Windows into Illustration: Alea Marley

Since being Highly Commended for the Macmillan Children’s Book Prize in 2017 Alea Marley has illustrated a range of picture books and younger fiction. She skilfully blends traditional and digital work to capture mood and atmosphere, creating artwork that is often playful and always a warm representation of children’s lives and experiences. In this issue’s Windows into Illustration, she describes illustrating the cover for Auntie’s Bangles, written  by Dean Atta.

When I was asked to illustrate Auntie’s Bangles, it already felt familiar. I had illustrated Dean Atta’s debut children’s book Confetti, and that project had been such a great experience that being invited to work together again felt both meaningful and exciting. Although Auntie’s Bangles isn’t a sequel it is very much a sister book, connected greatly by feeling and emotions.

The illustration I’ve decided to focus on is the cover, which is usually created towards the end of the bookmaking process once most of the interior artwork is complete. Working on the cover at that stage allowed me to draw on everything I had already discovered while illustrating the book. I knew the cover needed to hold the emotional weight of the story without explanation; it needed to capture a feeling.

I began with loose thumbnail sketches by hand, getting all those ideas out of my head and onto paper. This stage is extremely rough, but that’s okay, as these early sketches are just for me, instinctive and exploratory, helping me work out what felt right before developing them further to share with the publishing team.

These are the first round of cover sketches I did in Procreate with the HB Pencil brush. They focus on composition rather than detail, exploring placement and scale. I wanted to show both characters together with the bangles used as a defining element in some way, but overall it looked a tad too simplistic.

The next round of sketches have more detail and intertwine the title and border, with small bangles wrapped around the vines. The consensus was that they both look too happy. This stage was tricky, as neither character could appear too joyful or too sad.

After some discussion the publishing team sent me a mock up they created. They wanted to shift the focus to the cousin and remove Rama from the cover. At first I wasn’t sure, but I quickly realised it was a way to communicate the loss she is experiencing. Sometimes what is missing speaks just as loudly as what is present. So I created a colour rough of their mock up, adding more vines and softening the cousin’s expression.

After some back and forth we decided to use elements from an important moment in the interior as background art for the cover and began finalising where everything will be placed and what colours to use. This is the final rough image we chose and now I was free to make the final art.

Illustrating the cover was one of my favourite parts of the whole process. I worked across many layers, gradually adjusting colour, texture, and light until the image felt settled. Using a mix of Kyle T Webster dry brushes and Procreate’s original pencil brushes allowed me to keep the plants loose and expressive, framing the cousin and almost holding him in place. Every decision, from brush choice to colour was guided by the emotional tone of the story.

Auntie’s Bangles by Dean Atta, illustrated by Alea Marley, is published by Orchard Books, 978-1408370599, £12.99 hbk.