Christmas at Dubray
During the summer heatwave this year, I was sitting outside under the shade of a tree illustrating a snowy winter wonderland! Surprisingly it wasn’t difficult to immerse myself within the snow showers and festive fairy lights, as this is the kind of place I would have rather been (I don’t like the heat!). So, I stepped into my iPad and cooled down with some whimsical wonderland friends, and began decorating their wonderland.
This is my third year illustrating Dubray Books Christmas campaign. I love working with Natalie and the team at Dubray - it’s always exciting receiving the brief to see what the story is for the year. The theme was a winter wonderland with forest animals decorating trees, helping Mr and Mrs Claus get ready for the festivities, while also reading a Christmas story, or two.
I always love the sketching part of the process. The limitation of colour and the freedom of sketchy lines is something that I’d love to bring in more to my finished pieces. Dubray loved my cheeky little ‘star boy’ from my Christmas Dance greeting card illustration. They wanted to use him as a prop for the window displays also. I incorporated a different star boy into each piece, which created a continuous narrative throughout the three images.
As some of the elements from each illustration has to be printed and cut-out for window props, I have to work in a more precise style. I also have to consider the Dubray brand colours, which are included in each image - bold oranges, magentas, blues, navy and aqua. I also added in some complimentary colours to offer visual diversity, such as the mustard yellow and fire engine red.
Dubray Blackrock, Co.Dublin. You can see the Tiffany style lamp props which light up at night! These lamps and the images in general are quite large, so I had to illustrate this project in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet. The file sizes are far too large to work with an iPad! However, my sketches were created in Procreate with iPad.
Dubray, Co.Galway. I also designed festive garlands which include the decorations from the scenes. I hope you manage to make it in to see the Christmas windows, and maybe buy a book or two as cherished Christmas gifts. ~ Rachel x