My favourite book publisher, The Folio Society, holds an annual illustration competition to illustrate one of its upcoming title. This year was Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, a gothic retelling of fairytales so I thought, why not. I’ll try my hand at this one, since fairytales are one of my favourite subjects to draw and I’m a bit of a folklore nerd.

Because the retelling was gothic and rather dark, I poured on the black ink with washes of watercolour. I also had a few of my lovely students pose for me. I didn’t win, but I’m very glad I entered and feel very satisfied with these pieces, especially the first two.

Illustration for The Bloody Chamber

Illustration for In The Company of Wolves

Illustration for Puss In Boots

The competition also had us designing the jacket. The Folio Society puts out beautiful hardbound editions so I imagined this design in black linen with gold and red hot foil. Hot!