Legendary: Claire Harrup Illustrates Britain’s Landmarks for National Trust Books and Harper Collins

Claire Harrup has been commissioned to work on Britain’s Landmarks and Legends by Harper Collins for National Trust Books. A dream project for landscape-lover Claire, we caught up with her to see how it went.

We wanted to have as much variety as possible, so I used different times of the day and seasons to vary the colour palette and feel of the illustrations. I initially sketched out all of the compositions in dip pen and ink, which gives a lovely loose and energetic line. I wanted to try and keep the energy of those preliminary sketches, so when working them up to final images I tried to keep my mark making loose.

I loved working on the illustrations of the stone circle’s (Stonehenge, Avebury and the Calanais standing stones are all illustrated in the book), there is something about the large stone verticals cutting into the horizontal landscape that works so well in a composition.

Working on this book certainly made me want to travel  more, it perfectly illustrates how rich and diverse of the landscape of Britain is. Top on my list is a visit to Avebury, Sutton Hoo and Glen Lyon in Scotland….although I’d be more than happy to visit any of the locations and of course do some drawing!