The Starfish & The Star (a 100-Word Story)
Hello dear friends! To celebrate the launch of the Tales From The Mandalina Tree over on Patreon, I've written and illustrated a Bonus Tale: a tiny undersea One Hundred Word Story. This went out to patrons first, but I'm now ready to share it with everyone.
And another thing? I'm really excited to show off the new font I created for the Tales using my own handwriting in the uncial-inspired alphabet I've been using for years. (I spent several days making this over the summer, and it's not perfect, but to me it's so meaningful and unique compared to more generic font options.)
Read on for the story and then for a peek behind the scenes to see how the illustration unfolded in my studio. 
The Process
began the process of illustrating this piece by scribbling various ideas on scraps of paper and compiling a selection of reference photos with colors and textures that inspired me. This step always helps me to move my ideas for an illustration from the ethereal to the concrete.
I then sketched out a draft drawing on copy paper and traced it onto hot-pressed Arches paper with my lightbox. In these first two photos, you can see that pencil drawing and the subsequent watercolor linework I painted on top of the pencil in blue and red. After erasing the pencil, I was ready to apply some frisket to mask out the star and its rays as well as some lighter streaks in the water and some highlights on the kelp, starfish, and sea urchin. (You can just see the light-green frisket in the second photo.)
In this second pair of photos, you can see the layers of watercolor paint slowly building as values and color families are defined. Because watercolor is a transparent medium, painting effectively with watercolor often requires many rounds of patient layering, and it wasn't time to remove the frisket until almost the end of the painting process. However, painting on top of frisket does add an extra challenge since bits of color pool and gather in places on top of the rubbery dried frisket, and you can't really see what your highlights are going to look like until you can remove it.
As you can see in the first of these two photos, the frisket is still on the page here as I work on building out darker value areas and get close to finishing up the painting. In the second photo, the frisket has been removed and I've toned down some highlights that were a little too bright as well as going over some of the most important linework with a tiny detail brush and very dark paint.
And now for the tape peel! In the first photo, you can see the piece affixed to my easel just after I removed the low-tack artist tape that delivered those sharp clean margins. In the second, you can see the signed and titled piece in the blue outdoor light of a cloudy afternoon.
Although I would handle some parts of the water differently in a future piece (I've been painting oceans with gouache on the regular for over two years now and I think I need to adjust more elements of my technique for watercolor! 😅), I'm largely pretty happy with how this piece came out. Thanks for following along and watching it come to life.
Want to bring this story home or gift it to a friend? There are a few museum-quality prints here.
All the best,
Bryana