I’m rounding up the first leg of what will hopefully be an expansive project for me, as it has so much life in it and covers some of my favourite loves: books, vintage ephemera, environments and the wonderful worlds we find ourselves in when we read. Here’s a look at some of the process…

The 2024 Biblioscapes wall calendar is about to become available to order (my newsletter will keep you updated!), and my favourite six of the illustrations will be released as prints and postcards in the shop.

I’ve looked at so much reference from vintage travel ephemera, maps, and guides that I was stumped with what not to include, and had a terrible time keeping the design simple.

The first video showing my first research stage is here, the development for the watercolour landscapes is here, and you can see more development here.

The actual illustrations were pretty straightforward, as some of these places have lived in my head for years, originating of course in stories and the works of others. I’m sure you can all relate to some of the locations and might be able to ‘place’ a book it might belong to. Using my experience of illustrating the natural world the scenes were fairly easy to realise, though I’ve never painted a ‘galaxy’ scene before.

I found portraying ‘tourists and locals’ from each scene more challenging. I didn’t want to go in to the minutiae of the world too much, as so much of this is done in your own head whilst reading. I kept the canvas fairly sparse for the viewers imagination to populate. I’ve even played with the scale, as just with dreams, a literary world can become larger than life.

I developed the figures last, as a way to avoid adding too much detail. Here’s the process-

I had to go and do a bit of urban sketching first to observe what sort of details are visible from a distance, as they would be quite a small scale compared to the size of the environments. Facial features disappear, and it becomes largely about silhouette and tone. I did laugh to myself drawing the characters! Tourists have a special something, don’t they? They were mostly worked from photos and my imagination. It’s been ages since I went to life drawing so it was quite tough.

As a trained illustrator and a life-long lover of books (my job working in a bookshop was often a dream come true!) this project has been a wonderful challenge. I hope you enjoy viewing it as much as I did making it. The final illustrations will be found in the ‘Illustrations’ section of my Portfolio, once the calendar is available for sale.

There are so many more ‘genres’ of literary landscape I’d love to capture on paper, who know how extensive this series will become!

L x