Discover the magic of book illustration with watercolor, ink, and Procreate!.. We’ll explore composition, fairy tale art, and practical skills like working with publishers, manuscripts, and scanning your artwork.

Have you ever felt a sudden spark of joy while flipping through a beautifully illustrated book? That’s the magic of book illustration…and that’s what we’re going to learn today!

We’ll combine artistic demos with practical skills like working with a Publisher and Editor, reading Manuscripts, and scanning your Artwork for professional results.

In this class, we’ll explore creativity with both traditional ink and watercolor techniques and digital painting in Procreate.

By the end of this class, you’ll be able to apply these skills in various creative fields from children’s book illustration and editorial projects to design, fashion, and your own personal art projects.

Book illustration is my true passion, and we’ll focus on one of its most essential skills: composition. Together, we’ll explore how to use space, line, depth, value, and rhythm to guide the viewer’s eye and create atmosphere in your illustrations. Even with just one object.

We’ll illustrate two timeless fairy tales Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella.

Here's a quick class Overview to help you choose what inspires you most:

In Lessons 1–8 we’ll begin our journey. We’ll get inspired by modern and classic illustrated fairy tales and everyday settings, and explore the materials (yo can use anything!!) We’ll talk about working with Publishers and Manuscripts. We’ll also talk about why Book Illustration is such a unique art form.

In Lessons 9–18 we’ll dive into traditional watercolor and ink techniques. We’ll practice warm-ups for composition, explore space, line, depth, value, and rhythm, and apply them in a Beauty and the Beast illustration. We’ll also cover developing concepts and creating thumbnail sketches.

In Lessons 19–22 we’ll complete a Rose illustration together and I’ll show you how to scan your work so it’s ready for high-quality results.

In Lessons 23–31 we'll explore digital painting in Procreate. We’ll use blending modes, gradients and textures to bring a Cinderella slipper illustration to life. We’ll use inking, coloring and magical effects, to combine the best of traditional and digital workflows.

In Lessons 32–33 we’ll wrap up with your class project and final thoughts…and I’ll encourage you to share your unique illustration in the Project Gallery!

In this class, you’ll discover:

How to work with a Publisher and Editor, and how to approach contracts and collaboration
Approaches for reading and working with a Manuscript
The 5 key elements of composition: space, line, depth, value, and rhythm (with practical warm-up demos)
How to develop concepts and thumbnail sketches
Ink and Watercolor layering techniques
Techniques for scanning your traditional artwork
How to apply textures, gradients, and magical effects in Procreate

Downloads including outlines, brushes, color palettes, and textures

Class Resources
To save some I’ve prepared for you:

Downloadable worksheets for practicing composition (both traditional and digital)
Helpful outlines to guide you through the demos
A curated set of textures and brushes for Procreate
BONUS Procreate Brush
BONUS Watercolor Texture Pack for traditional & digital artists

We’ll begin with watercolor and ink for a Beauty and the Beast illustration, and then move on to Procreate on the iPad for a Cinderella slipper illustration.

Whether you’re an experienced illustrator or just starting out, this class will give you both creative inspiration and practical illustration skills you can apply to book projects, fairy tale art, editorial illustration, or your personal sketchbook practice.

If you’d like to explore more traditional approaches to book illustration and fairy tales, make sure to also check out my class Linocut in Children’s Book Illustration: Create a Unique Block Print Artwork

It complements this one beautifully! In the linocut class, we dive into bold, hands-on printmaking to create illustrations full of texture and character, inspired by classic fairy tales. Together, these classes offer two unique approaches to storytelling through book illustration.

Let's get started and create some magic together!

The adventure begins now!

Megan M Fraley

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