Orange Beak Studio Talk

On the 11th of February Orange Beak Studio held a free talk with three illustrators they have been working with from the start of their children’s picture book journeys. The three illustrators were Ruby Wright, Jen Baranowska and Emma Farrarons. Orange Beak Studio was founded to work with illustrators from graduates to professionals, to help them improve and feel better with their illustrations. 
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Ruby Wright

• Wright always had an interest in picturebooks from an early age but it was only after working various jobs and having children that she decided to start thinking about illustrating a book. 
• Through Orange Beak she was advised to draw everyday, not to use solely black ink and avoid photoshop.
• This was so she could become confident with other materials and methods, such as screen printing, which to clean the screens she would go to a car wash to use the cleaning equipment!
• Tips = draw from life as much as possible, invite yourself onto projects you want to do, tell people your daily rate before agreeing to any work, enter competitions to add to portfolio, get inspired from all different sources.
• Was approached by an agency rather than contacting them.

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Jen Baranowska

• ​Completed a BA but found it too fine art based, went on to work for Ted Baker but didn’t enjoy it, lots of cold calling, created some illustrations that she sent off to Mulberry, which they liked, ended up doing fashion illustration.
• Started to illustrate more narrative scenes, built up a children’s picture book portfolio, was told that it was good except the “characters just don’t seem believable”.
• She ended up being advised by Orange Beak to do more observational work, so within a short space of time went through 5-6 sketchbooks using various methods, such as tonal studies and colour blocking then drawing on top.
• Explored screen printing with Wright while on the Orange Beak retreat, and also really enjoyed it.
• Comes up with ideas from people saying things in everyday life, uses references from sketchbook drawings.
• Was runner up twice for Picturehooks competition in summer 2020.
• Use of colour is what you know, but taking inspiration from other artists palettes, interiors, fashion shows.
• Struggled with negative space, had to force the white to begin to know how to use it to her advantage.

Emma Farrarons

• Studied illustration at Edinburgh College of Art 2000, after stopped drawing for a while, worked at publishing house, published colouring books, wanted to get back into illustrating .
• Farrarons struggled with backgrounds, expressions and was only through Orange Beak she began to draw again, from observation everyday for three years now!
• At first she felt slow and clumsy, only used pencil or pen, then after being with a friend drawing in a busy nightclub, that she began to draw everywhere, the tube, trains, parks etc.
• She explored mark making, tone, memory drawing (a bridge to the imagination), sequence images, limited colours (more room to play with), using CMYK, contrasting colours, really looking at the shapes and perspective of the world around us, drawed people interacting with each other,  her own children, so became faster at drawing.

Take Away Thoughts 

It was really insightful to hear their stories and where they are now with their work. They all seem to have had different paths from graduating a while ago to only in the past few years deciding to fully get into children’s picture books. Their sketchbook work was so lovely with lots of different mediums, marks and colour used, and it is something I think really is important to figuring out what you want to do with your own illustrations, as well as just improving in general with drawing. I definitely want to get back into drawing as much as I can in my own sketchbooks, at the moment it isn’t really possible with university work but when that starts to come to an end I will get back into it.