Here are some of the most recent drawings for Ella Bella Ballerina and Swan Lake. Most are in monochrome for now, and the “real” scenes in the theatre (as opposed to the “fantasy” scenes in the Swan Lake story) have very muted colour in any case.
Generally the colours will be blues and purples, greens and golds I think. The lakeside scenes need the melancholy moonlight suggested in Tchaikovsky’s score, so definitely blue will predominate.
The colour piece shown here is awful, but part of the process is to begin thinking not only of composition, but colour as well. Because of the “vintage” influence I am always very cautious of how the colour is put into the images. In other words, the illustrations have very carefully considered colour and a limited palette to replicate the limitations of vintage publishing. This is a first clumsy attempt at the scene near the end where the evil baron’s spell is broken and the prince and Odette begin their happy ever after… and the sunrise is perhaps not typical of how I imagine the colour elsewhere. But I have to start somewhere!
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