Jessica Smith x Odd Orange
I am sooo so looking forward to chatting through my process and collaboration with my all time favourite sketchbook brand, Odd Orange!
I am sooo so looking forward to chatting through my process and collaboration with my all time favourite sketchbook brand, Odd Orange! Morgan Grice is the master behind these sketchbooks, which are all handmade and are honestly the most beautiful thing you'll ever draw in. I've been buying Odd Orange sketchbooks for years now, so when Morgan got in touch as asked if I wanted to be her second ever artist collaboration I obviously jumped at the chance!
We've been working hard behind the scenes for months now, designing the end papers and all the other cute bits that you get with your sketchbook - postcard and bookmark! - and of course Morgan tirelessly making and binding these beautiful books...and I'm SO excited to show you how the final sketchbook has turned out!
The first part of the process was choosing what I wanted to do. My part in the design was to illustrate the end papers and pick the cloth colours and ribbon colour. Morgan then produces all of the books by hand. So first off we chatted on zoom about the kinds of things her audience are drawn to, and the kind of designs she thought they would like. After putting together a moodpboard of some of my work and scrolling Pinterest for some other fun inspiration, we settled on a still life theme. During 2023, still life and stamps and postcards had been a huge part of what I'd been illustrating, so it felt fitting for this!
I wanted to incorporate both stamps and still life so I decided on a design full of these lovely little vignettes. Taking inspiration from everyday life, corners of the home, food and drink as well as some of my popular motifs...we ended on this design!
If you've been following me for a while you might be aware that I LOVE colour. So, when I received a swatch pack of all of the cloth colours I could pick, I had an absolute ball. I knew I wanted to include pink so that was always in the equation for me but which other colours I wanted I had no idea! We tried out a LOT of different colour combinations putting the little cloth swatches next to one another and moving them around. Colours are so different when you see them right in front of you instead of on a screen.
The colours I use in my work are often seen as quite feminine, so I had this in the back of my mind while choosing. I wanted my sketchbook to appeal to everyone, and while I have chosen pink, I tried to choose some less typically 'girly' colours to compliment this! I think that gorgeous dark forest green and bright sunny yellow do this perfectly and I absolutely love how they all look together.
So after choosing our colours it was time for me to get painting. The design was going to be predominantly created using gouache paint and then finalised on procreate before sending to print. So I drew the design out onto some lovely thick cartridge paper with a light pink pencil - I do this so I can't see the lead through the paint. I then mixed up the perfect pink, green and yellow to match the cloth colours we'd chosen earlier and then I picked some additional complimentary colours to go with them. I wanted more than just the three colours but the pink, green and yellow would be the most prominent and would be used the most frequently within my design.
So for the size of the sketchbook we went with something a little bit different, and chose to make them at B5! Which is a little big bigger than A5 but a little bit smaller than A4 - perfect in my opinion! It's such a great size to carry around, and will easily fit in any tote bag! It's also a hard cover sketchbook, meaning you can draw outside, and lean the book on your lap and still draw easily!