How An Illustration Is Born

Last December I was contacted by art director Corinne Ferreira at Brain, Child magazine to do a full page illustration for an article entitled Invisible Family. The story was about a lesbian couple raising a family and stumbling across all sorts of gender-biased road blocks.

I thought it might be interesting to share my process on how I develop an editorial illustration - I know I really enjoy reading other people's processes.

So I started with a black and white value sketch since the AD had sent me a sketch of what she had in mind. This is not usually the case, part of the fun of being an illustrator is developing a bunch of different ideas and solutions that tell the story. I sent two sketches because she originally had the baby in utero and after reading the story, I wanted to show the baby as a bundle in their arms.

I also sent six quick color story options:

She picked number 2 and wanted to go with the baby in utero, so I went to final gouache painting here:

Et voila! That's what goes on behind the screen in my studio. Hope you enjoyed this look behind the work.