Inside the Illustration

Spread 9: Rainbow

I did several versions of this page, most of which were a girl smiling out at the reader with a rainbow behind her. But I just didn’t love it. It seemed redundant of some of the other pages. Then I turned the girl around, so that she is facing away from us and we are seeing her from the back. That composition was a lot more interesting because we are seeing the rainbow from her perspective out the window. I added the plant on the bottom right windowsill at the last minute, but it quickly became my favorite part because it alludes to hope, life, and regrowth after a loss. 

I did the initial line drawing with a graphite pencil on white paper. I colored in the drawing with colored pencil, blended slightly with a Q-tip, and finally outlined with a Sharpie fine tip marker. The vertical lines that are present are from the texture of the paper. I scanned the illustration, did a little photoshop / post-processing work, and finally formatted bleeds and copy in Adobe illustrator. 

Hardest part: Making a thunderstorm and rainbow coexist in the same scene

Easiest part: Clouds/lightning

Favorite part: Plant in the bottom right