To start my work with Hansel and Gretel’s illustration I started by composing different potential scenes to try and visualise what worked and what didn’t.
The idea behind this fairytale is that Hansel posted a picture online of the gingerbread house which made it go viral and now there gatherings of people trying to take photos and selfies with the amazing gingerbread house as it is unlike anything else. And thus, the gingerbread house is spoilt by social media and the tons of people overcrowding it to get their perfect photo. It’s no hidden iced gem anymore!
I then started creating imagery like the candy and gingerbread house which would go in the illustration. I played with ink, collage, pen, watercolour and pencil to test different mediums and see which ones I wanted to use. I really like the idea of creating a mixed media piece with inks, paints, collage and pencil.
I illustrated the iconic gingerbread house – a small quaint cottage covered in candy, and I also tested creating a normal house like a town house or semi-detached house with the idea I would use the clipping mask on Photoshop to drop candy into the house. This would give a modern twist on an old fairytale and make it more my own.
Using ink, fine liner and pencil I started to draw and paint the people who would be present at the gingerbread house taking photos. They are all either taking selfies, group selfies, photos or couple photos with the gingerbread house.
I preferred the pencil people as they have more detail within them and I like the texture pencil creates.
As the gingerbread house is hidden away in a forest I started drawing trees from my local park to get an idea of what trees I would create within my forest. Using inks and fine liner I loosely painted a range of different trees which I intend on bringing into Photoshop and layer up together to create my forest background.
I created these four background tests to get an idea of what style and mediums I wanted to go for. I really liked the rolling hills getting smaller as they got further away and I also liked the use of different mediums – acrylic and pencil for the hills and ink for the trees. As well as this I enjoyed the path and the non-uniformed trees.