Wildhood 2025 illustration - behind the scenes
The sun has made its very welcome appearance and so it’s time to unveil my latest illustration for Wildhood Festival, 2025. I’ve been getting to work on the artwork for the festival since it began. It’s always a treat to work on and I’ve been using it in recent years to try out slightly different techniques to keep my work evolving. This year I tried combining graphite pencil and digital brushes, to add colour to the illustration.
Graphite pencil on paper, digitally coloured in Procreate
Graphite pencil on paper, Stonehenge White 100% cotton
I’ve done a few illustrations using this method now, having seen the technique utilised really well by illustrators like Mikey Please (The Cabin at the Edge of the Woods) and Emily Hughes (Wild). I’ve always found colouring my drawings with paint quite challenging, having spent most of my creative career using pencil crayons. Doing this part digitally means I can be a lot more loose with the application of colour and also use a much wider colour palette, than traditional watercolour paints would allow. There is a definite challenge in not overworking a digital painting, because it is very easy to clean everything up to the point where it loses some of the spontaneity of the original vision. I think I’m finding my way with it, trying to stay loose and allow for the happy accidents to remain in the final artwork, it’s an ongoing process, but one I am enjoying very much. It feels quite liberating being able to utilise colour in a new way at this point in my career…. apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks!
I did a little time lapse process video for the socials, which you can check out below.
Wildhood is a festival designed for kids, one which me and my girls have enjoyed being a part of over the years. It’s a real privilege to get to work on the artwork for it each year and I’m looking forward to many more to come.
