Laura Barrett gives some beind-the-scenes insight into her process for "The Little Mermaid"

Laura Barrett’s illustrated version of the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Little Mermaid” has just been released in paperback, with words by the wonderful Geraldine McCaughrean and published by Orchard Books.

To celebrate its release Laura has written a detailed behind-the-scenes about her process during this project over on Medium. In the article, Laura explains how she translates her initial pencil sketches into her classic silhouette style using Adobe Illustrator;

“I draw a very rough shape before working back in to this to add more detail. I’ll draw all of the elements; characters and background scenery and then start playing around with layering them, figuring out what works best.”

Laura isn’t shy about sharing pages straight from her sketchbook, placing them side by side with the finished pages, and showing us some “in progress” spreads. It’s refreshing to see how the compositions are tweaked and revised throughout the book, and how much difference the small details make in the images.

If you want to feel inspired we highly recommend picking up a copy of “The Little Mermaid”, and now you can double that inspiration with the help of Laura’s generous insights into her creative process.

Read Laura’s full article here.