in the thick of making artwork, I am pretty all-consumed by it, so although I intended to make more process videos about it, in the end, I only managed four little videos! Although they are pretty short, they give you a little glimpse into how I work, so I will show them below.

I start by adding a wash of a sepia watercolour, which I mix myself, to the paper, and when it is dry, I tape my drawing underneath and trace onto the paper using a Frixion pen. This has been a bit of a game-changer for me! I first came across it via Carson Ellis, a wonderful and favourite illustrator of mine, she also has a brill Substack and she mentioned it in one of her videos! I tried it out, and now I love it! Basically, it disappears with heat or friction. It’s been embraced by the sewing community, as you can mark your fabric and use the iron to make it disappear. I love it, as I can trace my sketch onto the paper, and then I don’t need to use the lightbox anymore.

Once I have traced my Frixion line onto the paper, I paint over the top using acrylic ink. I paint in layers of cyan, magenta and yellow, working across the page in sweeps of colour, building up layers until they begin to make lots of different colours - virdians, burgundies, russet oranges… I love the magic involved in working this way, and I think it keeps me extra interested as I go.

Once the acrylic is where I want it to be, I add in some watercolour, and when it’s all dry, start adding coloured pencil. At some point in this process, I will use the hairdryer to get rid of the line. It’s always tricky to know when the exact right moment to do this is, but normally it needs to be a little bit after I have added some pencil, for the bits I need my drawing to guide me. There’s always a point when I know it is the right time. So I will use the hairdryer to get rid of all the line (side note: this is NOT a process for perfectionists. You can’t entirely see what you are doing with the line there, which I actually like, as I like have an unpredictability to the whole thing - I love a happy accident! It can also be tricky to get rid of 100% of the pen. You do sometimes get stubborn areas that you have to get rid of in photoshop. I add this to say, you have been warned!) Using the hairdryer is the exciting part. I will often be feeling a bit meh about what I have done, but as I apply the heat and the line starts to disappear, I genuinely get all a flutter, and that is the moment I will know whether I am on the right track. I genuinely love this part! here is a little video showing the hairdryer part, and a little bit of me adding in the pencil.

So, there you have it. That is the part of my process I actually managed to record. I thought I would add a little bit at the end to talk about…how can I put it? …when something doesn’t feel right… When I had finished painting the book, there were a couple of spreads that just didn’t feel quite there. I didn’t hate them, but I felt something was missing.

In the first image, when Santa is putting the presents in the stockings, I knew that I had fudged the legs in the sketch, but I had a wild hope that it would come out ok in the painting. But when I painted it up, I couldn’t help feeling it looked like his front leg was missing - very frustrating!. I was also not happy with how patchy the background had got.

In the second image (in the kitchen), although I sort of felt it was ok to make this one simple and keep the rest of the image in darkness, I felt something was missing. So I steeled my patience (can you do that?!) and went back to sketching. I resketched Santa’s leg until I was happy with it, and I filled in more of the kitchen. I painted them up again…

I was so glad I put the extra effort in to do this, I was so much happier with them. So I guess I put this in to say, sometimes it’s worth listening to that nagging feeling you have (even if you are quite close to the wire, deadline-wise - sorry Raquel!).

I hope you have enjoyed my posts talking through some of the process behind The Night Before Christmas. Although - I won’t lie - it’s been a bit of a challenge getting this done while also getting ready for Christmas (my husband is waiting for me to head to the shops for all the last bits). I’m glad I took the time, it’s been nice revisiting it all.

So, the only thing that is left is for me to wish you a very special night before Christmas, and I hope you are leaving some milk and a mince pie out for Santa! And if you hear some prancing and pawing on the roof tonight, be sure to wish Santa and the reindeer well on their epic night!

I’ll be back with a Q&A all about the book some time betwixt Christmas and the New Year. If you want to ask me any questions, leave a comment below, or you can email me at ellabeechbooks@gmail.com, with the subject line “Q&A”.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Ella xxx