New Illustration: Twist Collective

Just today, two of my illustrations were published with the online knitting magazine, Twist Collective.  Each issue features a story/myth/tale related to fibers or knitting in some way, and I was happy to oblige when they asked me to create the illustrations to accompany their latest tale.

Before I began illustrating, this one took a lot of research.  I had no idea what the Han Dynasty looked like, and here are some of the images I used to help me create a world for the princess...  These images were slurped from various museums, and I cannot remember where each item currently resides, sorry!

After much research, I started with the figure of the princess sadly admiring her mulberry bush and cocoons that she'd have to leave behind...

The second illustration (here in somewhat refined sketch form) features the procession where the princess is meeting  her new prince and ready to go to India with him. The first version of this was super rough and the figure was off too far to the left... I tend to be fairly straight-forward in my story illustrations, and maybe one day I'll break out of it, and illustrate all edgy like a comic book illustrator... maybe.  In the meantime, here's the sketch...

And, you all should really check out Daryl's second installment on the the story of silk and see the second illustration in its proper context... it's nice and bright and you'll see from the research where some of the elements of the composition came from.