I thought you might like to know a little bit behind the Christmas Angel that we released earlier this month, and maybe have a sneaky peak at the preliminary drawings. If you’re new here, then it’s worth saying that every drawing starts with a hand drawn design, but these always start with some extremely rough designs in my sketchbook.
I love to create a little cosy space when I’m working, I designed these back in May, so it felt completely the wrong season.
The initial idea for the Angel came from the number of requests we had for our first Angel design I created in 2022. I knew that there was potentially a demand there for it, and I also felt like I had exhausted the British Flora and Fauna that could represent the festive season. I wanted it to feel Christmassy and charming, and still have my artistic style at it’s core. I created a mood board on Pinterest ( yes I know I sound like I’m planning a wedding in the early 2000’s) and kept coming back to Eastern European Folk Art styles. I loved the idea of the Angel carrying a tribute, either flowers of some sort of banner.
Initial sketchbooks, I worked in a yellow ochre felt tip, because black felt too stark even for preliminary sketches
Thinking about floral tributes, with either Tulips or Lily’s.
It might seem a little backward in these modern days of ipads and apple pencils, but I still very much have to explore new ideas in pen and paper, before looking to my digital tools. Things just don’t make sense until there is a physical drawing. And a blank page on Illustrator or Photoshop just leave me cold and likely to procrastinate. Strangely, I was the same writing my dissertation all those years ago, and nearly wrote all 8000 words by hand before reaching for the computer.
I also love photocopying or scanning drawings and printing them in black and white to work back into them, I think this came from my first job working in a art supplies and photocopying shop - it was the best first job! By reducing images into greyscale, it can make the shapes and patterns stand out and become clearer. And lets be honest it also saves time.
At this point I was still toying with the idea of adding text, to the design. I love some of the phrases of Christmas carols ( I loved being in a choir and singing at lots of Christmas carol concerts when I was at school). But I was also concerned that making phrases the size we needed for the scale of our candle carousel, they would look a bit lost or clumsy. So I parked this, and went with the floral tribute. the next step involved tightening up the line drawings and gleaning the parts of each angel I liked the most and combining them on Illustrator. I then cut and painted some samples, with Jenna so that we could get it just right, and replicate them.
I still feel that there are some good ideas in the “phrase” designs, and I am a sucker for a heraldic or protest banner. But I think they need a little bit more play time. And maybe they are something that I make just for me. It is a bit of a step out of the current LF design catalogue - but then I have to remind myself that these are only rules I make for myself!
This years Christmas Angel reminds me of my niece Olive, she has rich honey coloured hair, and is strongly independent, knows her own mind but is also kind and sensitive, much like her father.
The finished design is lavished with multiple layers of metallic watercolour, because I do love a touch of sparkle, and thats not reserved just for the festive season.