Several years ago Kacheli publishing house invited me to illustrate the book by Hans Christian Andersen "The Snow Queen". It was a dream project for me because it is one of my favorite books since childhood. 

The book was published in 7,000 copies, in the series "Bookshelf".

It was a long, difficult, but very interesting process. For the first time I myself proposed and developed a layout. On my initiative, the book was enlarged by 8 pages, since initially it was impossible to contain everything that I wanted to illustrate.

The book contains 45 watercolor illustrations, large and small. This is the biggest project I've ever worked with. 

But before moving on to illustrations, I would like to show you where the book begins. From the Sketches of the main characters. In fact, it was easy, because I had known and loved this book for a long time, so I immediately knew what my main characters looked like.

This is Kai and Gerda and the very first version of the Snow Queen herself:

Then I had to simplify the design to better fit the text.

I always draw sketches on a computer, then print them, trace them through a special light tablet and paint with watercolors.

This is an illustration for the title. Usually on it you need to draw something related to the plot of the book, or place a portrait of the writer. But I decided that I wanted to draw Andersen, who reads a book to the main characters, Kai and Gerda.

This is one of my favorite illustrations in the book.

I like to use different watercolor techniques, salt is one of the most common secrets of interesting texture. On the left photo, salt crystals are clearly visible, and on the right is what happened after the paper dried:

There are many different creatures in the book. And these are only horses, deer and white chickens, there are also such little demons :) It was very interesting to come up with their designs.

They are small and you don't immediately see them when you look at the illustration. I really like working with small details so that the reader can stare at the picture for a long time.

And this is the very first illustration for the book, it was also a test one:

I could choose for myself which part of the text to illustrate for the test. And I didn't doubt for a minute. For me, "The Snow Queen" is not snow and ice, it is the spring roofs of a Danish city and two children in their tiny garden. In fact it is a very warm book about love and faithfulness.

The book contains many full-page illustrations and half-spreads. And also small pictures. Unfortunately, I can only show a third of them and it was very difficult for me to choose, but I tried:

"The Snow Queen" is also beautiful in that all seasons of the year pass through it, beginning and ending in spring. And I am glad that I lived these seasons together with the main characters as an illustrator and was able to draw my vision of this beautiful book.

Thank you for watching ♥

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