Story Illustration with Paper

Estrellita Caracol will begin the course speaking about herself, her artistic beginnings, and her professional career. She’ll tell you about how she changed her path, from design to illustration. She’ll show you some of her work, as well as some of the artists that most influence her.

You’ll go through the materials and tools needed for your editorial illustration process. You’ll see the importance of reading through the material you’re basing your illustration on several times, and also the search of inspiration.

Then, you’ll go to the paper cutting phase. You’ll experiment until you find the procedure that most suits, and, more importantly, most suits the project.

Estrellita will propose exercises that will help you with your creative process. You’ll learn how to build up a repertoire of images that you’ll then use in the illustrations of a series or tale. You’ll think carefully about the context of your project, and you’ll establish its morphology.

You’ll analyze every possible format and their advantages, depending on the kind of project and its compositional elements (like color), to establish reading hierarchies. You’ll find out what chromology is, and you’ll define your color palette before you start your project.

Estrellita Caracol will explain how to produce your own paper, using various tools to achieve different textures, and then you’ll learn how to paint them with acrylics.

Once everything is in place, you’ll create your first illustration, gathering all the elements you’ve generated. You’ll create a paper sketch of your ideas, and then you’ll create a rough collage. By doing this, you’ll understand the importance of the order in which you apply papers and colors. Your teacher will guide you through this process, helping you to achieve depth and different effects.

Finally, you’ll create your second and third illustrations, following the same procedure. You’ll find it useful to work alongside your first illustration so that you can establish a visual coherence among all three pieces.